Well, let's see, the first place
I need you to turn is John chapter 5 again. Our text this morning and this
evening is the 40th verse of John chapter 5, and you will
not come to me that you might have life. This statement is
of universal application. It applies to every son and daughter
of Adam. You will not come to me that
you might have life. Now, this morning, we read this
fifth chapter. Tonight, I'd like to ask you
to turn. Hank, put your marker at John
chapter five, please, and go with me to the prophet Hosea. It's just, uh, barely past Daniel. Let's see, I think it's the first, I believe it's the first book
after Daniel. I believe that's right. And the last chapter of Hosea,
chapter 14. Now, after we pray, I'll try to explain
why I think this chapter, Hosea 14, has a great deal to do with understanding
John 540. So let's pray and then we'll come
to Hosea 14 for a little bit. Oh Lord God, we are amazed at the workings of your grace.
Every believer is a miracle of grace. We are amazed that you would
have anything to do with us. We are nothing but poor, helpless,
ungodly, God-hating sinners. And yet, in spite of this, you come in that almighty grace
in the hand of your blessed spirit. And you bring life to the dead. How amazing, how wonderful, how
marvelous. Lord, in this fifth chapter of
John, you've seen fit to place in your book is an awful catalog of condemnation
upon the Jews of our Savior's day when he walked this earth. And yet, if we read this book
of yours aright, every generation to ever live,
including ours, is equally bad. People are comfortable in religion
but they do not know you, nor do they believe and trust
the Lord Jesus Christ. Many of us ought to know this
well because we have been among those for many, many years in
our life. And were it not for this all
powerful grace, we would still be there. So Lord, we come to
these passages in your word. And if you would come with your blessing of grace and
mercy and power upon these words that we're about to read, these
words would come to life in our soul. No man can create this. No preacher can cause this to
take place. Eloquence of speech, human learning
and wisdom. cannot touch these things. But
Lord, when we think it is the most unlikely, when someone we
think of, we would never believe that they could be brought to
believe and trust Christ. Amazing, amazing indeed. You bring life from the dead.
And in every one of our cases, we ought to be amazed at your
grace. If we are in Christ and Christ
is in us, how wonderful, how marvelous, how glorious. So Lord,
our plea is this. You'd see fit to let us read
this book together. And you make these words to live
in our souls. We could ask for no more. We beg this. For your honor and
the honor of your son and our savior, the Lord Jesus help us. We pray. Amen. Now the reason for coming to
Hosea chapter 14. To help us understand the fifth
chapter of John, and especially the 40th verse, is for this reason. In this chapter, one of the most
incurable idolaters of his time, Ephraim, one of the tribes of
Israel, has been wedded to his idols So much so that in a previous
chapter of this prophet, Hosea, the Lord said, leave Ephraim
alone. He's joined to his idols. And yet, in this chapter, we
find he's been unjoined by the grace of God. But the most amazing
thing in Hosea 14 is that God gives us actual words to bring
to himself and confess those words. Now preachers claim to
have a bunch of these words, you know, you tell the Lord this,
that, and the other. Don't listen to them. They don't know what
they're saying. We're putting a mediator between
men and Christ and there ain't one. You might as well send them
to the confession booth at the Catholic Church. It would be
the same thing. Baptist have done the same thing
in our generation and in generations prior to ours. But here the Lord
gives us words to take with us. And this is a blessed site indeed. All right. It's only got nine
verses. Now that's not bad compared to this morning. That's short,
real short. O Israel, return unto the Lord
your God, for you have fallen by your iniquity. That's the
case with every man and every woman. And if I claim I'm an
exception to this rule, I'm deceived. I'm in worse shape than anybody
else. If a man believes he's good, And yet he's bad. He's got a problem. Oh Israel,
return unto the Lord your God, for you have fallen by your iniquity. Now here's divine instruction.
These are not my words. These are not the words of men.
This is what God tells Ephraim to say. Take with you words and
turn to the Lord. and say unto him, here they are,
take away all iniquity. Part of it won't do us any good.
It's all or none. Therefore, a partial Christ cannot
help the souls of men. It's either all Christ or no
Christ at all. Take away all iniquity. and receive us graciously. That is to say, plead with God
to take us on the basis of his grace, not on the basis of what
I think I deserve. Because when I find out what
I really deserve, it has to be hell. Because that's what I deserve
and that's what you deserve. receive us graciously. So, now the Lord is still teaching. These are his words to Ephraim
and for that matter to Israel and for that matter to ourselves.
So will we render the calves of our lips. Now what on earth
is that? In Hebrews 13, it's called the
sacrifice of praise. The sacrifice of praise. If the
Lord does take away all our iniquity and receive us on the basis of
pure, free, sovereign grace alone, then we can render to him the
worship and praise of our lips. Verse 3, we are not to turn to
any other aid or help. It is to the Lord and to the
Lord alone that we must come. Your neighbor can't help you.
Your preacher can't help you. The God-man Christ Jesus is our
only hope. So Ephraim is told that One of
the other tribes, Asher, shall not save us. We will not ride upon horses. Throughout the Old Testament,
to resort to horses for the children of Israel was like going to Egypt
for help. It was just, it was an act of defiance to
God. Do you remember a fellow in the
Old Testament? He was a judge in the book of
Judges. His name was Gideon. If I remember right, he was going
after the Assyrians with 30 some thousand men. And when the Lord finished with
how many men he had, he wound up with 400. 400. And here were
their weapons. A picture and a light, a candle. And that was it. And they defeated
an army that made them look like grasshoppers in size and equipment. Why did the Lord do that? To
keep them from boasting. so that they could not say anything
except God did it. And that's where we need to come.
We must be there. And if we're not there, we're
not in the right place. God did it. Neither will we say any more
to the work of our hands. You are our gods. Have we ever said that? And I'll
answer it for you, absolutely. And we may still be subject to
say that. God forgive us. Men pretty much worship themselves
until the power of God constrains us to flee from that false refuge
and religion. Neither will we say any more
to the work of our hands. You are our gods. That's what Ephraim had done.
He was joined to his idols. And an idol is not a thing in
the world, but an extension of the man. We give it attributes like ourselves,
which isn't any God at all, but we sure think so. For in you, the fatherless. Now these are still
instructions from the Lord. Ephraim is to understand and
bring these words with him. He is to say to God, in you,
the fatherless find mercy. All right, now verses four through
seven. I will heal their backsliding.
I will love them freely. That means without any cause
to be found in ourselves freely. He's not induced to love us. Well, why does he love us? Because
he will. Because he will. I will love them freely for my
anger is turned away from him, that is from Ephraim. I will
be as the dew unto Israel, he shall grow as the lily and cast
forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread and
his beauty shall be as the olive tree and his smell as Lebanon.
They that dwell under his shadow shall return. They shall return
as the corn and grow as the vine and the scent thereof shall be
as the wine of Lebanon. Now the last two verses Ephraim
shall say, here's what Ephraim will say. The Lord says, how
does he know? Because he's going to put these
words in him. Ephraim shall say, what have
I to do anymore with idols? I'm done with idols. I have heard
him, this is the Lord speaking, I've heard him and observed him. I'm like a green fir tree, still
the Lord speaking of himself. And now this statement at the
end of verse eight, from me is your fruit found. You have any works? Not unless
you got them just like this. From me is your fruit found. You and I can't do anything on
our own. God must do it. And you can call
that anything you want to. I do not care. Fatalism, whatever. I'm just telling you that's what
this book says. Verse nine, who is wise and he
shall understand these things prudent and he shall know them
for the ways of the Lord are right. And the just shall walk
in them, but the transgressors shall fall there in the just,
the righteous, the Holy shall walk there in, but the transgressors
shall fall there in. Now we go to John chapter 5.
Now it's impossible to review all
this chapter, but basically the Lord Jesus is in Jerusalem
probably for the Passover feast at the beginning of the chapter
that's mentioned, though Passover is not used. And by this time
in our Lord's public life and ministry, He is already a despised
and hated man with hatred that you and I cannot imagine. And
Jerusalem and the temple are the seat of that hatred. They have purposed already to
kill him. In this very chapter, we refer
to that, that they would slay him. I forget the verse, but
it's in this very reading that we had this morning. So the persons
to whom our Savior is speaking are the same person with whom
he has already had controversy. And there's been no indication
at any verse that we're leaving this time and place for another
time and place. There are no connective words
of any kind so that this is a continuously flowing passage of scripture
and the timeframe is flowing with it. There are no interruptions. There are no end of day and beginning
of day. It's all in one occasion. And our Lord has put before these
people who have such a problem with Him because He insists on
healing men and women on the Sabbath day. And yet our Lord
Himself is the Sabbath. There is no such thing as a Sabbath
day. If you're going to worship on
the Sabbath, you better be doing it on Saturday. And that one
is gone since the cross. There's no place for it whatsoever.
Now, if our friends, the Seventh-day Adventists, want to get upset,
they can just get upset. If they want to call theirs a
Sabbath, I'm not going to say anything to them unless they
ask me. But I'm telling you there's no
such thing. Christ is our rest. Christ is our Sabbath. So these
people are incensed that he would heal this man on the Sabbath
day. And our Lord gives them several statements beginning
at verse 17. The most, one of the most powerful
of which is in verse 17. They say, why do you heal on
the Sabbath? He says, my father works hitherto. My father works
on the Sabbath and I do too. And they gathered from that,
that he was calling God his personal father, making himself equal
with God. And that's exactly what he was
doing. Now that stuck in their crawl even worse than breaking
the Sabbath. Their problem is that they hate
the Lord Jesus. His purposes are counterproductive
to their own. They are interested in their
political and physical and personal happiness and freedom and increase. And they'd be interested if he
was interested in delivering them from the Romans. But they
don't have a problem with sin because they think they're holy.
So they don't have any use for him. Now you can read all that for
yourself. So let's come now to verse 40. number of wonderful and awful
things said between these verses in John chapter 5. So our Lord, having set before these Jews
the things that bear witness of himself, John the Baptist,
the works, the miraculous works that our Savior has done, which
he did in this very chapter, and the father's witness from
heaven concerning the son. And he gets to verse 39 and he's
down to the fourth of these. The fourth witness is what? The
holy scriptures themselves. This book from cover to cover
is about Christ and Christ alone. And if we can't find Christ in
a particular passage or verse, We better keep looking because
we have missed it. We have missed it. So the Savior says in verse 39
to these carping Jews, he says, search the scriptures for in
them you think you have eternal life and they are they which
testify of me. You can memorize this whole Bible
if you're capable of it. and it won't help you one iota. They are they which testify of
me, the Lord Jesus Christ. And you will not come to me that
you might have life. We simply will not come. Now let me review real quick
just at least four things We covered in a roundabout way this
morning, but Charles Spurgeon had a sermon
on this text, John 5, 40, and the title of it was Free Will,
a Slave. Man's will is not free. The book
says we are the slaves of sin and Satan and of this world. And we cannot deliver ourselves
because we don't want to be delivered. So the first point here in this
statement, verse 40, every man and woman born from Adam are
dead, spiritually dead, alive physically, but dead spiritually. Therefore, the Lord Jesus speaks
of life in this verse, that you might have life. Now, it would be redundant for
him to say that you might have physical life. They're standing
right there in front of him. You follow me? He's talking about
the life of the soul. Every person born into this world
is born spiritually dead. and remain so until God performs
the miraculous operation of His Spirit called the new birth. And faith does not precede the
new birth, it follows it. Second point is this, there's
life in just one place and that is in Christ Jesus the Lord.
That's the only place. Only place. Thirdly, There's life in Christ for everyone
that comes for it. But he tells this whole crowd,
I don't know how big it is. I don't know how many they are.
But I know that the word you, in your King James Bible, it
says ye, because that's the plural of you. He's talking to a number
of persons. And he says to them, one and
all, you will not come to me. And the book requires us to say
that this statement is of universal proportions. We will not come
to Christ for life. No man by nature will or can
come to Christ. All right. Take a different perspective
now on this verse of scripture. Why is it that we will not come? What is there about me and what
is there about Christ that just parts us? We will not come. Will not come. There's one little word in that
verse that we have trouble swallowing, that word. It's the word life. Life. You see, the reason that
we won't come to Christ is because we don't believe that we are
dead. Honestly, we do not believe that we can't help ourselves
out of the mess we're in. And God will greatly reward us
when we do so. This is how crazy we are. This shows how ignorant of this
book we are. Today's religion doesn't know
enough about the Bible to get out of the rain. It's beyond
crazy. Madness! Madness. They've done with the Bible what
they've done with preaching. They've kicked it out the back
door and put in its place some of the sorriest, silliest, ungodly
mess you've ever heard of. It ought to make you sick and
me sick. Let me use the same illustration
I used this morning. If you'll allow me to do that,
I meant to find me another one. And I just, sometimes your brain
doesn't cooperate with you. Uh, flip over to chapter eight,
just for a second. Let's pick up at verse 30. Here's
a very promising group of persons. John 8, 30, and as he spoke these
words, the previous words in this chapter, going back at least
to verse 12, as he spoke these words, many believed on him.
Now, that sounds promising, doesn't it? Can you believe that? A lot of people believed on him
at one time. So the Lord Jesus in verse 31
said to those Jews which believed on him, if you continue in my
word, then are you my disciples indeed? And verse 32 is the kicker. This is the most innocent sounding
statement and yet it just cooked their grits. And you shall know
the truth and the truth shall make you free. And that truth
is Christ, of course. They answered him, we be Abraham's
seed and were never in bondage to any man. What on earth are
you talking about? You shall be made free. And they
were lying through their teeth and they knew it. But that's
just how it is. We do not believe. that we are
helplessly lost, dead in trespasses and sins, and that we cannot
do one single solitary thing to get us out of this mess, nor
to help us get out. The only thing we can do is call
upon God in Christ. That's the only solution, the
only hope, the only help. Second reason we don't come to
Christ because we believe that we can do whatever God requires
of us, and so we're getting busy at it. Busy at it. The rich young ruler
had thoughts along that line, it seems to me. The Lord, he
wanted to know what he could do to inherit eternal life, and
the Lord said, You ever heard of the 10 commandments? He said,
Oh, he says, I've kept them since I was just a, a youth from my
youth up. And he, he hadn't, he, he didn't,
he did not right then. And the Lord took just one of
those 10 commandments and showed him a little something about
what it required. And that's how it is with you.
And that's how it is with me. We think we can do what God requires. Now if there's one thing we've
insisted on in this place for a long time, God must give us
what he requires of us or we won't ever have it. Never ever
have it. Third reason we don't come to
Christ Because we cannot trust God and
renounce the world. We want to hang on to God and
the world. And they're mutually exclusive.
Can't do it. Cannot be done. But the real
reason, I'm back in John chapter five. Let me read you one more verse. Verse 43, I am come in my father's name. These are the words of our savior,
the Lord Jesus. I am come in my father's name
and you receive me not. Let if another shall come in
his own name, him you shall receive. So what's the problem? Why won't
they come? Why won't we come? Because we
hate Christ. We hate him. Just like they did,
we despise him. And if we'd have been there and
Pilate said, what you want me to do with this man? We'd have
hollered as loud as anybody, crucify him, crucify him. And if you think you wouldn't,
you do not know yourself. And you do not know God. If that's too stiff, it's just
too stiff. That's just it. All right.