DO YOU KNOW THESE THINGS?
Richard A Smith
John 3: 16
John 19: 17-18
John 19: 32-35
John 16: 7
Revelation 1: 5 (from “To him”) - 7
We spoke in the reading this morning about the gospel of John chapter 17 as to the prayer of the Lord Jesus to His Father, and one of the things that He said was “thy word”, the Father’s word, God’s word “is truth”, v 17 and my simple desire dear friends is to convey to you a few of the truths as to the gospel.
It is very apparent in the world around us that men know very little of the truth. They would challenge you if you said that; they would speak of their technology and their learnings and their science and their commercial acumen and so on, but, beloved, if you take a long hard look at the world around you, you will see that men know very little, and the reason for that is that they leave God out. The chaos and the confusion in the world around us is because God is left out, and despite this I would like you to know for yourself the simple truths of the gospel. There are so many of them I could not cover them all in their depth - who could? - but I would like you to leave this occasion, especially our young ones, knowing certain truths for yourselves. You must know them! Because when you know the truth everything else can be measured against it.
The first one here in John is in probably the most well-known verse in the Bible; “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son”. It is not the world’s system; God does not love that, but He loves the persons in the world, and that is you and me.
God is towards you and that is the wonderful thing in the glad tidings. For all your failings, all of your shortcomings, God is towards you, and the gospel is preached because He is towards you, and His appeal towards you tonight is in love. You might ask how we know it is in love. Because He sent His only Son to die. What greater expression of God’s love could there be than the fact that He sent the Lord Jesus, His only beloved Son, to die for such as you and me. Someone once said that God gave heaven’s best for earth’s worst! What a God He must be! How long has He spoken with men? In the Scriptures you can read of the prophets, how they spoke to the children of Israel time after time after time, and every time they were ignored to a greater or lesser degree, and eventually the whole nation was carried away. Israel was carried away, scattered and dispersed among the nations, and then as the parable tells us, God says finally, “I will send my beloved son”, Luke 20: 13. What a God He is! Do you know that in your heart, that He is towards you? He is towards you and He is for you, and that is the reason that He sent His Son, so that it says, “whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”.
Now, do you know the Saviour for yourself? Your friends may know, they may not; your parents may know, they may not; but do you know Him? Do you know the Lord Jesus as One who saves, as we read in this verse here? God would not have us perish; His desire for us is eternal blessing. That is what He has in mind for you; that is what He has in mind for the preacher and that is what He has in mind for the listeners. I would like you to remember that, that God is for you, He sent His Son for you that you may have eternal blessing.
You may ask what Jesus did. Why did He come? He came to die. Do you know that? Do you know that Jesus came to die? We read here in John 19 at the end of His life and it says, “And he went out, bearing his cross, to the place called place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha”. It was drawn to my attention the other day that the word Calvary is not actually in our Bible; it is in the Authorised Version, and it means the same thing. We read that text this morning at home, and Golgotha means “place of a skull”. What is a skull? It is the empty head of a man that is dead. That is what we are naturally, as away from God, as there is no room in our minds and hearts for God’s things; but still, God in His grace appeals to us, and Jesus went to this place and was crucified there.
It was at the end of a pathway of perfection that He went this way. He was cast out, He was rejected, He was betrayed, He was denied, and He was slain. He was betrayed and denied by those that loved Him, or professed to love Him. What a pathway the Saviour took! He went that way for you and me - God sent Him and He went that way in perfect obedience. Think of the power that Jesus had! In the Old Testament just one angel slew one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in one night (2 Kings 19: 35); think of the power that the Lord Jesus had! He could have stopped what was happening to Him at any moment in His own power, He could have wiped the Romans off the face of the earth, but He did not! He went this way because He loved you and He loved me! Be assured of that!
He also loved the two on either side of Him, and one of them as we know from another gospel got the blessing, Luke 23: 39-43. What the Lord Jesus suffered! We did not read all the verses, but you can read them for yourself, and at the end, Jesus said, “It is finished”. It is a completed work! He suffered for sin and sins and took on His own head and shoulders what was due to those who trust Him; He suffered at the hands of man, but He suffered from God. Beloved, the eternal judgment that was due to you and me was poured out upon His head until He exhausted it, and we can be thankful for those blessed words, “It is finished”. The atoning work never needs to be done again as it was a work done in perfection. It is not only to my satisfaction: I cannot ever value the work of Jesus as it should be valued, but it was done perfectly in God’s sight and the witness to His death was what we read of a little bit further on, that His side was pierced with a spear and “there came out blood and water”. The apostle writes, “his witness is true, and he knows that he says true”, and he writes this that you and I “may believe”. That is why John wrote the gospel, that we may believe. I think one has said it is written to make genuine believers of nominal believers! Have you accepted the Lord Jesus for yourself? He shed His precious blood for you; what a price the Lord Jesus paid. And why did He shed His precious blood? Because of the words in the first epistle of John, “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin”, chap 1: 7. None is left out! There is no sin so great or so small that we cannot come to Jesus, and believe on Him and confess our sins; as we read here now He can forgive us each one of them! What a Saviour He is!
We will have to answer for our sins! Each one of us will have to answer to God for them. Now are yours going to be covered and washed away by the precious blood of Jesus tonight, or are you going to have to stand before God in your sins and answer for them? I pray that that will not be your portion. It is not mine: mine are washed away! I have come in repentance, however feeble it might be, to the Lord Jesus, and simply asked for forgiveness. What does it mean to confess our sins and to repent? I believe it simply means that we align ourselves with God’s view of us as sinners and acknowledge the need of a Saviour.
Beloved, you probably cannot remember them all! I certainly cannot! But we can confess that we are a sinner and need a Saviour, so that we can be like that man in the parable who could not even lift up his eyes to heaven but who said, “Have compassion on me, the sinner” and who “went down to his house justified”, Luke 18: 13. What a Saviour He is; He forgives them all, and while God knows them all the wonderful thing is, that having put your faith and trust in the work of Jesus and being cleansed by His precious blood God will not remember them any more! That is a wonderful thing. It has often been said we cannot ‘not remember’, we can forget things, but take a sin of yours and try to not remember it, and it will come to the forefront of your mind. Yet they are all washed away in the blood of Jesus as we come to Him, acknowledge our need of a Saviour, and ask Him to forgive us. He is willing to do it! All we need to do is come to Him. The enemy will bring them up before us; he will try to accuse us; he does that: he accuses us, and he seeks to make us uncertain, but once our faith and trust is in Jesus our salvation is secure for eternity! It cannot be taken away from you; do you know that? Once you put your faith and trust in Jesus, once your sins are forgiven, you are safe and secure for eternity; nobody and nothing can ever take that away from you, beloved. Some preach that you can be saved today and lost tomorrow; that is untrue. Saying things like that means that your salvation depends on you, and your salvation does not depend on you: it depends on the precious work of Jesus, which is perfect in every way. All we need to do is have faith and believe.
I read in chapter 16 of John because once you know your sins are forgiven, and you know that Jesus is your Saviour, He gives another Comforter to you. The Lord is not here any more; not only did He die and shed His precious blood and lie in the grave but He rose again! You read of it further on from where we read in John 19 which shows you that, that Jesus rose again. He is living and glorified, and that is where the word of the preaching comes from; it comes from heaven. It is God’s word, God’s glad tidings, and it speaks of a living Saviour. There would not be much point me preaching here of someone still in the grave. What would be the point of that? We may as well all go home if Jesus is in the grave! But He is not! He is a risen, living and glorified Man. In our scripture in John, Thomas says in that passage, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe”. That is what Thomas said, and it is where that expression comes from, ‘doubting Thomas’. But then Jesus showed him, and said to him, “blessed they who have not seen and believed”; that is for us! We cannot see Him just now, not actually (we will, but not just now), and the blessing now is in the believing and knowing that He is a living glorified Saviour.
It says here, “It is profitable for you that I go away”; the Lord is gone, but be assured of this: He has sent the Holy Spirit. Do you have Him for yourself? It is a simple matter of asking, and the Holy Spirit would magnify the Lord Jesus to us. He comes and makes His abode with the believer, and He makes precious to us the things that are of the Lord Jesus. He strengthens our faith; He helps us in our pathway, He is always there and He will not leave us forever! He will be with us now and He will be with us then! What a precious gift it is; do you know Him for yourself? Do you have the Holy Spirit? If you are not sure just ask the Father, He will give Him, and He will be with you every step of the way.
I finish in Revelation; it is the “Revelation of Jesus Christ” which John was given to write down. It says, “To him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins”; that is the One who we have been speaking of, the same blessed living Man, and it says, “Behold he comes with the clouds, and every eye shall see him”. That is another thing to be assured of and to know in your heart that the Lord Jesus will return. This moment that we are speaking of is what we speak of as His appearing, it says “every eye”: the world will see Him again. The last they saw of Him publicly was on a cross, yet they will see Him again: “every eye will see him”! Every knee, we read elsewhere, will bow to Him (Phil 2: 10), but before that He comes into the air to call His own (what is known as the rapture); all who love Him are caught away. Beloved, do not be left behind. Do you know that your name will be called? If you have put your faith and trust in Him and you know Him as your Saviour you will go! You will go to be with Him and nothing and nobody can stop that! Wherever you may be, you may be at school, you may be at work, you may be on holiday, you may be sitting in the preaching; if you belong to Jesus when He comes, you will go! What a hope we have. Do you know these things? Do you know God is for you! Do you know Jesus has died and shed His precious blood for you? Do you know your sins forgiven; I trust you do! Do you know the Holy Spirit’s presence? Do you know that your name will be called when He comes for His own? What a hope we have to look forward to; may it be yours. May that hope be magnified in our hearts; what a Saviour He is and, what a God we have to do with. May we indeed belong to Him and know Him for ourselves, the Lord Jesus Christ, our personal Saviour.
May He bless the word for His Name’s sake.
Strood
28th November 2021