Gospel of Saint John chapter
3 The gospel of Saint John chapter 3 will be reading here about
the first 15 verses For a text for our message this
morning I Trust the Lord will give us
the ability this morning to be very simple in this meeting and
be able to set forth the word of God clearly, distinctly, to
give the meaning of the truths of scripture to your heart today.
I trust the Lord will own this service. There were some that
found fault with John Owen, who was a very scholarly man, a very
educated man. Because he went to hear the tinkerer,
John Bunyan, preach. John Bunyan was a very, very
simple man. Never preached to anybody's head,
I don't believe, in all of his life. But he preached to hearts,
and is still preaching to hearts through his works and, of course,
through Pilgrim's Progress. But we want to speak to your
heart. We want to be used of God to visit the hearts of the
Lord's people. Now, the text I suppose this
morning, if I were to need one, would be verse 11, where it says,
truly, truly, the Lord Jesus speaking, I say unto thee, he
says, we speak that we do know. We speak that we do know. And so in this meeting this morning,
feeling that God has given some understanding, some spiritual
revelation of truth to our hearts, we speak that which we do know
in this service. Now it is very true that because
of something which happened back in the Garden of Eden, that the
things which I should know the most about, I know so little
about. And the things that are most
important are the things that we know the least about. and that my friend is due to
the fall and we know so little about the things that are most
important because we all shared in the fall in the Garden of
Eden. Do you know that we all fell
in our representative? Now you may not feel that you
have ever fallen in your life. You may not feel that you ever
participated in an event anytime in your lifetime that would come
anywhere near being considered to be obnoxious
to God, obnoxious to God, or revolting to God, or rebellious
to God. But do you know you had a representative? The first man, Adam, was the
representative of the whole race, the whole human race. And when
Adam did what he did, the Word of God spells it out clearly
in Romans 5, We did too. And we were in him when he rebelled
in the Garden of Eden. We were in him when he thumbed
his nose at God and said, I will not do what you tell me to do. Adam chose to die rather than
live. We were in him when he made that
choice. And so every one of us today are lost. if we're outside
our second, the second man, the Lord from heaven, who's the representative
of all believers. If we're outside of him and we're
just in that first man, Adam, that which is born of the flesh
is just flesh, that's all it is, and we're lost, we're lost
undone before God for the one of faith and love toward the
Lord Jesus Christ. We're lost, and our minds are
blinded. And because of this fall in the
Garden of Eden, because we participated in it, because we were involved
in it, because we were in Adam at that time, we were in his
loins, we are his descendants, he made the choice that we would
be born dead in sin, and that if we ever were to live, it would
be the choice of God Almighty in sovereign election and in
free grace. Now, the things that are important,
spiritual truths, they must be revealed unto us. Because we're dead in sin, we're
lost, and these things must be revealed unto us. Now, how much
does the natural man know about sin? How much does he know about
sin? How much does he know about holiness?
How much does he know about heaven? How much does he know about hell?
How much does he know about the God of the Bible? What does he
know about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? I'm talking about
the natural man. What does he know? Well, the
Bible says in the book of 1 Corinthians that the things of God knoweth
no man but the Spirit of God. The things of God knoweth no
man but the Spirit of God. So, meaning that if you're going
to know the things of God, the things that are vital and important
to your soul's salvation, God must, by His Spirit, reveal them
to you. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he discern them,
because they are spiritually discerned. And you must have
the Holy Spirit in you to be able to discern the things that
are important. And here you are in life, and
you're at the age you are, and you know not the things that
are important to your soul's eternal welfare, and the only
way you can know them is for the Spirit of God to whisper
in your ear and your heart and reveal these vital truths to
your soul. That's the only way. There is
no other way. It's no wonder the old primitive
Baptist lady who was dying that had 11 children called them all
around her bed and whispered in their ears, you need something
that I cannot leave you. You need something that I cannot
give you. I would if I could, but I cannot
give it to you. God only is able to give it to
your soul. Now I stand before you this morning
and I believe, I believe this, and if I didn't believe it, I
wouldn't be standing before you that I am an object of divine
grace. And I'm not being presumptuous.
Over the years and through the years, I believe that God has
made it crystal clear to me and to a few people around me that
he has revealed some things to me about himself by his Holy
Spirit. Now I know this. I do not believe
in an unregenerate pastor, an unregenerate preacher. I do not
believe in anyone who is unregenerate entering the ministry. I believe
it's ludicrous. I believe it would be the most
damning thing that an individual could ever participate in, and
that is for him himself to be so presumptuous that he would
enter into the ministry and stand before dead souls Preaching dead
sermons them coming from a dead sinner himself I think that's
a that that is terrible and I know that it's happened and I know
there are dead preachers that are standing before dead people
this morning and Surely surely he's making them twice more the
child of hell than what they were to begin with Now I know
this I know this and I'm telling you some things that we do know
and I know this, that salvation is a great mystery. I know it
is. And John chapter 3 reveals that
to us here today. It is a great mystery. Now in
1 Timothy 3 and 16, just listen to this verse. Without controversy,
great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. That is, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is God, came down to this earth and was born from the womb
of the Virgin Mary. God made him a body in the womb
of the Virgin Mary. And he was born into this world.
God invaded this earth in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then it says he was justified
in the spirit. He was seen of angels. He was
preached unto the Gentiles, he was believed on in the world,
and then he was received up into glory. the angels witnessed that
receiving up into glory and they said this same Jesus whom you
see taken up into glory shall come again in like manners. Great
is without controversy then, great is the mystery of godliness
and that's what the Lord Jesus is talking about here in our
text this morning in John chapter 3. Now people in our day think
that they are an authority on this subject of salvation. They
write books about it, they preach sermons on it, wherein they tell
people how to be born again. How to do it. How to be born
again. Now Jesus said, except you be
born again. Now Christ did not tell Nicodemus
how to be born again because it cannot be done. Nobody can
tell another person how to be born again. It cannot be done.
It's a mystery, don't you see? He said in verse three, except
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He cannot
participate in the kingdom of God. He cannot see it to enjoy
it. He can read and he can talk about
it and he can write about it, but you cannot see it. You cannot
see it. Now Christ didn't try to explain
to Nicodemus He just said, he didn't try to explain to him
or tell him how you could be born again. He just simply told
him, it better happen to you, Nicodemus, because if it don't
happen to you, you're going to hell, Nicodemus. You're going
to forever be under the lash of God in eternal torment forever
because you're going to die in your sin and you're going to
be lost. It had better happen to you.
And I'm here to tell you this morning, except you be born again,
you cannot see the kingdom of God. Now Christ didn't try to
explain it, as we said. Salvation is a great mystery.
I cannot fully explain it, how it happened to me. I cannot fully
explain how it happened to me. One day long ago, and you use
your own imagination about that, but one day long ago, I was lost. And I was as lost. I didn't realize it. I didn't
understand what it meant to be lost. I didn't understand what
it meant to need being born again, what it meant to being saved. I did not know anything about
it. I was a dead sinner, lost and undone. And something happened. God was pleased to undertake. God was pleased to intervene. God was pleased to cross my path. God was pleased to cause the
wind of the Spirit of God to blow in my direction. He was
pleased to do it, and here I stand preaching the gospel. Something
happened. One day my only interest was
just to simply enjoy life. Just to be as obnoxious to hell
as I could be from day to day. Tell whatever dirty jokes I could
come up with and whatever I could find. Do whatever I pleased to
do. Just please myself most of all. And do my own thing like everyone
else was doing around me. And like everybody else in the
state of nature does, dead in sin, I did not know the first
book in the Bible from the last book in the Bible. I knew nothing
about the word of God, and I had not been instructed in the ways
of God or the truth of God. I had not had the word of God
planted in my heart, and I had no fear of God or man. I was
a fool filled with foolishness. That's the way I was. 16-year-old man, young man, a
fool filled with foolishness. Well, something changed. I began
to have new thoughts about who I was. You see, a man needs,
every person needs to come to know who they are, who they are
before God, and what they are, and what I was about. Well, I'll
tell you this, there came a time when the Lord so dealt with my
heart that I began to look at myself differently. I began to
consider that I was indeed in need of a savior and that I was
lost, something was wrong, desperately wrong and I was convicted inside. I knew that I must be saved or
else I'd perish and I'd heard no sound preaching. I heard nobody
that knew anything about the Word of God. I heard a few people
get up and talk a little bit about the things of God but nobody
that could look me in the face and point to my soul and say,
sinner You must repent and believe the gospel or else you'll perish
forever. Nobody that was sound in the
preaching of the gospel and from that hour to this. I cannot tell
you and explain to you all that took place when I went from one
side of the bed to the other side of the bed and back and
forth and back and forth praying and weeping before God and begging
the God of the Bible to have mercy on my poor soul. I cannot
tell you what happened. All I know is that something
happened and that God did through his son the Lord Jesus Christ
convert my soul and I know that the Lord Jesus Christ came into
my life. I know he did. And nobody's going
to ever talk me out of that. And I began to feel different.
From that hour to this, I've been in love with Christ. In
love with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I will not brag about my
love to Christ, because it needs much improvement even at this
point. But I'll tell you this, I've
been occupied with Him, His person, and my fears. I've been occupied
with His person and His work, and I'm a jealous man for the
cause and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I do not mean
to ever be deterred from exalting Him, my Redeemer, my Savior. He loved my soul out of the pit. He loved my soul when I was unlovely. And whenever I had nothing to
commend myself to Him, when my sin would have damned me for
all eternity, He loved me and He gave Himself for me. And I
love the Lord Jesus Christ. I do not know how to explain
it all. It happened and I'm sure of it. I'm as sure of it as I'm standing
here before you today. Now Paul said, if any man be
in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things pass away, all things
become new. Salvation is not in a decision,
it is in a tremendous divine, divine mystery. It really is. Now on the day of Pentecost,
you remember, it's found in Acts chapter 2. There was a dumb,
and I call him dumb because he was, as far as our standards,
even the standards in that day and time, untutored fisherman
that stood up to preach to the Lord's enemies, and they were
indeed that group that had crucified the Lord of Glory. And I mean
to tell you, the Lord Jesus had plenty of enemies, and the early
church had plenty of enemies, And old Peter, untutored and
unlettered as he was, stood up in front of that congregation
and quoted a few verses out of the psalm. And you know what
happened? 3,000 people were swept into the kingdom of God. 3,000 souls were born again. God delivered 3,000 of those
Jews and others that were gathered there on that day out of their
sin out from under the wrath of God and delivered them to
eternal life and eternal salvation. Okay? And then in Acts chapter
6 and 7, there was another preacher, Stephen. And the message he preached
was probably a better sermon by a better preacher, if you
please. And as far as we know, only one person was affected
as to salvation, but that one person later turned the world
upside down for the glory of God. That one person, O Saul
of Tarsus, greatly affected by Stephen's sermon, and God mightily
used him as he traversed across the Gentile world preaching the
gospel of God's grace. God greatly used him. Well, how
can you explain it? that there was 3,000 saved when
old Peter got up to preach, that old Peter that had denied the
Lord three times and had been restored. How can you explain
3,000 there and then only one affected by Stephen's preaching? Well, the only way to explain
it is if you look at verse 8 of John chapter 3 here and see what
it says. The wind bloweth where it listeth.
And thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it
cometh, and whither it goeth, and so is every one that is born
of the Spirit. is invincible. And a comparison
is drawn here between the wind and the Spirit of God in the
new birth. That's what we have here. And the wind is invincible.
It's sovereign in its action. It's beyond man's control. It does not consult anybody as
to when it will blow, as to how hard it will blow, and it cannot
be regulated by man or his devices. It sweeps everything before it.
And this way the Lord is. He subdues And he conquers man's
will and man's soul. The wind blows and you hear it.
It changes things. It moves things about. And when
the wind of the Spirit blows over a sinner, it changes that
sinner. And there's a deep and radical
change in that sinner. That doesn't mean that that sinner
is going to go home to a new house. Doesn't mean that he's
going to go home to a new car, or to a new wife, or to a new
family. No, it doesn't mean that. It
doesn't mean that at all. But he will go home not thinking
the same. about his house, about his car,
about his wife, about his family. He'll have different thoughts,
don't you see, about all that. No man can do this for himself.
No man can change another man. Nobody has the power to change
a person and to give him an attitude, a proper attitude, a right mind,
a principle of grace and righteousness in his life. No man is able to
do that for another man. Now listen to me, that brings
me to say, and that brings me to the second point. The first
point has been this, that salvation is a great mystery. How God deals
with men's souls. And how that the spirit of God
blows like a wind upon a meeting like this. And there may be,
I don't know, and I wouldn't even estimate how many lost people
There are here in this meeting this morning, but the wind of
the Spirit can blow upon this meeting in one person. Feel the
power of that wind, and God save that one soul. And the rest of
you, the wind just blows on, and the Savior passes you by. And all that need to pray, pass
me not, O gentle Savior, pass me not, pass me not. Oh, may
the Lord be pleased to stop at your cell this morning and open. He's got the key, you see, and
we're about to say that. Secondly, that brings me to say
this, this is my second point, and I've got four of them, salvation
is exclusively a work of God. That's what these verses teach.
It's something that God does through His Spirit. Verse 5,
look at it. Jesus answered verily, verily.
You see that He said, Can a man enter the second time into his
mother's womb and be born again? Can a man enter the second time?
Can he go back? Can he be born twice? No, he
can't. Jesus said, Truly, truly, I say,
except a man be born of the water and of the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God. So the birth, then, is God's
work. It is God doing it through His
Spirit, through the power of His Word. So salvation is exclusively
a work of God. It is something God does through
His Spirit and through His Word, and He does it by free, sovereign
grace, upon whom He will, when He will. It is exactly the work
of God. I say it is The work of God from
the beginning to the end. Exclusively the work of God. He does not owe it to anybody.
He said, those verses in Romans 9, they haunt us. We got to deal
with them. We have to deal with them. I
will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy. Salvation, not of him
that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth
mercy. So God does it by free and sovereign
grace. And I'll be honest with you this
morning. And I'll be honest with you, I told you a few minutes
ago, I'm jealous. for the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm
jealous for the truth of the gospel and I will not listen
to a man preach that does not preach that salvation is exclusively
the work of God. Salvation is no human project. There are souls dying every day,
men and women dying every day in this world, going out into
eternity that's been told all their life. That salvation was
what they did for God. And was their little contribution
that they made. And that salvation was a human
project. And I'll tell you this. Everybody
that gets saved, truly gets saved, will come to see that salvation
is not a human project. That salvation is a divine project
exclusively. It is of God from the beginning
to the end. The new birth is God's work.
Spurgeon said if a man can take the first step in salvation,
he can flat do it all. He can do it all. Well, let him
do it all if he says he can take the first step. He also said
if God took the sinner all the way within a foot of heaven and
just left him there to do the rest, that he would plummet all
the way back down to hell, he wouldn't even be able to finish
the last foot. Salvation is God's work from
the beginning to the very end. Aren't you glad it's so? You
that know yourselves, you that know how fickle and feeble you
are, alas, we'd all fall a thousand times a day if it wasn't for
the sure mercies of David, the sure mercies of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ. Listen to me, aren't you glad
that he's not going to take us within a foot of heaven and then
say, you just go ahead and work your way on in. No siree, I'm
not interested in that kind of salvation. Salvations of the
Lord, the whole of salvations of God. I had a man tell me,
preacher, you're shutting the door on people. Why don't you
tell them that some goes by air, some by water, and some by land. Why don't you tell people that
there's lots of ways to get to heaven because they're hidden.
A lot of ways to get to heaven. I'm not shutting the door on
anybody. This kind of preaching shows the people the only door
of salvation. Listen, Jesus said, I am the
door. And that, he meant by that, I
am exclusively the door. I'm the only door. There isn't
any two or three doors. One door. Jesus said, I'm the
way and I'm the door. Any man enter in, he shall be
saved if he enters in at this door. And so I'm telling you,
salvation is altogether God's work from the beginning to the
end. This is the Lord's doing. It's marvelous in our eyes. We
rejoice. We're glad through the work of
His hands. Glory to God. Praise His name. He has delivered our poor souls.
Now the third point is this, that salvation is deliverance
from spiritual death and blindness brought on by the fall and ignorance
of God's Word. Now look at verses 9 here through
12. Nicodemus answered and said to
him, How can these things be? How can they be? Well, see, he
was blind and he was ignorant. He was blind. He was dead in
sin. And Jesus said, Well, you're a master of Israel and you don't
know these things? You've been teaching the law
and you've been teaching these people, placing heavy burdens
upon them by teaching them what to do and what not to do. But
you don't understand about this mystery You don't understand
about God delivering men's souls, and God raising up the dead,
and giving them life? You don't understand this? Verily,
verily, I say to you, we speak that we do know, we testify that
we've seen, and you receive not our witness, I told you earthly
things, and you believe not? How shall you believe if I tell
you of heavenly things? There ain't but one way you're
gonna believe them, and that's when God convinces you of them.
when God makes them known to your heart. Now, I want you to
see this. Turn, if you will, in your Bible,
if it don't take you too long to find it, to Ephesians chapter
2, and look with me quickly at verse 1. I said that salvation,
the Lord's salvation, is deliverance from spiritual blindness. ignorance now we see here in
verse 2 and you have he in verse 1 you have he quickened that
word quicken there in Ephesians 2 1 means and you have he made
a lie you have he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and
sins. And then in verse 2, you find
the evidences of the fact that these people were dead in sin,
in wherein times past they walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, which
is the devil, the spirit that now works in the children of
disobedience. All those out here in the world giving over to Satan,
giving over to his ways, giving over to the debauchery and sin
of this world, all of those who are involved in that, look at
verse 3, among whom also we all had our conversation. The word
conversation is behavior in times past in the lust of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, were by
nature the children of wrath even as others. This is evidence
of the fact that they're dead in sin. They're dead in sin. Now a man can be a theologian.
Now in verse, let me say this, the reason why these people who
were dead in sin and ignorant and blind were made alive, the
reason is found in verse 4 and 5. You look at it. But God, but
God, but God, don't ever, don't ever, Allow that to get to the
place where that is a common phrase to you. Two words, but
don't you ever get used to them. May God burn them upon our souls
and upon our hearts. But God! You see, we were dead. But God! Think of yourself laying
in a grave someplace. Can you picture yourself dead
in a grave? And of course, you're absolutely
helpless. Nothing can be done. Friends
can't help you. Nobody can do anything for you.
You're dead. Oh, they came by yesterday and
wept, shed a few tears, maybe put some plastic flowers on your
grave, but they couldn't do anything, you see. Nothing! They could
do nothing. You're dead. And you're in the
grave. And you can do nothing. But just
listen to me. If God were to come by, But God,
Paul said, but God, here's these dead sinners, but God, who is
rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even
when we were dead in sin, made us alive together with Christ
by grace, so you say. Isn't that a wonderful picture?
That's salvation, my friend. That's what it is. That's the
reason that some people are out of hell today. That's the reason
why some people have the hope of eternal life, because God
is rich in mercy. And through the great love with
which He loved us, He came by. He came by and said, this is
the time of love for your soul. He came by when you were unlovely. He came by and He loved you. And He loved you. And He quickened
your soul to life and brought you forth out of a spiritual
grave. unto eternal life. Now, beloved,
let me say this. A man can be a theologian trained
in the modern school of thought, as Nicodemus was, and not ever
know that he's spiritually dead. Not ever know it. He can have
went to the best seminary in the country, and he still not
know that he's spiritually dead. You never know your death and
sin until you're made alive by the Spirit. You cannot know your
death in sin until God makes you alive, and then you look
back on it, and you know then that you were dead when you come
to life. I know what they say, the modernists,
freethinkers, people that don't believe in revelation, God's
truth to a man's soul. They say, well, if you're alive,
I'm alive. They say, if you can see it,
I can see it. If you can believe it, I can
believe it. If you can rest in it, I can
rest in it. Well, they don't know what spiritual
death is, do they? They don't know what it is. Neither
can you know unless it can be said, and you hath he quickened. Neither can you know it. You
don't know it. Say, I'm just as alive as you are, preacher.
Well, we'll see. We'll see. You say, I got as
much life as anybody in this building. Yep, yep. Flesh life,
you got it. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. We're not fixing to have your
funeral after the flesh. No! You're as much alive as anybody
else. Spiritual death is what we're
talking about. We're talking about before God, you're a dead
sinner, a dead dog sinner before God. That's what we're talking
about. We're talking about dealing with this thing before a righteous
and holy God. And He says you're dead. That's
what He says. And He says you must be quickened.
You must be born again. Now, let me read a couple of
verses to you out of the fourth chapter of Ephesians. Look at
this, if you will. Ephesians chapter 4. And verse
17 and 18, listen to what it says, This I say therefore, and
testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other
Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having, listen to
this verse, having the understanding darkened. Being alienated, that
means to be cut off from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. Now
that is the condition. The problem today is that men
have never been shut up to a divine revelation of God. People have been preached to,
young people have been taught, children have been taught, and
we can make anything we want to out of our children. We can
make little Catholics out of them, little Baptists out of
them, little Methodists out of them. We can teach people and
we can make whatever we want, but men and women must know that
God only can reveal the truth to a person's heart and soul
that will save them. No man can teach the gospel savingly
to anybody. This is the work of God. I'm
going to tell you the truth wherever it puts me. That's the way I've
lived all these years. I'm not going to change it now.
I'll just tell you the truth as I know it. Everyone claims
to know who God is. Everybody claims, I know who
God is. You talk to me, preacher, like
I was ignorant. I don't know who God is. Well, turn back with
me to Matthew chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16, I'm going
to just show you something here and just see how you deal with
this. Matthew chapter 16 verse 13, Jesus came into the coast
of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples saying, whom do
men say, this is verse 13, Matthew 16, whom do men say that I the
Son of Man am? Who do they say that I am? Now
Jesus is God. Jesus is the anointed one of
God. Jesus, Jesus is the one sent
of God, God's messenger, and God's witness, and God's lamb. And he says, whom do men say
that I the Son of Man am? And they said, some say, our
John the Baptist. Well, well. Some say that you're
Elias. And others say that you're Jeremiah,
or one of the prophets. That's what they say. All right,
now you listen to the difference here. He saith unto them, that
is, unto the disciples, but whom say ye that I am? Whom say ye that I am? Simon
Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ. Thou art the
Christ! Now where did they get their
information? How come it is they know more than these other people?
who've been saying, well, he's John the Baptist or he's one
of the prophets. Where did these people, where
did the disciples get their information? Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the Living God. And Jesus answered and said unto
him, Blessed art thou, Simon bar Jonah, for flesh and blood. No preacher revealed that to
you, Simon. No preacher told you that. No, mom and daddy didn't
tell you that, Simon. No, no, no, you didn't get that
down the street. in the mission. You didn't get that in the mission.
No, no. No, no. Listen to what he says.
Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which
is in heaven. You see, Jesus said what you
know about me has been revealed to you. It's been revealed to
you. It's been made known to you. And it's by the Father which
is in heaven. Now that brings me to this. Salvation
has to do with being taught of God. Turn with me quickly to
John chapter 6. Has to do with being taught of
God. God has to do his own work. Nobody is going to do it in his
place. The Lord must do his own work.
Begin with verse 41 here and see this. The Jews then murmured
at him because he said, I'm the bread which came down from heaven.
Jesus, you know, was the bread of life. And he came down from
heaven. Say, you know, I know about Jesus
being born, supposedly, by a virgin. I know about it. Never thought
about it too much. Actually, it's impossible. It's impossible to believe it.
Left to yourself. With the mind of flesh. Anybody
believe with the mind of flesh, you can't believe it, savingly,
with the mind of the flesh, that Jesus had no father. He had no
earthly father. That thing that was conceived
in her womb was of the Holy Ghost. Can you believe that? God. God was the father of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Christ is the Son of God. He's
God's Son. But he said, I came down from
heaven. Well, how'd you do that? You were born of the Virgin.
How did you come down from heaven? Well, what did I say? Without
controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested
in the flesh. God came down from heaven. Okay,
and they said, why is not Jesus, is this not Jesus, the son of
Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that
he said, I came down from heaven? What's this fella talking about?
Biggest con artist that ever, listen to me friend, he's either
telling the truth or he's the biggest liar that ever lived
on the face of this earth. You watch it now. Find out whether
you believe anything or not. Jesus said I came down from heaven
Jesus therefore answered They said that he says I came
down from heaven Jesus therefore answered and said to them murmur
not among yourselves Just shut it up. Shut it up and quit murmuring
among yourselves. No man can come to me except
the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him
up in the last days. It is written in the prophets,
and they shall be all taught of God. Everybody listen to it. All taught of God, every man
therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, he
comes unto me. He comes unto me, every one of
them. The Father teaches them to me.
The Father teaches them to believe on Me. The Father teaches them
to come to the end of themselves. They got nowhere to go. To whom
shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. So that's what salvation is.
It's being taught of God to Christ. And Christ being revealed to
you for who He really, really is. Alright, we must hurry here. Men, in the fourth place, in
the last place, like to talk about man's part in salvation. Everybody wants to talk about
man's part. Got to give him his day. Got to give man his day. Oh preacher, can't you have a
little more balance in your preaching? You know, I mean, it's alright
to give God his due, but what are we going to do here? Are
we going to completely rule out man having any part in the salvation
of his own poor soul? Rule him out? You mean we're
not going to give him one ounce of opportunity to tell us about
how he's cooperated with Jesus and all of his submission and and what he's
done with his life and how that it was such a such a fine for
the Lord to have found him and all God has been so greatly enriched
because he laid hold of because he found me. No, no, no, no. Not an inch to glory. Not an
inch. Not going to do it. Now you listen
to this statement. You either agree with it or you
don't. Man's part in salvation is the
inevitable response of the work of God in his soul. Now you get
that, and you fix it in your heart. It is the inevitable response
of what God teaches him. If he taught you what sin is,
you will repent. You have repented. If God ever
teaches you what sin is, the dare of his justice, the rape
of his character. If God ever teaches you what
sin is, you'll repent. You'll repent. It's the inevitable
response of the work of God in you. That's right. Say, I've
tried to repent. Well, you go ahead and try until
you die and go to hell. Unless God teaches you what sin
is, you're not ever going to be able to have the proper attitude
about your sin and about God and about yourself. God must
teach you what sin is. If he reveals Christ to you,
what will you do? Somebody said, well, you can
believe or not believe. My friend, if he reveals Christ
to you, you will believe. You will believe. Is that too
bold? No, no, no, no. I'm telling you,
man's part in salvation is the inevitable result of that salvation. And God will, as He reveals Christ
to you, you will believe. You will trust. You will love
Christ. You will love Christ. And we
could illustrate that in a couple of ways, but I'm not going to
do it. I must go on. The reason that we react the
way we do is because of how God has worked in us. And there's
just a couple things here, and don't feel badly toward me. I'll
let you out here in just a few moments. Listen to this. God
does something in the people he saves. He does something.
Those who know God will be humble. They will worship God. They will
be humble. Somebody said, you reckon they
will be? Ain't no doubt about it. They will be humble. Those
who know themselves cannot be proud. And you see, God shows
you what you are. So you cannot be proud. The Christian
is humble because he has given up seeking good in himself to
adore the one in whom there is nothing but good. Now that's
the effects of being saved by the grace of God. He's humble. If you think God's thoughts,
you'll never think highly of yourself. Never will. You see, it'll cure you. What I'm trying to show you is
the inevitable results of God's salvation is to make you repent,
believe, and worship the God that saved you. Humble you before
the Lord. Now listen to me. Humility is
the acceptance of the place appointed by God, whether it's in the front
or in the rear. And it won't make any difference
to a believer what God wants him to do. After God saves him,
he's humble enough to bow himself to the Lordship of Christ and
do whatever the Lord wants him to do. If it's a farmer, be a
farmer. Whatever field that the Lord
would lead him into, he's submissive to it, and he's humble in his
heart. And he'll do it. Whether he's in the front, or
whether he's in the back, it won't matter. He's a worshipper
of God. God has humbled his heart. Now
the doctrines of grace humbles a man without degrading him.
It humbles a man without degrading him, and it exalts him without
inflating him. Now don't you feel honored this
morning If you're a recipient of God's marvelous and wonderful
grace, don't you feel... Listen, you think God has degraded
me by saving me by free grace and mercy. Absolutely not. He bestowed the greatest of honor
upon me. But I'll tell you what, He did
it in such a way not to inflate me. Oh no, my friend. My glory
is in the Lord. My praise is toward the God of
my salvation. My praise is toward the living
Christ, who I'm looking forward to come back from glory, who
is going to come back and redeem to Himself the purchased possession
and take it to be with Him for all eternity. God has done a
work and made me glad through the work of His hands. Now then,
you know I've often thought about the demons that Christ encountered
during his ministry and how they all reacted to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the difference between the
way the demons reacted and the way the people react toward Christ. And you know those demons, they
knew him. They knew more about him than nine-tenths of the church
people of our day and the religious people of our day. Them demons
knew who they were dealing with. Psalm 89.