Let's take our Bibles now and turn to the Gospel of John. John,
the first chapter. And I want to look at verses
40 through the end of the chapter. I hope we can finish up the first
chapter of John today. And this will complete our study
of this chapter. I try to title things When the
Lord gives me a message, I try to title those things according
to that nugget, that portion of that Scripture, that truth
of that Scripture that the Lord reveals to me and impresses on
my heart. And I titled this study this
morning, Come and See. Come and See. Now last week ended on this note,
the apostles, they saw Christ and they heard the witness of
John the Baptist and it says they followed him. And following
him, he turned and looked at them and asked them what they
wanted. Why are you following me? Why did you leave John, whose
ministry you've sat under out here for a long time now, why
do you leave him and follow me? And they asked him seemingly
a strange question. They said, where do you live?
And this is what the believer wants to know. When the Lord
has revealed to his heart, he just wants to know one thing,
where can I find him? Where can I go and listen to
his words and hear him, hear his voice? You know, our Lord
told those Pharisees, he said, my sheep hear my voice. And they
follow me. They go where I'm at. These disciples,
they had no idea where He was going. But wherever it was He
was going, that's where they were going. That's where they
were going. And so the Lord turned and He
looked at them and He said, Come and see. Come and see. Now, I know that religion believes
Christ is everywhere. They say you can go anywhere
you want to go. You can find Christ. I know men and women
who love the outdoors, who say you can go out on the lake and
worship God, and you can go out on the lake and find God, and
you can see God and all those things. And I know that those
things have a place. But that's not where you're going
to hear His voice. You're going to hear His voice
where He lives. And He said, where two or more
are gathered in My name, there will I be in the midst. So once
a man's heart is open and his mind is open and his eyes is
open and he understands who Christ is, the Lamb of God, the only
Lamb, this One of whom all the Word of God testified, this One
in whom all the glory of God abides, all that believer wants
to know is where He's at so he can go there when he's in need
and hear. He can find Him when he needs.
And so that's where we left off last week. And I know this, the
Spirit of Christ attends the ministry of Christ. I know that
so. And to all those who've been
given an interest and who sincerely look for it, He says, come and
see. You know, in the very last part
of your Bible over in the book of Revelations, It says this,
it says the Spirit and the Bride say what? Come. The Spirit of
the Living God through the Bride of Christ says come. And they
just keep saying it. Come. Oh, but you don't know
where I'm coming from. Come. Come and see. Come and
see. You don't know what I am and
how I am. Come and see. The Spirit and
the Bride, they say, come. And let him that heareth, what's
he going to say? He's going to say, come, come. And let him that is athirst,
let him take of the water of life freely. I'm up here this morning and
I'm teaching this Sunday school class and I've studied these
things and read these different authors and examined these things
in various places in the light of the Word of God and I have
one thing on my mind this morning and that is to point you to Christ,
to tell you, come to Him. Don't come to a building, don't
come to a religious organization, don't come to some kind of a
concept you have of religion, come to Christ. That's where
the power is, that's where the glory is, that's where the fulfillment
of Scripture is. It's all in Him. It's all in
Him, all in Christ. And then notice this. All the
coming and all the seeing has to do with Christ. It's not these
doctrines, it's not all those things, it's Christ. Now look
here in John chapter 1 verse 40. One of the two which heard John
speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first
findeth his own brother Simon, and he saith unto him, We found
the Messiah, which is being interpreted, the Christ, the promised one.
We found him. When fellowship with God and
His Son is established, the nature of the work itself, it's the
nature of that work in the heart of men. There's just no way to
explain it, but I can tell you this, that the Lord, because
He was thronged with people and they hindered Him in His ministry
because of the miracles that they'd done, they just came and
thronged Him. And every time He did something
for someone, He'd say, tell no man. What'd they do? As fast
as they could go, they went and told somebody. Because you can't
hide it. It's the very nature of that
work in Christ in the heart of a man that invites folks to come. You can't hide it. Old Brother
Barnard used to use language like this. He said, it will leak
out on you. It will leak out on you. Try
to imagine yourself with leprosy. This is one of the men who came
to Christ. He was covered with leprosy. I don't know of any leper colonies
in the United States. There may be some that I don't
know of, but I don't know of any. But I'm told by people who
have saw such things over in Africa and different places.
The flesh literally just falls off to the ground. They're just
rotting. Their flesh is just literally
rotting. And there's a smell about them.
Brother Mayhem went over years ago over to Africa. And they
went out and looked at the beach at the Ivory Coast. And on the
way back, as they walked down that beach, between them and
their camp was a leper colony. And the missionary there told
him, he said, we'll go on down here a ways and we'll go up.
He said, no, I want to go through the colony. I want to meet these
people. And so Brother Mayhem walked right through this leper
colony. And he said, long before we got to the colony, he said,
you could smell. There was just a smell. He said,
I can't even describe the smell. So imagine yourself to be a man
of this condition. And the Lord looks on you and
takes that leprosy from you and cleanses you, and your flesh
looks like a little baby's flesh. He's cleansed you. He made you
completely whole. He's taken away the stench. He's
taken away the disease. He's taken away the curse. And
you're whole. What's the first thing you're
going to do? You're going to run back to that leper colony
and say, let me tell you something. Let me tell you where you can
go. Right down here. You see that? That's the nature
of the work. That woman with the issue of
blood had spent a lifetime, I don't know how much of that 38 years
she spent, Russell, trying to find somebody that could cure
this issue of blood. And she took her entire living
and spent it on physicians who were ignorant, took her money,
promised her results, but couldn't deliver. And finally, one touch
of his person, just touch the hem of his garment, the issue
of blood, John, was gone. And she was restored. Virtue
flowed from his body. What do you think she did? She told everybody she knew that
had a condition similar to hers, come to Christ. Come to Christ. Gadarene demoniac filled, they
called him Legion, just thousands of demons possessing his soul
and his heart and his mind, just all the time continuously in
confusion and upset and pain. And they tried to chain him and
he'd break the chains. He was like a wild man. And the
Lord tamed him. He calmed him and he cast out
all those demons. What's the first thing he did?
He went back where he came from, whole and in his right mind,
and talked to them about Christ. It's the nature. That's what's
going on here in this calling out of these disciples. It's
the nature of the work. in you, the opening of the eyes
and the hearing of the ears. It's the nature of that work
that causes this ambition. It causes the motivation. It
causes the man to go and invite folks to come. Come and see.
This is real. This is real. I've been in religion. It's not real. It's all fake
and phony. It's just religion. This is real. You see, when the work was done...
Now, this woman had a lot of work done on her with that issue
of blood over 38 years. Been to all these different physicians,
and she'd leave there thinking she was whole, thinking they
was right, she was going to be cured, but the issue of blood
never dried up. But when it did, it was real,
wasn't it? And that's the way it is when
the blood of Christ is applied to the conscience of a guilty
sinner. In faith, he's made whole. It's the experience of grace.
And by that experience, he wants to tell others. Find Christ and we find life. To see Christ is to see the glory
of God. And to come to Christ is to find
your way to God. He's the one thing. that can
connect us with God. The one and only Christ. There is no other way. None other
name given unto heaven whereby we must be saved other than the
name of Jesus Christ. Now watch this. Andrew found
his brother Simon and he brought him to Christ. He could bring him because he
knew where he lived. He knew where he lived because
the Lord told him to come and see. So he could bring him because
he knew where he lived. He would bring him because he
knew who he was. Old Brother Barnard used to say,
you can't tell what you don't know anymore and you can come
back from somewhere you hadn't been. This apostle went and got
his brother because he knew who he was. That's why he would bring
him. And he did bring him because
he himself had come and seen. All right, now look at verse
42. And he brought him to Jesus, and when Jesus beheld him, he
said, Thou art Simon, the son of Jonah. From now on, you're
going to be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone. is a man in a bad shape. He's
in a bad shape, John. He can't do anything for himself. There's nothing in him to find
to recommend him to God. He's ignorant. He says, there's
none that understandeth. There's none that seeketh after
God. They're all gone out of the way. They're together become
unprofitable. And I could just go on and on
and on. David said, I come forth from the womb speaking lies.
Born in iniquity. by one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men."
We are in a bad shape. You have to be quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins. You can go on and on with the
helplessness of the sinner. In order to do him any good,
God must come to him. And this is what is taking place
here. Our Lord is coming to His disciples and He is calling them
out one at a time. And when He calls them out, they
go. as hard as they can go, right back to their family, to their
friends, to those closest to them, come and see, come and
see, come and see. And I'll tell you this, and this is a problem to us,
we understand, we understand the condition of the sinner.
So how do I as a man, how do you as believers, how do we approach
these folks? Yeah, I could almost imagine
the thoughts that went through Ezekiel's mind when he said,
son of man, what do you see out here? Took him out in the wilderness.
He said, what do you see? He said, all I see is bones,
dead, dry bones. He said, there's very many and
they're very dry. He said, can they live? Can they live? You know what
he told him? He said, Lord God, thou knowest.
Thou knowest. Knowing the condition of sinners,
can they live? Not based on my knowledge. Not
based on what I know. But he knows. He knows. Oh Lord God, thou knowest. I
tell you, when you're convinced of that, Nothing will stand in
your way. I don't care who it is. You know,
we look at folks and we think this one has a lot more potential
to be saved because he does this, says that, confesses this. Brother,
before God, we're just dead, dry bones. They was all bones,
every one of them. You know, some of them may have
been more exposed than others. Some of them might have been
the whole skeleton out there and some of them you can just
see their head. Well, that's the way it is with sinners. Some
sinners, you can just see the sin. They're just open about
it. And you can see the things that
they do. You can see the effects of it.
And some you can't hardly see at all. But they're just dead,
dry bones. That's all there is. And I preach
to all of them. And the reason I preach to all
of them, no matter how they act or how they react or how they
look or anything else, I preach to all of them because He knows.
He knows. Not me. He knows. And he's the only one with the
power to raise them. He said, preach to them. Preach
to them? Preach to them. They don't have
any ears. Preach to them. They don't have
any eyes. Preach to them. They got no flesh. Preach to them. Now, he said,
prophesy to the wind. That's the Holy Spirit. He comes
down and He moves on the bones and the bones take up life. Life
comes into them. And that's what it's all about.
And that's what these apostles knew. It was something real with
them. It wasn't just a religious reaction. It was real. And they
went and they told folks and they brought folks and the same
thing happened to them that happened to the ones who told them. Come
and see. And I hear people say all the
time, They won't listen to anything I've got to say. Well, quit saying.
Quit saying. Bring them to Christ. Bring them
to Christ. Well, they just won't listen
to nothing. Bring them to Christ. And you can bring your loved
ones to Christ in prayer. You can bring your loved ones
to Christ in worship. You can bring your loved ones
to Christ by bringing them to hear the gospel. You can bring
your loved ones to Christ by handing out tracts. Give them
an email thing. Tell them to get on there and
listen to whoever they want to listen to. There's a multitude of speakers
on there. Truth grows out all over the
world. The gospel is being preached. Find somebody that meets your
personality. If I don't, listen to them. It's
the truth. It's the truth, not my personality. It's the truth of God that's
going to convert you. It's got nothing to do with me. John the Baptist and Jeremiah
were two totally different people, weren't they? Peter and Paul,
two totally different people. Collided several times. Pass them out bulletins. Pass
them out truth. Give them some books. Buy them
a Bible. Bring them to Christ. Bring them to Christ. Lay them
down to His feet. You know, I was thinking, I was
talking to Russell here not too long ago. I was talking to him
about Christ. We were talking about one of
his friends over there, a pretty rough character, and he said,
you know, I don't know. And I was talking to him about
that, and I said, you know, There was nobody as obstinate as the
Apostle Paul. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was a religious man. He was
sunk so deep in his religion, you couldn't pry him out. He
was willing to put men to death over what he believed, and did.
Held the coat of the first martyr while they stoned him to death,
Stephen. Hated him, ran on him, gnashed him with his teeth. He
was zealous above anything you can imagine. You know how long
it took the Lord to convert the Apostle Paul? About two seconds. Pow! Down off that horse he went,
face in the mud, eyes blinded, laying there quivering in the
light of God. That's how long it takes God
to convert sinners. I don't care if they're big sinners,
little sinners, religious sinners, or irreligious. It don't matter
what they are. We're all dead in trespasses and sins. We're just dead. He said, I'm going to change
your name. Your name is going to be a stone. A stone. Because he showed something about
the stone of God. That stone that he said the builders
rejected, God made him the head of the corner. And that same
stone, he made him to be an offense. Stone of stumbling. That's where
they stumbled over Christ. Stumbled over him. Look back
here now at verse 45. The day following, Jesus would
go forth into Galilee, and he findeth Philip, and he saith
unto him, Follow me. Now Philip was of Bethsaida,
the city of Andrew and Peter, and Philip findeth Nathanael.
and saith unto him, We found him of whom Moses and the law
and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."
Now I want you to see something here. I don't know if you've
ever seen this or not. But up here in verse 43, it says,
Jesus went into Galilee and found Philip. Isn't that what it says?
All right. Now, look down there just a little
bit, down in verse 45. And Philip begins to tell the
story and listen to what he says. He said, we found the Lord. Who
found who? Both things are true. Both things
are true. The Lord found Philip, and when
He did, Philip found the Lord. That's how it works. That's exactly
how it works. Russell, how in the world can
you explain how you come to hear the gospel? I can't either. I
look back in my past, it's just a twisted mess. It just looks
like a thicket out here in the woods. I can't see into it. How
in the world the Lord brought me through all that mess, I'll
never know. But He did. And He finds you. He knows where
you're at. And He comes where you're at
and He finds you. And as soon as He does, you find Him. And
that's what you go tell folks. We found Him. We found Him. We
found Him. Both things are true. Somebody
comes into the service and hears the Gospel, and the Spirit of
God opens their eyes, and they begin to see Christ. And before
you know it, they're telling somebody how they found the Lord. We found the Lord. And we did. We found Him because He first
found us. Look here in verse 46. And Nathaniel said to him, he
said, can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Can any good thing come out of
Nazareth? Listen to what Philip tells him.
Come and see. Come and see. I'm not an historian. I don't know a whole lot about
these cities and things, but I know by books that I've read
and by the Bible itself that this place of Nazareth was a
pretty rough place. And Nazareth is kind of an obscure
place. It doesn't occupy a whole lot
of history in the Bible. There's some things that refer
to it. Samson was a Nazarite. There's
some things said about the city of Nazareth, but very little
in comparison with Bethlehem. That's where everybody looked.
They were all down focusing on Bethlehem, the city of David.
And our Lord was born there, but He was raised in Nazareth.
But they're still over here looking in Bethlehem. And this is what
this young man is saying. He's saying, you know, where
is the promise of anything good out of Nazareth? The good thing
is going to come out of Bethlehem. Yeah, but it already did. And
now it's in Nazareth. Now it's in Nazareth. And you
remember their legal ideas of righteousness, and they more
than likely judged that city by its moral reputation as well,
which evidently wasn't very good. And then make even the fact that
Nazareth was a very obscure place, and then all those things put
together. And now Nathaniel is saying,
well, there's no way that you could find the one the prophets
talked about coming out of this place. And this is what I want
to talk to you for the remainder of our time about. Christ came
into this world to save sinners. Sinners. Salvation is not the sinner being
reformed and redoing his life and redoing this and redoing
that and making decisions and doing all these things and learning
how to serve God and then raising up little by little until he
gets up here where he is equal with God. Salvation is the Lord
God being made flesh and condescending down where the sinner is. and
picking him up like the lost lamb and laying him up in his
breast and carrying him home. That's what salvation is. It's
for sinners. It's not for good folks. Good
folks are the ones that put him on the cross. Righteous folks
are the ones who despised him and spit in his face and slapped
him and mocked his kingship. It was sinners that adored him Look at this young woman. And
these Jews, how in the world did they know where this woman
was and what she'd be doing? That'd be an interesting question
to have asked, wouldn't it? But they knew exactly where she
was and they went down there and they took her right in the
very act of adultery and they brought her out and they threw
her down half naked at his feet. And what did the Lord do? He
didn't condemn her. He condemned them. Miracle of miracles. He didn't condemn the law. He
didn't condemn her. He condemned them. Because their
righteous thoughts had themselves so far above her. And they were
really going to pin him up in a corner because of his affection
for sinners. And they threw this young woman
down and they were going to expose him for what he is. And they
did. He loved sinners. He said, think
not that I come to save the righteous, I come to call sinners to repentance.
And he just stooped down and started writing in the sand.
One day we'll get to know what he wrote. Whatever it was he
wrote, they didn't want to read it. They all packed up and left,
didn't they? They all packed up and left.
Listen to Paul. He reminds us of the nature and
character of His coming. He says in Philippians 2, verse
5, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who
being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with
God, but made himself of no reputation, and took on Him the form of a
servant, and was made in the likeness of men. Think about
that. A man who thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, John took on himself the nature of a man,
and the body of a man, and stood among men. And then, being found
in fashion as a man, it says he humbled himself. Humbled himself. The God of glory become a man,
and now he's talking about humbling himself. How did He do that? He took our
place before the holy law of God and become obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross. I tell you this, religious
men who do not know the object and reason for His coming could
never enter into even the natural things that surrounded Him and
surrounded His ministry. This man who stood and manifested
to the Jews, manifested God in the flesh, was not even considered. He said, for which of the good
things that I've done do you stone me? And they said, oh,
it's not for a good thing that we stone you. We don't have a
problem with your good works. Here's what it is. Thou being
a man has made thyself God. It's not what you did, it's what
you said. It's what you said. And you'll never find folks upset.
You can do all the good. You can support the orphans.
All these things. And nobody will ever get upset
about that. It's what you say about his person. That's what
they're upset about. You mean he has total sovereign
control over all things? That's what it says. Huh? Isn't that what it says? I'm
going to preach it to you in a few minutes out of Colossians
chapter 1. I don't know of another chapter
in the Bible except maybe Ephesians chapter 1 that is so clear in
its declaration of the absolute sovereignty of God over all things. He's before all things. By Him
are all things. They're all for Him. By Him they
all consist and come together. He can arrange them any way He
wants to. We've got nothing to say about it. absolute sovereign
God. And His sovereignty is engaged
to save sinners. And I tell you, here's what it
is, you're too in love with yourself to bow to Him. If you could just
see that this sovereignty is engaged for one purpose, to save
your soul, you'd fall down rejoicing in it. I used to hate election. Boy, I didn't want to talk about
election. Election is so unfair. How can God do that? That's so
unfair. Until I found out who I was. I found out who I was. Then I
started to thank God for election. That's what he told them. Oh,
who was it? Elijah that was down in the cave.
And he made intercession for Israel, and he said, Lord, they're
all gone. He said, I'm the only one left.
He said, I have reserved for myself 6,000 men, haven't bowed
the knee to Baal. Even so, Paul said, at this present
time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. If
there wasn't a remnant, he said, we'd have been like Sodom and
Gomorrah. Been like Sodom and Gomorrah.