Witnesses of Christ Pt. 3

John Chapter 5. John Chapter 5. We are looking
at that just incredible and very dynamic section of Scripture
where Jesus has returned back into Jerusalem, the very place
from which He withdrew for the purpose of avoiding conflict.
Now, almost immediately it seems, Jesus has re-entered Jerusalem
But as we backed away and looked at it, there is much data that
isn’t included between chapters 4 and 5, and so John isn’t so
ruled by a precise chronology, but to us he recounts this incredible
re-entry into Jerusalem. It begins almost immediately,
as we have seen, with a healing, a crippled man who couldn’t place
himself in a pool. Legend had it that an angel would
come, stir up the waters, and whoever jumped in the pool first
would be healed of his particular disease. Well, the man had no
ability to race himself into the pool and beat everyone else
who was there. And so, as the Lord would have
it, he approaches this man and simply
provides him the healing that he had long desired. Do you wish
to get well? Of course the man wished to get
well, and in that sense, if that’s all that Jesus did, it would
have been quite unseemly and provocative, but Jesus actually
does the healing. Jesus tells him to do what was
at the moment impossible, get up, pick up your pallet, and
walk. Well, the man does exactly that
miraculously. He walks, and it is because he
got up and picked up his pallet and walked that the religious
elite accosted him. They criticized him for doing
just that, for essentially working on the Lord’s day, and they confront
him and thereby confront Christ. shares with them that Jesus was
the very one who told them, and so they approach Jesus, and they
do so. If you glance then at verse 19,
initially they’re, at the very minimum, they’re irritated at
Him, but their irritation quickly turns, as we saw, pardon me,
verse 10, their irritation quickly gives way to persecution, ultimately
issuing forth in an approach to Jesus to put Him to death.
Well, Jesus, very mercifully, instead of becoming hostile and
defensive, what Jesus does is basically, in verses 19 through
30, Jesus preaches the gospel to them. The very men that are
already, after one incident, plotting His death, Jesus begins
to preach so mercifully the Gospel to them. Well, His testimony
is essentially that He is in concert, He is in complete union
and unity with the Heavenly Father on His entire plan of redemption. And, not only is that true, they
don’t have to take His word for it. He has other witnesses, and
we have begun these last several weeks to consider those particular
witnesses. There are five. We have looked
at four. We will look at the last witness
today, and just by way of review, all the way back to verse 31,
and let’s consider these witnesses. If I alone testify about myself,
my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies
of me, and I know that the testimony which he gives about me is true. You have sent to John, and he
has testified to the truth, but the testimony which I receive
is not from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was the lamp that was burning
and was shining, and you were willing to rejoice for a while
in His light. But the testimony which I have
is greater than the testimony of John, for the works which
the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I do testify
about me that the Father has sent me. and the Father who sent
Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice
at any time, nor seen His form. You do not have His word biting
in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. You search
the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal
life. It is these that testify about Me. and you are unwilling
to come so that you may have life. I do not receive glory
from men, but I know you, that you do not have the love of God
in yourselves. I have come in my Father’s name,
and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name,
you will receive him. How can you believe? When you
receive glory from one another, and you do not seek the glory
that is from the one and only God, do not think that I will
accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses,
in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you
would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe
his writings, how will you believe my words.” Jesus is standing
before His critics, before His doubters, before His detractors,
before those who were not only irritated with Him but were actively
persecuting Him, before those who were already plotting His
death. And He not only mercifully preaches
the gospel to them, pleading with them, to place their faith
in the Messiah who stood before them, but He doesn’t want them
just to take His word for things. In fact, He uses their own argument. There in verses 31, He says that
if My testimony is by itself, if I alone testify about Myself, He cites one of the basic tenets
of law not only in that day, but even in our own day. The testimony on your own behalf
is in and of itself suspicious. And he says that if that’s all
he had, it would be untrue. He basically just recites back
to them their own standard. They wouldn’t take his word for
it. even though He stood before them
as the very Messiah Himself. But Jesus has other witnesses,
and we begin to look at those. Not only does He testify about
Himself, He is indeed a witness that even in our day, it’s not
uncommon for the accused to take the witness stand, or if you
are defending yourself, to take the stand in your own defense. Jesus is a witness, but there
is another, and He alludes to another witness. He just refers
to Him in that term. There is another witness, verse
32, who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which
He gives about Me is true. He’s speaking of the Heavenly
Father, and He’ll come back to His testimony here momentarily,
but He just alludes to the fact that there is another that his
testimony is inherently genuine, and it’s inherently genuine because
Jesus knows him from eternity past. It is the Heavenly Father
to which he alludes. But there is still a third witness.
The third witness is John the Baptist, and we have seen that
John the Baptist, a witness who by the Jews was disregarded simply
because of his style, the style of his dress. the style of his
ministry, the style of his speech. They held him to be a credible
witness, whose testimony was true. That’s why they sent a
delegation to check him out. They believed that he was saying
true things, and he drew their attention. His testimony, even
though ultimately unnecessary, Jesus says, offered salvation. Jesus says that John the Baptist’s
word was true. He was doing what God had asked
him to do, to be the forerunner of the Messiah. But in the end,
Jesus didn’t need John the Baptist. The third observation that we
made of John the Baptist was that his testimony was just for
a season. Look at the passage. He was the lamp that was burning
and shining. He was a lamp before men, burning
and shining, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his
light. It was a very brief season. He
was there. He was doing what God had asked
him to do. He was bearing witness of the
Messiah, and they even rejoiced. How wonderful, how great it is
that God had provided this And just like so many fads, John
the Baptist faded away from his fame. And so Jesus offers yet
a fourth witness. In verse 36, Jesus refers to
the testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of
John, for the works, the very works that Jesus did were a testimony. They were a clear witness to
the authentication by the Father of Jesus’ ministry. The very
works that I do testify about me. Works of healing, miraculous
works, walking on the water, feeding 5,000, all of the works
that Jesus did, but the greatest of which was the work of redemption
on the cross, which would be His greatest. Those works testify
to Christ. and they cannot be ignored. And
then Jesus returns, having alluded to the Father, He wants to come
back, He planned it all along, He alludes to the Father, but
then He introduces John the Baptist in His own works, now He circles
back in verse 37 and He says, the Father Himself, the Father
testified of Me. Well, we looked at that. And there are a couple of occasions
where God, in an audible voice, declared, This is My Son. At His baptism, at the Man of
Transfiguration, these Jews likely were not present. It is possible
that some were, but He could not have been referring to that,
and He certainly was not referring to the Man of Transfiguration.
How did God testify of Jesus Christ? By sending Him. God spoke in all manner of means
in days past, but in these final days He has spoken to us in His
Son. The very fact that Jesus was
standing there was a testimony. It was the Father’s testimony
that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. Now you stand for a moment. Put
yourself, if you will, in the courtroom. and you have heard Jesus’ testimony
about Himself. And even if you go with the basic
tenet of law and say that that testimony in and of itself isn’t
true, or it isn’t admissible, it’s not anything false about
it necessarily, but we can’t take that witness alone. But
it’s not alone. There is the witness of John
the Baptist as well. And we consider his witness,
in fact, The Jews at this point had to be tremendously uncomfortable
because for a lengthy season they accepted John the Baptist’s
witness. The works that Jesus did, who
could possibly argue with those? The very miracle that had just
taken place, the healing of one man who was completely unable
to even ambulate himself over to a pool to get this mythical
healing. Those works testify of Christ
and the Heavenly Father. The Heavenly Father was constantly,
it says, pouring forth a witness. And if you’re in the courtroom,
you have to be absolutely befuddled. What am I missing? Why haven’t
they already repented of their sin? Why haven’t they already
turned to the Messiah to receive Him? Is there need of still another
witness? What am I missing? Well, Jesus is about to tell
them what they’re missing. They are skeptics. They are doubters. They are those who, in the face
of incredible measures of information, incredible measures of witnesses
to the character and the nature of Christ remain skeptical still. They remain doubters even still. One of the amazing scenes of
Scripture to me is that the very night that they went to arrest
Christ, remember that scene, The very night that Judas betrayed
him and brought back with him Roman soldiers, they came to
arrest him, and it says that one of the disciples reached
out and lashed at one of the Roman soldiers and lopped off
his ear. I mean, there’s this thing flopping
around in the dirt. Jesus picks it up and puts it
back on the man’s head, and it’s immediately healed. The most
astounding thing of that scene, they went right on arresting
him. There was no astound, there was no shock, there was no utter
reverence for what had just taken place. They went right on arresting
him. They were beyond skeptics. They were beyond doubters. They
were those who, in the face of all facts, in the face of a mountain
and mountain and mountain of evidence, would not believe. It doesn’t matter what happened.
And so, as we said several weeks ago, it doesn’t matter if they
find the Ark, or the Shroud of Turin, or the cup from which
Jesus drank at the Last Supper. It doesn’t matter what evidence
is produced. I want to look at five things
that Jesus points out this morning. What a spiritual doubter loses. What does a spiritual doubter
lose? First of all, the doubter’s stubbornness
leaves him void of God’s guidance. The doubter’s stubbornness leaves
him void of God’s guidance. Look at verse 38, You do not
have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe in whom
He said. There you have, initially, the
lack of God’s guidance in an individual’s life, the very thing
for which you and I long, We long to be in the Word. We long
to have it as a light unto our path. We long to know God’s Word,
that it may guide us and lead us. We memorize Scripture for
that very purpose. We long to have His Word in us. But if you know, it’s their very
stubbornness. that let them void of that very
guidance. Jesus doesn’t say that, in a
sense, the Jews had the Word of God. They had the Word of
God. They had access to the Word of God. There weren’t any that
were more zealous about the study of God’s Word than were these
religious elites. They made great studies of Scripture. They counted letters and got
down to the most minute detail about every element of Scripture,
but they got so close that they couldn’t see the greater message. They knew how many verbs, they
knew how many dots, they knew all the little particulars of
any given passage, but they didn’t hear God’s voice. They didn’t
have the Scriptures as an abiding force in their lives. It wasn’t
shaping the way that they lived. It didn’t direct their conduct. It didn’t clarify the path of
life for them. It didn’t shape their character.
As one pastor said at the Word of
God, here in this passage, is not talking about any one scripture. It’s not even talking about any
particular passage or a book of Scripture. He says it this
way, the Word of God is here a power within man, speaking
to and through his conscience. Did you get that? I mean, that’s
why we take in the Word of God, is to constantly shape our behavior,
our conduct, our attitudes, our perspectives, our affections.
our principles for living. That’s why we take it in, is
because we want to have those things shaped. The Word of God
is a power within man, speaking to and through his conscience,
not simply the sum of the earlier revelation. In other words, he
says, even if you sat back and were able to memorize the entire
Old Testament and to take it in, If it is only in your head,
what is it worth? It is not simply the sum of the
earlier revelation, the Old Testament, nor yet an independent illumination,
and the Jews made great practice of that. Whenever I teach my diligent
Bible study course, perhaps some of you have seen this image.
that most people think of Bible study on these terms. Bible study
is this. They take the Bible, and they
are reading the passage, and they’re heading to Bible study,
and they are reading the passage, so that when they get to Bible
study, they can go around the circle and talk about what they
think the Bible means in that particular verse. That’s the kind of Bible study
that the Jews were engaged in, where they would go, and they
would talk about it, and they would wrestle over particular
meanings, over the most minute details, and scrutinize every
particular thing, but it wasn’t in their heart. It didn’t ever
shape them. The Word of God is a power within
man, speaking to and through his conscience, nor yet an independent
illumination, But the whole teaching of Providence felt to be a divine
message. Were they guided by God Himself? No. No, they weren’t. And Jesus offers proof in this
passage. You do not have His Word abiding
in you. It isn’t part of your life. It
isn’t guiding you. It isn’t shaping your course
of life. Why does He say this? because
somebody who had the Word abiding in his heart couldn’t possibly,
it would be utterly impossible for him to reject the very Messiah
which the Word declared. They don’t believe the very Messiah
that the Father had said. Their unbelief really set them
outside of the possibility of communion, true and lasting communion
with the Heavenly Father. Their belief was the very reason
that they didn’t, their unbelief, rather, was the very reason they
did not have God’s Word abiding with them, and both things fed
off of one another. This is the blind leading the
blind. Somebody who is truly spiritual,
truly coming to the Scriptures, yearning to know God more, comes
to the Scriptures to be nourished and fed and guided and illuminated
and challenged and chastened. If you are truly familiar with the
Father and with His words and ways, We cannot help but recognize
His Christ. We cannot help but recognize
the Messiah. When we hear Jesus Christ proclaimed,
we cannot help but acknowledge Him. One of the easiest things in
the world, in coming to this passage, where we see the Jews
standing face-to-face with Christ in the face of all these witnesses,
the witness of Christ Himself, the witness of John the Baptist,
the very works that Jesus did, even the Heavenly Father, and
now the Old Testament, the Scriptures. One of the easiest things in
the world for us to do would be to shake our head and say,
tsk, tsk, how could these Jews have done that? On the same kind
of doubt. is resonant among us. We reject Christ out of hand.
We doubt Him. We put Him off. We yearn for
more evidence. We demand more evidence. We will not believe until Christ What testimony of Christ could
we possibly be missing? The empty-handed skeptic is what
I would call them. What does a spiritual doubter
lose? First of all, as we saw, the
doubter’s stubbornness leads him utterly void of God’s guidance. And I remember hearing A pastor
said this one time, that you can doubt just so long when the
will not becomes cannot. Where old spiritual knowledge,
just like those seeds of grace that are scattered around on
the footpath, are gobbled up by birds, the devil himself.
And the will not becomes cannot. What are we missing? What does
a spiritual doubter lose? The doubter’s stubbornness leads
him void of God’s guidance. But secondly, the doubter’s ignorance
reveals him neglectful of God’s promise. Look at verse 39. You search the scriptures because
you think that in them you have eternal life. It is these that
testify about me, and you are unwilling to come to me so that
you may have life. Now, this is really a simple conundrum
to fix. There is a challenge here because
those first two words, you search, that could be an imperative,
a command. In other words, Jesus is saying,
go search. You go back to your Bibles and
look for me. Because the scriptures are teaching
about me. And that is entirely possible.
But it could also be, instead of being an imperative, it could
be an indicative. And an indicative is really a
step back that’s just an observation. It’s not a command. It’s Jesus
just merely pointing out that, look, I see that you constantly
make search in the Scriptures. And I think it’s far better to
take it that way. than to say that Jesus was sending
them back again to the Bible, because the Bible had already
proven, their Bible study, had proven to be fruitless to them.
Let me just interject here, that when he talks about a search,
he’s talking about their method of Bible study, and it was a
minute, it was a fastidious, intense search of the Scriptures. It was an investigation, if you
will, that ultimately left them with
this false, self-serving interpretation of what it was that they read.
So when he says, you search, in a sense he’s complimenting
them. Look, I know your method of Bible
study. I know how intensely you come
to the Scriptures. You search, you really do search
the Scriptures. entire pool are in the indicative. Jesus is just making one observation
after another. He doesn’t tell them, now that
we’ve observed all these things, now go and make another Bible
study. It’s not what He says. The immediate connection says otherwise. And in fact, this word because,
because you think that in them you have eternal life, why would
Jesus Why would they tell them to go have a Bible study in the
very Scriptures where they thought that they would find eternal
life if the very life giver was standing before them? The character
of the Jews was such that they had already done this. That’s
Jesus’ point. They had already made careful
search of the Scriptures. Jesus isn’t scolding them. for
that. In a sense, he is admiring their
diligence in their study of the Scriptures. He’s not rebuking
them for that. But that it never led anywhere.
It was to no purpose. It was of no end. That all the
study in the world hadn’t directed them towards the Messiah at all. It hadn’t paved the way towards
a hatred of sin and a love of righteousness. It hadn’t prepared
them at all for repentance. It hadn’t prepared them at all
for justification by faith, that by placing their faith in a Savior
alone, that they could be saved. What they were locked onto was
this idea of works. They had taken the Jewish Scriptures,
which laid forth the truth of salvation, and they had made
it like just all the other world religions, man’s approach to
God, man’s attempt to save himself by his own means. Well, Jesus says the Scriptures, if
you look at it, the Scriptures are testifying about me. This
is exactly what Jesus said, I remember talking with His two friends
on the road to Emmaus. They said to one another, were
not our hearts burning within us? While He was speaking to
us on the road, He was explaining the scriptures to us. I would have loved to have been
on that walk, wouldn’t you? To have Jesus Christ go back,
and the scriptures there clearly, at that point, was only the Old
Testament. To go back into the Old Testament,
and to start from beginning to end, and to lay out the testimony of the Messiah?
In fact, in his post-resurrection appearance to his disciples,
Luke 22, These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still
with you, that all things which are written about me in the Law
of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
The Scriptures were constantly proclaiming the Lord Jesus Christ. The Jews would not listen. They
would not prepare their hearts. No wonder this issues forth rather
an indictment by Peter in his first-ever sermon in Acts 3. Peter says the things which God
announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets that his
Christ would suffer, he has thus fulfilled. Peter says in his
second sermon that Old Testament Scriptures were constantly telling
us about a suffering servant who was going to come. How did
we miss that? Stephen, in his first and only
sermon, that’s how good it was, one sermon and he goes to heaven.
Acts 7, which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?
They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the righteous
one. The scriptures were constantly
bearing witness to Christ. When Paul stood, if there was
ever a cause to maybe stand down and downplay things and maybe
not stir up the hornet’s nest. How about when you’re in prison
in the city of the very one who holds your life in the palm of
his hands, Caesar. Here’s Paul in Rome, and he calls
all the Jews to himself. And he says, Luke records that
when they had set a date for Paul, they came to him at his
lodging in large numbers. He was explaining to them by
solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to
persuade them concerning Jesus. Where? What was his material?
From both the law of Moses and from the prophets. Jesus was
constantly proclaimed. And the whole purpose of Christ
was to give life but their hearts were estranged,
they were turned from Him. They didn’t want to know the
truth, they didn’t want to seek the truth, they didn’t want to
live the truth, and in spite of all this noble Bible study,
they missed the basic message of God’s Word. The problem wasn’t that the truths
of Scripture were covered over, hidden, from their eyes, but
that when those things were discovered, they didn’t submit themselves
to them. They didn’t embrace the concept of repentance. They
didn’t embrace the concept of genuine righteousness of life,
which, had they done so, would have brought them immediately
to knees of repentance. One said they read the Scriptures
with a wooden and superstitious reverence for the letter. They
never penetrated to the great truths to which they bear witness.
In the presence of Him who could have given them life, they were
antagonistic. They set themselves against Him.
Jesus. Jesus articulates this same truth,
that as He’s approaching, remember, Jerusalem, He pauses before His
arrest. There, probably looking down
on the temple itself, Jesus said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city
that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often
I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her
brood, and you would not have it. They were sold out in doubt. They were given over. What does
a spiritual doubter lose? The doubter’s stubbornness leaves
him void of God’s guidance. The doubter’s ignorance reveals
him neglectful of God’s promise, life itself. The doubter’s pride,
thirdly, abandons him without God’s love. Look at verses 41
and 42. I do not receive glory from men,
but I know you. that you do not have the love
of God in yourselves. Essentially what Jesus is doing
here in verse 41, He’s anticipating a rejection. He knows their hearts,
right? He knows where they are. He knows
their reticence to respond. And He basically tells them,
look, I’m not after glory. I’m not impressed by it. I don’t
need it. I’m not offended that you don’t
give me glory, that you don’t think that I’m the Messiah. And the problem is, it was the
very opposite. It was the fact that they were
out seeking glory that blinded them to the truth. Jesus Christ didn’t need glory. but they were so thirsty for
it that it had utterly blinded them to the truth of God’s Word. I do not receive glory from men,
but I know you that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. Their pride had abandoned them
to the love of God. Whenever this phrase occurs in
the scriptures, we have to step back. Because that phrase, the
love of God, could be taken in one of two different ways. It
could be taken as our love for God, the love of God. That He is the great object of
our affection. But it can also be taken the
other way. That God is the great God of love, that He is by nature,
love itself, and that all love comes from and emanates from
Him, and if it returns to Him at all, it’s only because it
began with Him. You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your
might. That was the Shema, Deuteronomy 6.5. The Jews said it repeatedly
throughout the day. It was written on those scars,
the phylacteries that they hung around their necks. But Jesus
says, even though they knew all about this love of God, they
didn’t have it in their heart. Their pride had abandoned them.
It had essentially cut them off from the love of God. If they had had this love, if
they had had this affection, this God-given affection, They
absolutely would have accepted the father’s testimony about
his son. They would have known him to
be true. And that lack of love always tends to have a blinding result. They couldn’t see. They no longer
could. As one pastor said, they do not
really love God. They make the profession of following
Him. But in fact, there is no real
love. This is always the case where
men’s religion is self-willed. The Jews have worked out a pattern
of religion and tried to fit God into it. Just what we acknowledged
a moment ago. They had turned the revelation
of God God reaching down and communicating to man things that
if God hadn’t done it, they would never know. And they had taken
that and turned it into just one of many of man’s religions. The spiritual doubter loses a
lot, doesn’t he? The doubter’s stubbornness leaves him void
of God’s guidance. The doubter’s ignorance reveals
him neglectful of God’s promise, the doubter’s pride abandons
him without God’s love. Fourthly, the doubter’s fickleness
renders him estranged from God. Look at verse 43, I have come
in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another
comes in his own name, you will receive him. Now this truth,
in our own day and age, plays itself out almost daily. It’s
epidemic in our country, in our nation, this idea of a cult. And it is largely, though not
exclusively, an American thing. Where a guy comes, and basically
in his own name, with his own new ideas, with his own pattern
for spiritual approach, begins to tout his ideas and people
flock to it. But Jesus says, when one man
comes, one man has done this and says that I have come in
my Father’s name, you don’t want anything to do. They didn’t respond appropriately
to Jesus Christ, and that would have been bad enough. But Jesus
says, you almost make a game out of this by flocking to every
charlatan that comes your way. And it’s because of their utter
lack of fellowship with God that Jesus had come testifying about
Himself. and they would not receive Him.
They were fickle. They were fickle at heart. They
were fickle towards John the Baptist. Jesus, they didn’t even
give Him the time of day. But when another comes, how quickly
they would receive Him. There were many that came. And
that reference refers, it really points to many pretended messiahs
who would come. At the time of one commentary
that was written in the 1800s, there were 64 recorded, alleged
messiahs that had come and been rejected. Received for a while,
and then ultimately they didn’t pay enough. Matthew 24, Jesus articulated
it, even when He was here on earth, many will come in My name,
saying, I am the Christ, and they will mislead many. Scores,
countless scores of people have followed these so-called messiahs. Jesus says they’ll receive a
man if he comes in His own name. They’ll appreciate Him. They’ll
follow Him. They’ll support Him. Even in Jesus, following immediately
after Jesus’ day, we see an occasion that happened in the book of
Acts. Listen to this. In Acts chapter 5, some time
ago, Thutis, a man named Thutis, rose up claiming to be somebody. He wasn’t just somebody. He was
claiming to be a Messiah. claiming to be somebody, and
a group of about 400 people joined up with him, but he was killed,
and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.
After this man, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census
and drew away some people after him. He too perished, and all
those who followed were scattered. There have been many false messiahs,
Jesus says. There are many, even in our own
day and age, who continue to parade themselves out in their
own name with their own ideas, and Jesus says how gullible people
are. But you have one Messiah, come
and declare that He has come in the Father’s name, and people
don’t want anything to do with it. They’re doubters. They’re
hedging their bets. They’re sitting on the fence
as long as they possibly can until somebody, somewhere, offers
them definitive proof that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. What are we missing? What does a spiritual doubter
lose? Stubbornness leaves him void of God’s guidance. His ignorance
reveals him neglectful of God’s promise. His pride abandons him
without God’s love. His fickleness renders him estranged
from God’s Son. 5. THE DOUBTERS’ DULLNESS EXPOSES
HIM INDIFFERENT TO GOD’S GLORY. How can you believe when you
receive glory from one another, and you do not seek the glory
that is from the one and only God? Do not think that I will
accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses,
in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you
would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe
his writings, how will you believe my words? How can you believe
when you receive glory from one another and you do not see the
glory from the one and only God? This is the point I alluded to
a moment ago. That it was for them now morally impossible.
All they cared about is what everybody else thought about
them. That disease was eradicated 1900,
oh no it wasn’t. That disease, worrying about
what everybody thinks all the time, concerned about our status,
concerned about our standing, concerned about our position,
and what everybody else thinks, is many times what prevents us,
precludes us, from coming before the only one whose opinion matters,
and falling on knees of repentance. They refused to do that, they
couldn’t do that. what people think. One pastor said, Earthly ambition
is inconsistent with spiritual growth. Did you get that? Earthly
ambition is inconsistent with spiritual growth. He is saying
the same thing that Jesus said. The more we worry about our own
glory, the more we worry about what other people think, the
more we are fixated on pleasing everybody else except God. inconsistent with spiritual growth.
It will not happen. You see, these Jews have made
the esteem of men The judgment of men, that was their standard.
If I only could be seen in other men’s eyes as pleasing. And so they would pray in front
of everybody, and whatever they gave, they would give so that
everybody saw what they were doing. Whatever they did was
to be seen by other people. And whatever they didn’t do was
because, heaven forbid, they might be seen. When we’re more concerned with
what other people think, human opinion, that people are going
to be concerned, worried about what we’re doing, we cannot possibly draw near
to God. Because in receiving glory from
men, in fielding that, in cultivating that esteem, that high regard
in the eyes of others, essentially what they were doing was making
idols of themselves. Oh, look how good I am. Look how well I’m doing. Look
how much money I give. Look how carefully I adhere to
God’s law. And Almighty God, who is the
only source, the only recipient of any and all glory, He shares
it with none. God is absolutely against all
the so-called idols, even if it’s an individual. And may I
say, especially if it’s an individual. It’s idolatry. And that’s what they were engaged
in. They were idolizing themselves. That’s what Jesus says. They
were proud of all the external glory, their own personal external
glory, the external glory of Israel, the fact that they were
the chosen people of God, and they wanted to rest on that. Jesus says, don’t think that
I will accuse you before the Father. What an image. Jesus
takes us back into the courtroom, and he says, don’t forget about
this image. Come back into the courtroom with me. Don’t think. then I’m gonna stand there in
the jury box or in the box of testimony and give to the jury
their instructions and my testimony. That’s not my role. He’s up,
remember? He’s the judge in the end. The Jews would love to appeal
to Moses and Jesus says, look, Moses is going to be one of the
witnesses against you in that day. Jesus Christ will be the judge,
and in a sense, they already stood condemned because they
claimed to believe God’s Word and they didn’t. See, the acceptance of the Old
Testament. If they came to the Old Testament,
how could they miss some of the clear testimony of Scripture? Genesis 22, in your seed, all
the nations of the earth shall be blessed, that there would
be one in that lineage that would carry forth. Genesis 49, 10,
the scepter shall not depart from Judah. Numbers 24, 17, a
star shall come forth from Jacob, a scepter shall rise from Israel. There were countless scriptures,
not only in Moses’ writings, but then you begin to add to
that the prophets. who heaped upon all of these
testimonies that Jesus Christ was the long sought Messiah. And Jesus says, if you won’t
listen to Moses, and indeed you haven’t listened to Moses, if
you won’t listen to Moses, if you don’t believe his words,
how will you ever receive mine? A doubter loses. A doubter loses
at every point. A doubter loses the very guidance
of God, which the child of God longed for. That’s one of the
things that we accept. That we don’t have this thing
figured out. That we need God’s help. We don’t know how to live. We don’t know How to be parents. We don’t know how to be workers. We don’t know how to be husbands
and wives. We need God’s help. Unless we’re
cut off. A doubter loses God’s promise. And that’s why I said that so
generally. What is God’s promise? If you
wanted to back away, there are lots of promises in Scripture.
It’s one of the beautiful things But if you were to back away
and say that God has made one promise, what is it? It’s eternal
life. And a doubter makes himself neglectful
of that very thing. Eternal life. At my brother’s
funeral, I had one, a doubter, approach me beforehand and tell
me that in my brother’s funeral message, She sure hoped that
I would provide some proof of God’s existence. And so I stood
up and I gave her all the proof that scripture offers. I told
her about Jesus Christ. And then I approached her afterwards.
And I said, did you hear my proof? And she said, no. I said, why
would God send his only begotten Doubters cut themselves off from
the promise of God, the promise of eternal life. They cut themselves
off from His love. They estranged themselves from
His own Son and they proved themselves to be indifferent to God’s own
glory. Let’s examine our own hearts
with regards to faith in Christ alone. Our merciful God we humble ourselves
before you. And Lord, not one of us, if we
have come to Christ, can boast even of that coming. Lord, you
humbled us to the dust and you showed us the proof. You showed
to us not only our sinful nature, but you showed to us the Messiah. Lord, we could no longer doubt. We could no longer brush Christ
aside. We knew that He was our Savior.
Father God, for any in this room, if they remain in a doubtful
mind, make them to see the grave consequences with which they
wrestle. They wrestle with eternity. They
wrestle with the glory of God. They wrestle with the very Messiah
himself. Lord, help them to be escaped
from this game of playing some skeptic’s role in a game of eternity. Do your work. God, do your work in their hearts. It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray.