I fear in this day, and I say that as
other ministers have said in days gone by, but I fear in this
day of easy believism, that's where we live, one, two, three,
it's finished, it's what I call easy believism,
ritualism, observance of ceremonies and days and special days and
feasts and all that sort of thing in this day of legalism, that
much of what we say has no meaning. People hear your words, they
hear what you say, but it doesn't mean anything because they've
already made up their mind as to what they believe. And so
your words don't mean anything. The appearance of Christ on this
earth meant absolutely nothing to the Jews because He didn't
fit the character of the Christ they looked for. He didn't fit into their religion.
He was crossways of their religion. He was contrary to their religion.
And so they didn't hear Him. They didn't hear Him. They didn't
consider His word. When I talk about being heard,
I'm talking about being considered. They didn't even consider what
he said. He gave them evidence after evidence after evidence,
and they didn't hear. They wouldn't consider what he
said. And most of what we say, I believe,
has no impact because men and women have preconceived notions
of religion, and it blinds men to the truth. Paul uses this
example over in 2 Corinthians 3. And what he says there, he
talks about Moses. Moses went up on the mountain
to receive the law of God. And he was up on that mountain
for 40 days without drink, without food. He was up on that mountain
with God. And when he came down from the
mountain with all the instructions for the tabernacle and all the
Ten Commandments and all the law of God and an understanding
in his mind to present it to the people, He didn't realize
it, but while he was there, his skin began to shine. And it said
it shone, and he wasn't aware of it. And he came down, and
the people feared him because they saw that glory of God on
his face, and they feared him. And they didn't look at him.
They didn't want to look at him. Aaron was scared. The high priests,
they were all scared because of this glory, so they put a
veil over his face. And Paul says in 2 Corinthians
3 that that veil blocked their vision of the end of what that
law stood for. In other words, it covered the
glory of the law, which was Christ. The law was our schoolmaster
to bring us to Christ. They saw everything in the law
except Christ. They saw no glory there because
of this veil. It frightened them. And Paul
talks about that veil over there in 2 Corinthians 3, and he gives
us two things about that veil. First, he said it prevented them
from looking to the end of that which is abolished. He's talking
about the law. They couldn't see what the law
was all about. They didn't know what it was
for. They didn't see its end. They didn't see who it testified
of. They didn't see that. They didn't
see Christ as the glory of the law. but they used it as a vain
attempt to gain God's favor and produce a righteousness of their
own. And then secondly, he says this veil was permanent. He says
in verse 14 of 2 Corinthians 3, that their minds were blinded,
for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in
the reading of the Old Testament which veil is done away in Christ. When we come to see who Christ
is, when we come to that revelation, when you come to see who He is
and the glory of Christ, then you see the purpose of the law,
you see the glory of the law, you see the reason for the Old
Testament. You see the value in all those things that happened
and all those allegories and all those pictures and types. And he said, not as Moses did. Don't allow anything, Paul said,
When you preach this gospel, you don't put a veil on it. You don't hide it. You don't
restrict it in any way. But you declare it exactly as
it is in all of its glory. I know folks who want to preach
Christ, but they don't want to mention election. They call that
the deep things of God. That's the milk. That's not the
meat, that's the milk. They don't want to mention predestination
because that might run somebody off. They want to put a veil
on it. When you put a veil on the gospel,
there's no glory left in it. And the glory of it is why He
did it. And these Gospels that we're
going through, we're going through the book of John right now, but
these four Gospels are preserved in Holy Scripture to show us
beyond all doubt the glory of God manifested in His Son. That's what they're there for.
That's why these accounts were preserved for us and included
in Holy Writ. These events, like the baptism
of Christ that we looked at, of John the Baptist, John didn't
know who he was. He said twice in those verses
he didn't know who he was. But he said, God revealed to
him that upon whom he saw that dove, that would be his son. He didn't have any other revelation
other than the Word of God when he looked on that path and he
saw that dove come down and descend on the Son of God, and he said,
there's the Lamb. Right there. There's the Lamb.
And all these events, the baptism of Christ by John, the water
turned into wine, the nobleman's son, and the impotent man that
we looked at last week at the Pool of Bethesda, these are all
preserved in Scripture to manifest the glory of God in Christ. Listen to this, in John chapter
1 verse 18, John begins his account of the gospel this way. Over here in John 1, verse 18,
he says, No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten
Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared
Him. Everything we know about God,
we know as we study and see Christ. That's what you know about God.
You don't know anything else about God. Everything else that
we claim to know about God is just conjecture. It's just tradition. Actually, it's idolatry is what
it is. We conjure up these visions and things in our head of who
God is. Everything that we know about
God is revealed in Christ. Everything. All of the glory. Now listen to me. All of the
glory of God, of Jehovah God, Although, as much of him as can
be known, I believe there are things about God that you just
can't know. Paul said he saw things, it wasn't
even lawful to utter. But as much as can be known is
made known in the person of the God-man mediator, in him, in
him. He said, our Lord said this to
the Pharisees over and over. Now these are men who were convinced
they knew God. They were convinced of it. If
you were just to come and ask them, they believed they were
teachers. They believed that they knew God. They knew what
they were talking about. They were sincere. A lot of them
were in what they believed. But here's what our Lord told
them. He said, No man knoweth the Father save the Son, and
he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. He told that to these
teachers. He stopped Nicodemus, a master
of theology. He stopped him in his track,
told him he had to be born again. He couldn't even perceive the
kingdom of God. There was no need to even engage
in a conversation. You wouldn't know what I was
talking about except you'd be born again. He said, when the Holy Spirit
of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth, for He shall
not speak of Himself. Whatsoever He shall hear, that
shall He speak. He shall glorify Me. Everything
we know about the Father we know in Christ. Everything we know
about the Holy Spirit we know in Christ. We know in Christ. No other way to know it. No other
way to know it. He shall glorify Me. He shall
receive of Mine and show it unto you. And we know nothing of the
Trinity except what's revealed in the person of Christ and His
accomplishments as the mediator. And Him as the mediator performing
and accomplishing the redemptive purpose of God. He says this,
in Him. Now listen to this statement.
You think about it. In Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. The Godhead bodily. That's the Trinity, isn't it? Everything that the Trinity is,
is in this man. It's in this man. Would you know
God? Study Christ. Study Christ. That's where you're going to
learn about God. And we know nothing of it except what's revealed
in the person of Christ. He is the brightness of the Father's
glory. He is the express image of His
person. He is the key to all knowledge. He is the sum of all
mysteries. He is in Himself as the God-man
life. He is the way, the truth. Grace and truth came by Him. And all of the glory of Jehovah
God that can be known can only be known in Him. And this is
what is taking place here at this pool of Bethesda. That's
why I spent so much time telling you what I told you. The issue
here is not the Sabbath day. Religion always wants to make
something the issue that's not the issue. They want to make
election the issue. That's not the issue. They want
to make predestination the issue. They want to make justification
the issue. Those are not the issues. The issue is this. Who is this man? Who is Jesus
Christ? Is He who He said He was? Is
He who God testifies that He is? Is this the only one in whom
we can know God? Then why do we ask one another
for answers to questions that we don't know? Why don't we just
go to Him? Why don't we just look to Him?
Why don't we just submit ourselves to Him? Here they were, here's
these Jews. And a little bit later on here
in John, I'll show you where they came to Him. And they said,
if thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. He said, I told you.
When did He tell them? Well, over, I think it's in Luke
chapter 4, if you go over there, you'll find where the Lord stood
up in His own hometown. He went to the synagogue as His
custom was, and He went in there, and He sat down, and they delivered
Him the book of Isaiah. And he rolled that scroll, or
however you did it, he rolled over there until he found chapter
61. I'm not even sure there were chapters and verses back there.
But he found that place, Isaiah chapter 61, and he read for him
verses 1 and 2. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me. This was a Messianic prophecy. And everybody in that place knew
it. This was a prophecy that couldn't apply to anybody except
the promised seed, the promised one, the Holy One of Israel.
And he read that Scripture, and when he got done, he stood up
to read, and then he sat down and said, the eye of everybody
in that place was fastened on him. And he said, this day is
this Scripture fulfilled in your ears. If thou be the Christ,
tell us plainly. He said, I told you. I told you. I told you. How many times did
he tell? And here it talks about the Father
bearing witness of him. And he pulls these men from this
issue of the Sabbath and this issue of carrying a bed. I mean, it's so ridiculous, and
that's the way religion is. It's ridiculous. It strains at
a gnat and swallows a camel. He came over here and He healed
a man that lay down there for 38 years in agony and suffering. And the Lord came to him in a
miraculous way on the porches of Bethesda and raised that man
up, commanded him to take up his bed and walk. And he did.
But it was on the Sabbath day. And boy, when they heard about
that, they overlooked the miracle. They totally overlooked a manifestation
of the glory of God. No man can just walk up to another
man and pull him up who has been laying there for 38 years. It
was an undeniable miracle and yet they overlooked it. Because he carried his bed on
the Sabbath day and he healed this man on the Sabbath day.
And they tried to make that the issue and the Lord just got a
hold of them and He brings them right back to the issue. Right
back to the issue. Who is this man? The Jews hated
Jesus and sought to defame Him and ruin His reputation and destroy
His ministry because He exposed them for what they were, self-righteous
hypocrites. Six times in Matthew chapter
23 He said, Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. And
I didn't bother to count how many times throughout the whole
book. But the Lord Jesus Christ is the revelation of God. And
God to the Jews was in their bloodline. He was in their system
of theology. He was a concept of moral reform. He was in a strict code of conduct
of diet and dress and speech and outward habit. This is where
they saw God. They saw God. And they do today. They do the same thing. They
do the same thing. And they attempted to turn this
manifestation of God's glory into something sinister and ungodly.
And you can find this on so many occasions. I'm trying to think
of where it was in Matthew that I preached to you from where
they did that. They said he cast out devils
by the spirit of the devil. Cast out devils by the spirit
of Beelzebub. And they tried to make him appear
as a demon-possessed man, as a devil. And they wanted to make the issue
here one of the law. But the Lord passed the real
issue and pressed it right to the forefront. Now watch what
he says here, beginning in John 5, verse 17. And Jesus answered
them, and He said, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
Therefore the Jews sought the Moor to kill him, Because he
not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his
Father making himself equal with God. Now they were ready, they were
ready to acknowledge him as a prophet. And that's saying something for
a Jew. A prophet was very special. And they were ready to acknowledge
him as a prophet, to receive him as a prophet of God. They were willing to acknowledge
him as a teacher. and a miracle worker. They couldn't
deny his miracles. A good man. I believe they would
have gladly owned up to his generosity and his generous spirit. Do you
remember on one occasion he said, for which of the good works do
you stone me? And they said, we stone thee
not for a good work. We're not upset about that. But
because thou being a man has made thyself God. That's why
we won't stone you. We don't believe you're equal
with God. We don't believe you're of God. You know, sitting there, he read
that Scripture out of Isaiah chapter 61 to those Jews, and
you could see. You've got to kind of read between
the lines there in Luke chapter 4. But he could see in their
faces. I know that because I've seen
it before. You could see, when he said, this day is this scripture
fulfilled in your ears, he could see the disgust on their faces. They was in total shock when
he said that. And they didn't know how to react
because all the people loved him and respected him. But they
didn't know how to act, they didn't even know how to respond
to it, except in their faces they just showed total disgust. with him. Total unbelief. Just
like if I'd stand up here this morning and just say something
totally erroneous, you wouldn't know what to say. You'd just
sit there and look. But I could see the disgust on
your face. And this is the way it was. And so seeing that disgust,
he told them. He pulled two events out of their
history. And he said there was a lot of widows in the days of
Elijah. in Israel. All kinds of them
during that time of hardship, and there was all kinds of widows,
and they were starving to death, and God didn't feed any of them.
God sent His prophet way over here to this Gentile woman, and
He fed her. And He said, back in the days
of Elisha, there was a lot of lepers in the land of Israel,
and He didn't cleanse any of them. But he cleansed one Gentile
king named Naaman. And they knew exactly what he
was talking about. Exactly what he was talking about.
He was talking about his sovereign rule and his sovereign grace. Now back here in John chapter
5 verse 19. Then answered Jesus, and said
unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing
of himself, but what he seeth the Father do. For what things
soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father
loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth,
and he will show him greater works than these, that you may
marvel. For as the Father raises up the dead and quickeneth them,
even so the Son quickeneth whom He will." He said, you haven't
seen anything yet. You haven't seen anything. For
the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto
the Son. John 5.23, that all men should
honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth
not the Son honoreth not the Father who sent Him. Now listen
to me, it's an impossibility to satisfy, please, or be reconciled
to, or have communion with God outside of Christ. It's an impossibility. You're spinning your wheels.
You're just wasting your time. This is what the Lord is telling
these men. I'm it. I've been it. I was it when man fell in the
garden and the promise of the woman's seed came to Adam. That's
me. That's what he's telling them.
That's me. I'm the lamb. I'm the scapegoat. I'm the blood
on the doorpost. You're going to come through
me or you're not coming. You're going to acknowledge me
Or you're just going to totally ignore God. You know over there
in 1 John chapter 5 when he talks about that testimony of man and
the testimony of God in his testimony, talking about preaching, preaching
the gospel. And that gospel sounds out the
testimony of God in Christ. And he said, he that believeth
not maketh God a liar. It's not the man you disbelieve,
it's God. Because he'd been set forth evidently
crucified among you. He'd been set forth from the
beginning of time. This is what he's telling them.
And you're going to honor me because this is all of God you're
ever going to see. And if you're going to honor
God, you're going to honor me. This is why I'm so adamant about
the gospel being preached in clarity. About the gospel not
being veiled. About it not being hidden. It's
an impossibility. If you dishonor the gospel, you
dishonor God. It's not a matter of opinion.
Well, that's your opinion, preacher. No, that's the gospel. That's
what God said. That's what God said. That's what these men, they wanted
to make something else the issue. They wanted to make the Sabbath
day the issue. They wanted to make this man
carrying his bed around the issue. That wasn't the issue. The issue
was, who is this man? Who was it that healed this man?
That's the issue. That's the issue. Listen to this
over in John chapter 3. Turn over there and let's read
this together. John chapter 3 and verse 31. Now, this is in response to what
some men said to John the Baptist. They tried to start an argument
between him and Christ, saying that now all these people that
used to come out and hear you preach, they are all going after
him, following after him. And John gave them several reasons
for it. But here in John 3.31, here is
the summation of the whole thing. He that cometh from above is
above all. That is what John is telling.
Here is why everybody is following him. This is why everybody is
leaving me and going to him. This is why I must decrease and
he must increase. Right here. He that cometh from
above is above all. He that is of the earth is 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. Because
they love darkness rather than light. He says that earlier in
that chapter. Because their deeds are evil
and when they come to the light it exposes their deeds. That's
why they won't. That's why they won't receive
his testimony. He that hath received his testimony, verse 33, hath
set to his seal that God is true. He submits himself to God when
he receives Christ and receives that testimony. For he whom God
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. He that believeth not the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." What
prompted these words was what was said to John the Baptist.
And John does the same thing Christ did. He pushes them right
to the forefront, right to the issue. And you'll find this in
every confrontation that they made with the apostles in the
New Testament. Every time, they push it right
up to here. Right up to there. The very first
martyr, Stephen, what did he do? He told them, he said, stiff
neck and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist
the Holy Ghost." How did they do that? By resisting Christ. And He took them throughout their
history from beginning to end. Took them all the way through
and showed them time after time after time. The very same thing is going
on here over this healing of this impotent man questioning
His methods and means questioning his right to do what he will
with his own, questioning what he does on the Sabbath day. He
is the Sabbath day. He is the Sabbath day. Folks
still fighting over that. Did you know that? Folks still
upset about that. Sabbath day. There is no rest
outside of Christ. There is no keeping the Sabbath
apart from Christ. There is no commemorating the
work of God, the creation of God, apart from Christ. By Him
and for Him were all things created. Ain't that what it says? How
are you going to commemorate God on a day outside of Christ?
It's not going to happen. He is the Sabbath. God Himself
bears witness of the Son. This is what the Son tells them.
The Father bore witness of me. He bore witness of me in promises
and prophecies and types and pictures. He bore witness of
me when I was manifested in a manger according to the prophecy of
Scripture. He bore witness of me when I was carried off into
Egypt. He bore witness of me all through
the Scriptures. He bore witness through these
promises and prophecies. He bore witness of me through
an audible voice at His baptism on the Mount of Transfiguration
by the sign of the dove, by miracles He did in their midst. And He
is beyond all doubt, beyond all question, the Son of God, the
Word made flesh, the promised Messiah. And His Word That Word
of revelation at His appearing, that Word of character manifested
in His life, that Word of mercy and reconciliation that we preach,
every promise, every commandment, every warning is to be received
as the Word of God, not of man. Now watch this. Here is where
he takes us. John 5, verse 24. Verily, verily,
now the Lord only used this Word a few times. But when he did,
what it means is, surely, surely, I say unto you, I say, he's the
voice of God, isn't he? This is the testimony of God
talking to men. I say unto you, he that heareth
my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting
life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from
death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." And
when everything else is said and done, it comes down to this.
In every situation, in every circumstance, in answer to all
our questions, in response to all our doubts, can I believe
what he tells me? Huh? He told Abraham, he said,
Abraham got up and left. He didn't have the foggiest notion
where he was going. He said, you come with me. Where
am I going? I'll tell you later. I'll tell
you later. And he went, didn't he? He went. And he went a lifetime and never
did see that city. Can I receive his testimony? Can I take him at his word? Can
I receive the testimony of the Father? Can I believe and be
satisfied with His work? Can I receive what He has accomplished
as a finished work? Or do I insist on adding to it?
Do you see what he is saying here? Can I be satisfied with
Christ alone? Christ is my wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. Can I see in Him the purpose
and glory of God? Can I see why He must come and
live and die and be raised from the dead? Can I see God in Christ
reconciling, justifying, redeeming, interceding? If I can, on the
very veracity of His Word, that's what He's talking about here
in this verse, on the very veracity and honor of His Word, I can
know I have eternal life. That's what He tells us. You
pass from death unto life if you can do that. Because nobody
else can. He said, no man, over there in
John chapter 3, I read it to you a while ago, no man receiveth
his testimony. But those who do have life everlasting. That's why they do. That's why
they do. God help us this morning. Give
us that spirit of submission to bow and to believe. His Word. To take God at His Word. That's
what faith's all about. That's what faith is. Taking
God at His Word.