Let's turn to John 10. I'm going to try to finish up
our studies here in John 10 this morning. There's so much in this
chapter. I suppose you could teach and
preach on this chapter from now on. It's just one of those places
where John stops and starts to sum up all that had been said
before. And he just says so much in there,
each one of these statements. I practically got the whole thing
highlighted all the way through the chapter because I refer to
it so much and it has so much to say. But I want to speak to
you this morning toward the end of the chapter here. And let's look at verses 37 through
the end of the chapter. If I do not the works of my Father,
believe me not. But if I do, though you believe
me not, believe the works, that you may know and believe that
the Father is in me, and I in him. Therefore they sought again
to take him, but he escaped out of their hands. and went away
again beyond Jordan into the place where John at first baptized,
and there he abode. And many resorted unto him and
said, John did no miracle, but all things that John spake of
this man were true, and many believed on him there." Now,
the faith of God's elect, it rests It rests in the person
and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I know, strictly speaking,
if you want to define a doctrine, just strictly speaking, I know
that faith is believing God. But there's no way that any man,
according to this book, can know anything about the living God
apart from Christ. There is no believing God apart
from Christ. God would be apart from Christ. God is just left as a figment
of your imagination. And ever how much wisdom and
learning and knowledge you have will determine whatever kind
of background, whatever kind of tradition, whatever kind of
raising you had is going to determine that imagination. But when all
things are said and done, it's just an imagination. We have
no concept of God when it's plainly stated in the Scripture that
God is sovereign, that God is omnipotent, that God is spirit
and all that. We still have no conception of
God apart from Christ. These Jews had all those statements
and they didn't know it. They didn't know it. His own
disciples had all these statements. They had a whole Old Testament. And they were aware of its writings
and went and listened to it being preached and taught in synagogues. And from a child, they knew these
things. And they said to the Lord, they
said, show us the Father. They didn't know who He was.
They didn't know who He was. Listen to this in John chapter
1. Where he is talking about the Lord here, he is setting
the foundation. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. We beheld His glory, the glory
as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Now listen to what he says here in verse 18, John chapter 1.
He said, No man hath seen God at any time. No man. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, He hath the clarity. He hath the clarity. John the
Baptist said this of Christ over in John chapter 3, if you want
to look over there. John chapter 3, beginning with
verse 31. Now, they asked John in this
chapter, that this man down here, that your disciples are going
down there to hear him, and that he's drawing away more disciples
and baptizing more disciples than you do? And John said, well,
I rejoice in that. I'm not the groom, I'm just the
friend of the bridegroom. And he begins to tell them about
Christ and who He is. Now listen here in verse 31.
He that cometh from above is above all. He that is of the
earth, speaking of himself and us, are earthly, and speaketh
of the earth. He that cometh from heaven is
above all. And what he hath seen and heard,
that he testifieth, and no man receiveth his testimony. He that
hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath sent speaketh
the words of God, for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto
him. The Father loveth the Son, and
hath given all things into his hands. He that believeth on the
Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." So our
faith then rests in the revelation of God as He is set forth in
His name and His character and His glory in the person and work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how we know who God is.
That's how I know what God will do and what God won't do. That's
how we arrive at all the conclusions of doctrine because we view God
and all the The declarations of God throughout the Old Testament,
when He says, I am sovereign, I am omnipotent, I do rule over
providence, all of these things, we take those things and we view
those things in a manifestation of Christ, in His life, in His
death, in His appearance. And then we understand what that
omnipotence is all about. Then we understand what that
justice is all about. Salvation is the work of God,
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But
the revelation of God is in Jesus Christ. It's in Him. The Spirit of God gives us eyes
to see, ears to hear, but He does not and will not speak of
Himself. He takes the things of Christ
and shows them unto us. That's what He says over in John
16, verses 13 and 14. And then the Lord, He stood on
that last day of the feast, the feast of the tabernacles, and
He cried out to the multitude in John 7, verse 37. And He said,
If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. What in the
world is He talking about? If any man thirst, if he thirsts
for knowledge, Come to me and drink. If he's thirst for light,
sitting in darkness, come to me. If he's thirsty for mercy,
where is he going to find it? Come unto me. Thirsty for direction,
thirsty for fellowship, come unto me. Anybody thirsty? Come
over here. Come over here. Verse 38, "...he
that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his
belly shall flow rivers of living water." What in the world is
he talking about there? Listen to this verse 39, "...but
this he spake of the Spirit, which they that believe on him
should receive. For the Holy Ghost was not given,
because that Jesus was not yet glorified." When the Holy Ghost
comes, He's going to cause these rivers of the waters of Christ
to flow out of your belly like an ocean. That's what He said.
Everything we know about God the Spirit is revealed in the
person and work of the Son. And everything we know about
the Father is revealed in the same manner. In Luke chapter
10 and verse 22, listen to this. He said, All things are delivered
to me of my Father, and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the
Father, and who the Father is, but the
Son, and He to whom the Son will reveal Him. That's the only way
you're going to find out who He is. Well, how does the Father
reveal Himself? Well, I see here a four-fold
revelation of God in Christ. First I see here, and in the
chapters leading up to this verse here in John 10, I see the divinity
of His mission. Now those who stood with natural
eyes and saw Him, this is not what He is talking about. He
is talking about a spiritual knowledge. He is talking about
an entering in and an understanding of why He appeared in this world.
What it was that He was accomplishing. Where it is that He must go.
Before whom He must appear. These things have a spiritual
end and they require a spiritual understanding. And He begins
this understanding by showing them the divinity of His mission. And there's nothing that the
Lord stated more often or more clearly than this. He said, He
came to do the will of His Father. My Father which hath sent me. My Father, which is 27 times
in the first 10 verses of the book of John, He tells them that
the Father hath sent Him. 27 times. It's very clear in his birth,
in the providence of God that set his path, the way he ministered
and the message he preached, that his mission was of a divine
nature. His mission was not to establish
an earthly kingdom. It was not to reform the world.
It was not to save the world from destruction. That was not
his intention. He had a divine mission. He was
here to represent the will and purpose of God, to accomplish
it, to exalt and glorify God, to make God known. He was born in Bethlehem, Judea. It says that the prophecies of
Michael 5 and verse 2 might be fulfilled. How do you know that,
preacher? Because that's what it says over
Matthew 2, verses 5 and 6. But these things might be fulfilled
which this old prophet spoke hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
of years before. He must be born in Bethlehem. Being warned in a dream to flee
out of Bethlehem, Joseph took his family and fled into Egypt.
And in so doing, he fulfilled Hosea's prophecy in Hosea chapter
11 verse 1. Harrod, when he saw he was deceived
of the wise men, he sent out a decree in all the coasts, everywhere. This was his own idea. He sat
in there and he said, I'll tell you what I'm going to do then.
I know about how old he is. I might not know where he is
and these wise men might have escaped out of my hands, so here's
what I'm going to do. Every male child from two in
the gown, he said, I'm going to kill them, every one of them.
He sent out that decree. Went through the land. Why did
he do that? That Jeremiah chapter 31 verse
15 might be fulfilled. And so on. You go all through
the Scriptures, just every other verse it tells, and that this
might be fulfilled. He did this. Or he did this. That that chapter, that verse,
that saying might be fulfilled. Summing up these things, Peter
and John said to the Jews, He said, when you made your pact
with Herod and Pontius Pilate and got together and had the
approval of all those Gentile rebels, and all of them together
in your little pact, lied on and crucified the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Lord of glory, Acts 4, verse 28. He said, you did
what God's hand and God's counsel determined before to be done.
That's what you did. His mission was of a divine order. He said, I came down from heaven. I wonder sometimes if we believe
that. I came down from heaven. You think of the majesty of His
mission. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. I came down from heaven. Here's
why I came. Not to do my own will, but the
will of Him that sent me. It's a divine mission. And then
secondly, here in these verses, and these verses that lead up
to this, I see the divinity of His doctrine. I'd like for you
to turn with me to Romans chapter 3. one of the most important
things that you'll ever come to realize if God will open your
eyes and your heart to receive it. Now, Paul said this gospel that
he preached was not after man. It wasn't after man. He said
that over in Galatians chapter 1. It's not of his origin. Just hold your place there in
Romans chapter 3. He's not the author of it. It's not after
his approval. The Gospel is the Gospel whether
you believe it or not. The disbelief of the Jews, we're
told time and time again in the Scripture, does not change or
alter the Gospel. It does not change or alter the
purpose of God in the Gospel. You may come in here this morning,
you may hear what I'm teaching and say, I ain't going to have
that. You didn't alter the gospel at
all. You didn't change it one iota. You didn't hinder the purpose
of God at all. The gospel is the gospel whether
you believe it or not. And if I preach to tickle your
ears and to get your affection, I cannot be the servant of God.
That's what Paul said. It's not after his authority.
It's not after his will. The Gospel lacks nothing. Man
can't add to it. He can't take away from it. It
doesn't need his acceptance. It doesn't need his decisions
or his faithfulness to be complete. And it's not after his glory.
The Gospel glorifies God. And the doctrine of Christ is
of a divine nature. And I hope I quote this Scripture
enough to where you'll just memorize it. Over here in Romans chapter
3, look at this, verse 24. being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. Now,
justified means justly proven to be guilty of no crime. That's what that means. It means
that you stood before the judge, you were examined, all the evidence
was brought in, all the evidence was sent before the judge, The
judge looked at it, examined you, examined the evidence, and
said, not guilty. Not guilty. Now here he said,
we're justified. Justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. By an act of
free and sovereign grace, God has judged us in Christ, exacted
all that the law and justice demanded, And by His perfect,
righteous obedience, He judged us to be spotless before the
presence of His glory. That's the language of Scripture.
Justified freely by His grace through the redemption that's
in Christ Jesus. Now watch this. Romans 3.25.
Whom God hath set forth. I want you to think about that
and let that settle in. Whom God hath set forth. I don't
care how man sets him forth. When this man lines up with the
message of God, when God in His sovereign grace and power reveals
His Son in him and calls this man, and this man stands before
you and presents the Lord Jesus Christ, it will be in perfect
unison with how God sets him forth. If he doesn't, he's a
false prophet whom God has set forth. How did He set him forth? as a propitiation. You see that
there? That word means mercy seat. That's
what it means. He set him forth like the mercy
seat of old. The mercy seat. And he did it
through faith in his blood. That old high priest, he'd take
that blood in there and he'd pour it out on the mercy seat. Pour it out before God. Offer
it up to God as an atonement. And he looked on that blood.
It's through faith in that blood. That old blood of animals and
goats and they couldn't accomplish anything. But he looked on that
blood as a type. He looked on that blood in faith. He looked on that blood thinking
about the promised Redeemer who would come and whose blood would
be affection. You see what he's saying here?
He set him forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood. Faith
to accomplish what God says that blood would accomplish. Whom
God has set forth. The mercy seat, it's the way
of forgiveness, the way that our sins are blotted out. God
set him forth as the way, the propitiation through faith in
his blood. Why? Listen to this. To declare
his righteousness, his righteousness for the remission of sins. His righteousness. This declares
him to be right, right in his justification of this. Then he adds of these sins that
are passed through the forbearance of God. This is talking about
Old Testament believers. Back before Christ appeared,
you had Abraham. He'd come before God. You had
Moses and Israel coming before God through the high priest,
entering in beyond the veil, pouring that blood out on the
mercy seat, and through faith they looked ahead. This is talking
about that forbearance of God who will have His Son to appear
one time in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice
of Himself. You see what he's talking about
here? And just in case you don't think that's what that's saying,
look at verse 26. To declare, he said, at this
time, his righteousness, God's righteousness, that he might
be just and justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. The
doctrine of Christ and all those that preach his gospel is of
a divine nature. It's altogether about God, His
will, His way, His acceptance, His election, His purpose of
grace, His glory. It's about God. It's about God. And any gospel that's not altogether
glorifying to God is another gospel. Any gospel that sets
a man apart and begins to glorify that man is not of God. God's
Gospel is not given for that purpose. It's given for His glory. Read 1 Corinthians 1 when you
get down. He said, look at your calling,
Paul said. Not many mighty out there. Not
many noble. Go back through the Old Testament.
You won't find very many. There's one Nebuchadnezzar back
there. But even David who was raised up to be king, he was
just a shepherd boy. Why did he say he did all that?
That no flesh had glory in His presence. That's why he did it
that way. This gospel is about His glory. There's a divinity
in the doctrine of Christ, in the message of Christ. And then
look at this. These are all things the Lord
called their attention to in these first ten chapters. Look
at this. This is the third thing. There
is a divinity of His person. In John 10, verse 30, he said,
I and the Father are one. Boy, that made them mad. Now,
they was mad. They said, we know who you are.
We know where you were born. We know your brothers and sisters.
Dost thou make thyself equal with God? Here's what he told them. He
said, except you believe that I am. This is the declaration
of who God is. When God made Himself known to
Moses, He made Himself known as the I Am. He said, you go
down and tell Pharaoh, I Am sent you. I Am that I Am. That's what He told Moses. And
except you believe that I Am, you'll die in your sins. The
man who embraces Christ must embrace the God-man. We're told
in 2 Corinthians 5.18 that all things are of God who has reconciled
us unto Himself by Jesus Christ. Given to us this ministry of
reconciliation, not another one, this one. To wit, he said, that
God was in Christ reconciling the world. That's what you have
to say. God in perfect love and grace
and mercy and kindness. in perfect justice and holiness
and righteousness, in omnipotent power and authority, in eternal
wisdom and purpose, God was in Christ. That's what he's telling
them. Colossians 2.9 declares that
in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and you're
complete in Him. God was in Christ. The Word become
flesh and dwelt among us. When we look at that cross, it's
not the Jews taking His life from Him, it's God taking His
life. Into His hands He commended His
spirit. God took His life. God raised
Him from the dead. And God gave Him a name above
every name. There's a divinity about His
mission and a divinity of His doctrine and a divinity of His
person. And then fourthly, there's a
divinity in the work that confirms him to be the Son of God. That's what the message is about
this morning. There's a divinity in the works that he accomplished. They're divine works. They're
not works that you... And this is the problem with
the religion of our day. Man has taken the works that
were assigned and appointed and given to Christ to accomplish,
and man's trying to accomplish. What does that say of the God
of glory who has done these things, designed these things, and decreed
these things for His own glory? And accomplished these things
and raised Him from the dead before witnesses above 500 at
one time saw Him, we are told in the Scriptures. Before their
very eyes ascended up into glory, was seated at the right hand
of God. Paul, the apostle who was responsible for half of our
New Testament, caught up to the third heaven taught by Christ
Himself, saw things not even allowed of God to be declared. He said, there are not even words
to use to explain these things. What's that to say of this God
who's done these things for His glory, exalted His Son, set Him
down, gave us that gospel to preach, and now men are out here
totally ignoring that glory, totally ignoring those accomplishments,
totally ignoring His Son, and they're over here talking about
working their way to heaven. That's spitting on the work of
God. That's what that's doing. I don't think I'm being too harsh. These works were divine works. And these things are declared
in two things. This is what I want you to see.
First, I believe he's talking about the miracles that Christ
performed. In Acts chapter 2, if you're
taking notes, in verse 22, Peter stood up on that day of Pentecost,
addressed that big multitude who were surrounding him, And
he said, you men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth,
that one that you frowned at, that one that you looked on because
he was raised in poverty, that one that you shunned because
he didn't go to your schools, that one that you wouldn't have
because he didn't meet your approval, that one that you despised, that
Jesus of Nazareth, That's his name of humility. Describes the
place of his raising, a carpenter's son. Jesus of Nazareth, a man
approved of God. How did he do it? By miracles
and wonders and signs which God did by him in your midst, which
you yourselves also know. He said, you can't deny it. You
was there that day when he said, Lazarus, come out of that tomb. And you watched him come out.
You was there that day that he took that little lunch basket,
that little board brought with him that day and sat down 5,000
men plus the women and children and took that little lunch bucket,
John, and fed every one of them. We had peace last night. All
I could eat. I enjoyed the dinner and the
fellowship and all those things. He took, how many, five? Was it five fishes or three fishes?
He took and fed 5,000 men plus women and children and then gathered
up 12 baskets of leftovers. We didn't have that much leftover
last night, did we? Miracles, undeniable miracles. Things that men can't accomplish. The Jews said, after the raising
of Lazarus, they said, if we let this man go, everybody's
going to follow him. Everybody's going to follow him.
We're going to lose our position. What a blessing that would have
been. Miracles. Could not be done by
man. He changed water into wine, called
the dead back to life, calmed the raging sea, fed 5,000 with
a lunch bucket, cleansed lepers, cast out devils and walked on
water. But the second thing about this
divinity of work is his work of redemption. And this is the
thing I want you to see. I believe this is the main topic
of what he's telling them here. It's His work that God gave Him
to do to accomplish redemption. I came not to do my own will,
the will of Him that sent me. And over and over and over He
tells these Jews, I'm here to do what God sent me to do. You're
despising me whom the Father has sent. You're despising the
only way of salvation. You're spitting on the only sacrifice
acceptable to God. God sent me. I'm not here to
compete with you. I'm not here to do my will like
you are. I'm here representing the Father
and accomplishing the work of the Father. And if I don't do
what He sent me to do, don't believe me. Don't believe me. If I don't go to that cross willingly,
subject my hands to the nails, my side to the spear, my face
to the spitting, then don't believe me. But if I do, though you believe
me not, though you won't hear these words I'm telling you,
you better believe me for the works that I'm about to do. You
better believe me. This person and work of Jesus
Christ was altogether about satisfying God, appeasing God, justifying
God, declaring who God is, what God demands, what God commands. Oh, these things are of God.
It was a divinity of works. He gave Himself to the ministry. Listen to this scripture in Ephesians
5.25. It says, Husbands, love your
wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for
it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of
water by the Word, and that He might present it to Himself a
glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
but that it should be holy and without blemish. And to believe
on Christ is to see His work and see God in all that He was,
all that He preached, all that He did, and all that He said.
And to see God in Him reconciling, manifesting a good will toward
man, a loving and caring spirit, a gentle hand, and a purpose
to redeem. You can't look at Christ and
not see a willing God. You can't do it. You can't do
it. And herein is the fault of a
faith that rests in a doctrinal creed only. There's no affection
in it. There's no life in it. Paul calls
it a dead letter, as opposed to a living. He said, I don't
even need a letter from you. He said, you are my letter, written
not in ink, but in fleshly tables of the heart, to be read and
known of all men. He didn't need a letter of recommendation.
He preached this Lord Jesus Christ in whom was God. And men saw
in Him the willingness, the sufficiency of God to redeem. He said, if
you don't want to hear what I'm saying, hear what I'm doing.
Hear that. And that's why I stress so much
from this pulpit a life that's honoring to you God. If men can't
hear what you're saying, let them hear what you're doing.
I didn't hear that.