Delineation of God's Love

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If you have your
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Bibles with you, I invite you to take them out and turn to John 3 and hold your place again at verse 16.
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John 3 and verse 16.
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This will be the third of three messages on John 3 .16
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and so, Lord willing, next week we will continue on in our study of John.
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We have stopped here at this verse to examine it closely and we have looked at it in three parts.
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We have looked at it as per its three clauses.
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For God so loved the world, that clause is the declaration of God's love.
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That he sent his only begotten son, that is the demonstration of God's love.
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And today we will look at the delineation of God's love.
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Delineation to understand the specifics of something or to mark out something, to assign a border to something, that is to delineate.
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And today we will see that while God's love has been declared to the world, he shows a particular love to those he calls his.
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So let's stand together and we're going to read and pray and ask that God will be among us as we study.
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For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
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Father in heaven I pray that as we open your word today and as we seek to complete our study of this important text,
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Lord I pray that you would, as I pray every week, and I plead at your mercy to keep me from error, particularly on a day like today when we will be dealing with what it means to believe, what it means to perish, and what it means to have everlasting life.
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These are things about which, Lord, we dare not trifle, for these things are eternal truths with eternal consequence.
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So I pray, O God, for your mercy upon the message and upon the hearer of the message.
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And as the words go out today, I pray that your spirit would use those words to apply the truths to the hearts of those who hear.
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And Lord God, for the believers, that they would be more closely conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, that they would be increased in their knowledge of him and in their sanctification.
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And Lord, that they would be blessed to have been under the preaching of the word.
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And Lord, for those who are not yet your people, who have yet to bow the knee to the
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Lord Jesus Christ, that today would be a day of reckoning for their souls.
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And you, O God, would by your mercy open their eyes to see, open their ears to hear, and open their heart to receive the word of God and be saved.
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Lord, only you can do those things. So we trust you.
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In Jesus' name, amen. Does God love everyone in the same way?
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Does God love everyone in the same way?
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Often we will hear people talk about God's love, and they will talk in terms of universal, unconditional, and equal.
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Those are the three things you'll often hear. People say that God's love is universal, unconditional, and equal.
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But if you look into the scriptures, you will see that God shows a distinction in his affection between those who are in covenant with him and those who are not.
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Throughout the Old Testament, we read of God's particular affection set upon the people of Israel.
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Amos chapter 3, verse 2, the prophet speaks to Israel and says, in the place of God, speaking for God, you have
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I known of all the nations of the world. And the word know there doesn't simply mean to take in knowledge.
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It isn't as if God didn't know the Amorites, or God didn't know the Amalekites, or God didn't know the
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Canaanites. Certainly he knew every hair on every head of every person that's ever lived. God knows everyone.
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But when God says to Israel, you have I known of all the nations of the world, he's speaking of a particular fidelity.
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He's speaking of a particular relationship. He's speaking of a particular affection.
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He's speaking of a particular love. And so, while we can say that God does have a benevolence which extends towards all men, and we talked about that two weeks ago, we can also say that God's redemptive affection is experienced only by those who are in covenant with him.
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Let me say that again. While the general benevolence of God extends to all men and is seen in all kinds of different ways, the particular redemptive affection of God is experienced only by those who are in covenant with him.
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Again, and this is the idea that is contained in the third clause of John 3, verse 16.
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God has declared his love. In this way, God loved the world.
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God has demonstrated his love, that he sent his only begotten son.
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But who will be the ones who experience that love?
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Who will be the ones who actually benefit from that redemptive love?
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Who will be the ones who not only have that redemptive love experienced in this life, but also in the life to come?
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Only those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
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That's it. Those who reject the son have rejected the extension of God's love, and essentially in the end will not experience his love in eternity.
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We are in John 3 again, and for those who are new with us, I want to welcome you and say
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I'm glad to see that you're here. The only thing that is negative about visiting our church is that you will always come in in the middle of a series.
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We don't do anything but series, so very seldom do we do a one -off sermon.
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So you have come in today in the middle of a verse -by -verse study of the
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Gospel of John, and as I mentioned earlier, you've come at the end of a three -part study of John 3, verse 16.
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This passage fits within a context which I have explained over the last several weeks.
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Jesus is speaking in the room with Nicodemus, who's come to him at night.
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Nicodemus is a Pharisee, a teacher of the Jewish people, a member of the Sanhedrin, which was the
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Jewish law court. He has come to Jesus by night, and he is interacting with Jesus, asking him questions.
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Jesus is telling him things about what it means to be born again, why you must be born again. Nicodemus is confused.
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Jesus is trying to clarify, and at one point, Jesus uses an Old Testament example.
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He says, That's the phrase, that's the phrase that is then repeated in John 3, verse 16.
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John 3, verse 16 is a commentary on John 3, verse 14 and 15.
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John 3, 14 and 15, Jesus gives the Old Testament analog as the serpent, which was the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness.
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He says, I believe it's referring to him being lifted up on the cross, that whosoever believes in him.
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In the same way that Moses said, if you've been bitten by the serpent, look to the bronze serpent and you will be healed.
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Jesus says, all of you who have sin and need forgiveness, look to the cross, look to Christ's work, look to him, and you will be saved.
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This is the analogy. This is the analog. This is what John 3, verse 16 is.
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It's a commentary on Jesus' words. And John 3, verse 16, as I said, is three parts.
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And today we will look at what is known as the Hinnah Clause of John 3, verse 16.
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Now the phrase Hinnah, it means the purpose of something.
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The purpose of something. So in John 3, verse 16, it says, In this way God loved the world, that he gave his only begotten
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Son. And at that point in the text, this word, this clause,
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Hinnah is included and it means for this reason or for this purpose.
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This is the intended goal of the action. That's what this means. The intended goal of the action.
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In the King James, it's the word so. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
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Son. So that, whosoever believes, right? So that. That's it. In order that.
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For this purpose. For this purpose is why God sent his Son. And what is the purpose that God sent his
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Son? So that everyone who believes in him will not perish but will have everlasting life.
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That is the purpose for which God sent his Son. And so today,
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I'm going to break down this final clause into three parts. We're going to look first at the requirement of salvation.
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Whoever believes in him. And then we are going to look at the ruin without salvation.
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Should not perish. And then we're going to conclude by looking at the result of salvation.
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But have eternal life. I love threes. I just like to break things into three.
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I guess it's something in my Baptist blood. Baptists just love to make things into three parts.
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But let's look first at the requirement of salvation. Whoever believes in him.
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In the King James it says, whosoever believes in him. And many of us are very familiar with this word.
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Many of us grew up memorizing scripture. And the one scripture we all probably memorized at least somewhere toward the top of the list was
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John 3 .16. And most of us probably memorized it. Especially those from my generation and before.
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Or probably memorized it somewhere in the King James or that style. Whereas for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him.
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Whosoever is a word which has brought both comfort and conflict in its wake.
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It is a word that brings both comfort and conflict. It is comfort because when we hear the word whosoever it seems to be indicating that the gospel is open to anyone.
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If I say whoever, whosoever believes that has at least a connotation of it's available for whoever wants it.
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It's available to whoever will take it. If I walked out onto the communion table and I sat down a bowl and in that bowl were some of those real soft mints that you all love to have.
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We can't keep them in the church because when we put them out they go quick. If I put and I said whoever wants one can come get it.
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Well it wouldn't last very long, not among you. You guys love them so much and I love them too.
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But that sounds like an open invitation and in one sense it is. In one sense it is an open invitation.
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When I go and preach the gospel no matter where I am whether I'm on the church or in the church or whether I'm on the street or whether I'm in a small group of people when
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I preach the gospel I can say whosoever believes in him will not perish.
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I have no problem giving an absolute and open invitation to believe on the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And so some would say well
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Keith you're a Calvinist therefore you don't believe in whosoever will. No I do. I believe in whosoever will come.
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And I'm going to explain more in just a moment but I just want to get past the hurdle of this issue of this word does it mean anyone can come?
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No. But what it does mean is that anyone who does come will be saved.
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But what keeps a man from coming? Our sinful heart keeps us from coming.
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Our sinful heart keeps us from believing. The Bible uses many examples of God saying that men in their fallen nature do not desire to come.
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They do not want to come. But that doesn't mean the offer is not extended.
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I'll tell you this about reformed theology, Calvinism one of the most common objections
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I've ever heard and it is common and again I talk to a lot of people and I hear objections from a lot of people
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I get emails every week from people who object and if you think I'm exaggerating I promise
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I'm not. One of the objections that is common is when people will say in regard to this issue they'll say well
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I just don't believe that if somebody wanted to come that God wouldn't let them.
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Neither do I! That's kooky talk. Nobody believes that.
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The issue is nobody wants to come, right? It's God who is going to open their heart to believe but I'm going to tell you this if you want to come, come.
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Nobody here is going to hold you back and try to examine your body to see if there's an E tattooed on you to see if you're elect.
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Now Mike's got elect on him but you know what I'm talking about. Charles Spurgeon said that.
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He said we don't go around lifting up people's shirts to see if they have an E tattooed on their back. We simply say whosoever will believe because I don't know who the elect are and I'm so glad that I'm not burdened with that knowledge because without being burdened with that knowledge guess what
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I have? Freedom to preach to whosoever will. I have the freedom to preach if you believe you will have eternal life.
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That's a comfort to me that I can preach a free offer of the gospel to any man.
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But as I said, the conflict arises. The conflict arises because those who do not like reform theology, whatever you want to call it the doctrines of grace they'll often use the word whosoever will to deny divine election.
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They'll say well if God chooses then it's not whosoever will. But there is no conflict between these two and I want to read to you directly from someone who might know a little something about Calvinism.
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I'm going to read to you from Calvin if that helps. And this is Calvin's commentary on this passage.
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He says While life is promised universally to all who believe in Christ still faith is not common to all.
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Let me say that again. While life is promised universally to all who believe in Christ still faith is not common to all.
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For Christ is made known and held out to the view of all. But the elect alone are those whose eyes
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God opens that they may seek Him by faith. That's it.
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The offer is held out to all. In fact that's the word whosoever is the
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Greek word for all. We translate it whosoever but the
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Greek word is the word pos. The word pos is the word all.
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In fact the phrase that is translated whosoever believeth in Him is actually pos hapistoum.
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The Greek says all the ones believing. All the ones believing.
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So now walk back. In this way God loved the world that He gave
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His only begotten Son so that all the ones believing in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.
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All the ones believing. That is who is saved. So I can say to you this morning if you are among all the ones believing you are saved.
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If you're not yet among all the ones believing I say believe. But if you are not among all the ones believing you will indeed perish.
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That's what John 3 .16 is saying. So we now must ask ourselves what does it mean to believe?
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What does it mean to be among the believing? It's interesting because in our
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English language we have all kinds of words for belief. Faith, trust, confidence.
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All of those are words for belief. In the
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Greek language there's one word which covers all of that. It is the word pistis or pistou in this particular construction and it is the word which we translate believe but I think is probably better translated to trust.
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To trust. I've explained this before and I've used this illustration before and I don't use illustrations over and over because I lack creativity which
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I might but I use illustrations over and over because I think that they're good and I want you to put them in your own personal bag of stuff that you remember.
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Remember the rule is repetition is the key to learning and the key to learning is repetition.
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See how that works. When we talk about the definition of faith
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I think the best example is the parachute and you've heard me talk about this before because I know in my heart
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I know what a parachute can do. I've seen it. I've seen men jump from airplanes and I've seen parachutes expand and guide them to the ground safely.
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So I know what a parachute can do. I even believe that a parachute can work because not only have
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I seen it but I know people who have done it and they've shared their experience with me but I ain't jumping out no plane because I don't trust
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I barely trust the plane but I sure enough ain't going to jump out with nothing between me and the earth but a big old piece of vinyl strapped to my back.
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I don't have trust I don't know if it's not made of vinyl you can tell me later whatever it's made out of but I know that that ain't that ain't where I'm placing my trust.
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And when God calls us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ He's not calling us just to know who
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He is and He's not calling us just to accept a list of facts about what
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He is and what He did but He's calling us to trust in Him. He's calling us to rest on Him in the same way if a person, when that person does jump out of that plane they're putting all their trust into that parachute and Jesus has said
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He wants us to put all our trust in Him. He wants us to put nothing else to our trust in nothing else but Him.
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He wants us to rest in Him and what He did. Whosoever believes, whosoever trusts in Him that's the idea of John 3 .16
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and I want to add to that also the idea that the word believe here is in the present tense.
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What does that mean? That means it has the idea of ongoing, continuous action.
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This is not about a one -time decision. In the Greek grammar the present participle implies the subject is continually believing, not merely having believed at one moment in the past.
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It is not teaching salvation from a single past act of belief but through a life characterized by ongoing trust.
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I'm going to quote Mike Collier. He's sitting right there.
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Mike Collier preached this text five years ago for a Christmas series we were doing and in that sermon he said this.
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Temporary faith does not save. Hey, you amened yourself.
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But it's true. I went back and listened to the message. I was thankful how much we agreed and how many of the same things that we've said.
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That's always good to hear. But the thing that he was talking about, how this is a present tense idea, believe.
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Because often, especially Baptists often will say when did you believe in Jesus?
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Well, when I was seven I believed in Jesus or when I was twelve I believed in Jesus, right? That's the idea.
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The idea is I believed then. What have you done for me lately? Maybe that's the wrong way of saying that.
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Do you believe today? When somebody says I believed when I was seven, do you believe today?
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Do you believe today? And I didn't mean when I said what have you done for me lately? I'm saying about me.
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You know, I'm just joking. The idea here in the text is that our faith doesn't come one time and then go away.
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But the faith that is planted in us at regeneration, the faith that comes at the rebirth of our soul grows and grows and continues to grow so we continue in the faith.
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What is it according to Scripture that marks out the person who does not have genuine faith?
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It's the person who walks away. Jesus told the story of the seeds.
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Seed fell among the pathway. It was eaten up immediately. Birds took it away. Didn't even make it into the ground.
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But there were two other kinds of seeds. One seed fell among rocky soil. One seed fell among weeded soil. And then there was the seed that fell in the good soil.
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What did the good soil do? It went on to produce fruit. I have had this debate several times with Baptists because I am a
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Baptist. But this is an issue among Baptists. The idea that if you have a one -time experience of belief that that's salvation.
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A one -time experience of belief that does not continue is not salvation.
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A one -time experience of faith that does not continue is what we call false faith.
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Jesus said they sprung up but they withered. Why? Because they had no root.
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They withered because they had no root. This is why particularly among young people, while I will affirm them in their belief if they say
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I believe, we don't automatically assume that that faith is genuine.
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We want to see that faith grow because it's easy, especially, and I have children.
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So let me talk about this. My children are all in that except for my two adult children,
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I have children between the ages of two and twelve. And they're all in that stage where they really want to please mom and daddy.
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They really want to do what mom and daddy wanted to do. And it's easy to say, yeah,
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I believe. I believe like mom and daddy. I do. And I want to affirm that. And I do. I don't squash their faith.
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I don't say you're not really a believer. I'm not. That would be terrible. But I also don't automatically assume that this is real faith because let me tell you my own testimony on this.
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I was eight years old in this church. I've been in this church since I was seven. Different building, but same church.
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When I was eight years old, a year after I came here, I confessed faith in Jesus and was baptized.
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But I did not really believe. And how do I know I didn't really believe? Because I lived as a teenager, and I know
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I wasn't believing as a teenager. And I know when I was 19 years old,
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God changed my heart. And I know the difference between what
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I did at eight and what changed in my life at 19. How many of you today, if I were to ask you when you got saved, you would go back to some kind of moment in your life.
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You'd say, this is the moment. I know when it happened. Some of you would say, I don't know. I just know I believe today.
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That's fine. You may not know when that moment took place, but do you believe today? That's the key.
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Because if you say, well, I believed when I was seven and today you don't believe, that's a problem.
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That's a problem. I am not saying that a person can lose their salvation, but I am saying that it is possible to confess faith that you don't possess.
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You can confess a faith that you don't possess. Why do you think the scriptures continually command us to evaluate ourselves?
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To evaluate ourselves? That's what we do every
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Sunday, by the way. What does 1 Corinthians 11 tell us to do when we come to the table?
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Examine yourselves. Examine yourselves. That doesn't mean we live in a constant state of fear, or a constant state of doubt and dread that maybe
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I'm not saved. But we are called to examine ourselves.
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The apostle Peter says in his letters that we are to make our calling and election certain.
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Again, I'm a good Baptist, but I don't like it when I hear Baptists say, oh, you should never question.
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Never? You should never examine yourself? I think we should.
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I think we should be honest with ourselves. Now, one more thought on believe, and then
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I'm going to move on. Notice it says, whoever believes in Him.
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The object of the faith is the Son. And it says that specifically because faith itself, belief itself, does not save apart from the object of faith.
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You'll hear people a lot talk about faith, and the power of faith, and the things you can do. Faith will give you this amazing ability.
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Faith, faith, faith. Faith is only as good as the object that you're trusting in.
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If you are here today and you are trusting in something other than the Lord Jesus Christ, and you have great faith in that thing, you're still going to go to hell.
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Because the object of the faith is what matters. But if you are here today, and your faith is weak, and you're struggling, but it's in the right thing, then you're saved.
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Because it's the object that gives strength to the faith, not the faith that gives weight to the object.
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I'll give you another illustration. And this one is a little self -deprecating, but I'll tell it to you anyway.
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When I was 19, Jennifer and I got married. It was right before I got saved, actually.
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And our first apartment, well, second apartment, was Island Point Apartments over here on Broward Road. We thought we was rich.
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Because it was under water, and it had a porch. And that porch needed some porch furniture.
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So we went to Walmart, and I was looking at those white molded chairs that go on the...
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And there was two kinds. There was the $10 white molded chair, and there was the $5 white molded chair.
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And I thought, you know, as poor as I am, I could have two chairs if I go with the $5 chair for the price of what it cost me for one $10 chair.
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But I got to test it. So I took the $5 chair, and I set it on the ground of Walmart, right in the middle of the aisle.
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And I sat down in that chair, and like someone had put a piece of dynamite on it, it exploded out from underneath me.
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I landed flat on my back with pieces of plastic everywhere. And the lady at Walmart who worked there, who was about 100 feet from me, just laughed and laughed.
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I tell this story only because I thought that chair would hold me, but it did not.
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What matters is what you put your faith in.
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If you have placed your faith in anything other than Jesus Christ, it will not hold you. It will collapse on you and at judgment you will be found wanting.
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Whosoever believes, not in anything, not sincerely in all the different religions of the world, whosoever believes in Him and Him alone.
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He said, I am the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the
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Father except through me. There's only one who deserves our trust and that's the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Alright, so let's move to the second part. This is the ruin without salvation.
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I'm going to move through these a little bit more quickly because it says whosoever believes in Him should not perish.
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Should not perish. The word perish here means to be destroyed, to be put to an end or to be ruined.
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It's used several times throughout the Bible, almost always it's associated with God's judgment and wrath.
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In Mark's gospel, Jesus is speaking to the man who has the demons and he says, have you come to destroy us?
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Remember the demon said that to Jesus? Have you come to destroy us? That's the same word here as the word perish. Luke 17,
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Jesus is talking about Noah and the ark and he said they were eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them.
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And then he goes on in Luke 17 to talk about Sodom and he says fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them.
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And in Jude 5, it says I want to remind you that although you fully knew it that Jesus who saved a people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
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The word destroy is associated with the wrath of God. The word perish is associated with the wrath of God.
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If there's anything that is very unpopular today, it is the idea that God expresses
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His wrath against those who reject Him. But the Bible is crystal clear on this subject.
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And so when it says should not perish, this is referring to the wrath that will be experienced by those who do not believe.
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In the weeks to come, we're going to talk about the word condemnation. Because it goes on in John 3. We're going to look at verses 17 to 21 next week and we're going to see that word condemned come up.
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They were condemned already, it says. They were condemned already.
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That's the idea here. Those who believe will not perish. There are different ways that people understand that word perish.
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Some people reject it. Some people believe in something called universalism. Universalism says no one really perishes.
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Everybody eventually goes to heaven. There was a book years ago, came out, it was called Love Wins. It was by a preacher named
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Rob Bell. Rob Bell did not endorse a full universalism but he did open the idea up that God, through His love, will eventually redeem every person.
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Why would someone believe that? Because it's comforting. That's why.
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But the Bible does not teach that. There are others who believe in something called conditional mortality.
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Also known as, or sometimes called conditional immortality, depending on who you talk to. And that is the doctrine of annihilationism.
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This is the idea that when someone perishes, they simply cease to exist. And again, that's comforting.
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And I will say, there are certain passages that seem to lean in that direction.
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I mean, there are certain passages which talk about the dead giving up their dead, poured into the lake of fire, and some people believe that's the moment where they just simply cease to exist.
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But it has been the overwhelming consensus of scholars since the early church and even into the all throughout the church age that what is being referred to when we talk about what happens to the lost is something called eternal conscious torment.
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ECT. That's a sterile way of saying it. But it is eternal punishment.
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Conscious because they know it's happening. And it is without end.
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People will say, why such a tremendous penalty? How can a finite sin bring about an infinite punishment?
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And the answer is because you have offended an infinite God. Others will say, how could
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Jesus' temporary death on the cross satisfy an infinite punishment?
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And the answer is, because of Jesus' divine nature, He could satisfy in a moment what it would take you in infinity to accomplish.
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The sobering truth of John 3 .16 is that it unambiguously states that those who believe will not perish, which means those who do not believe will.
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Those who do not believe will perish. And that should cause us all to take this very seriously.
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As I said in my opening prayer this morning, we are not dealing with trifling things. We are dealing with eternal things and things of eternal consequence.
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And that leads us to our last thing and that is the result of salvation. Whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
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The word eternal here means without ending, everlasting, and the word life here means spiritual life, life that is enjoyed with God, true life.
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It's not the Greek word bios, which simply refers to our physical experience, but it is life, zoe.
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Zoe is named after that, I believe. The concept of eternal life is both incredibly sensible and also incredibly outrageous.
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It's incredibly sensible and incredibly outrageous and I want to explain to you what I mean by that.
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We are the only creature on this planet that knows from a very young age that we're going to die. Think of that.
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We're the only creature on this planet that has the self -awareness and the cognition to understand from a very young age that we are going to die one day.
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And we always tell, we say, oh well death is natural, it's just a part of life.
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But you know that ain't right. You know every time someone dies it doesn't feel right.
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Because the Bible says God has set eternity in the hearts of men. We can talk about how natural it is all day long and how it's just a part of life all day long, but you know that gut feeling that comes when someone dies and you say it just doesn't feel like it ought to be this way.
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And the reason why is it ain't. When God made man, He made man to live and death was an intruder in God's good world.
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Death is an enemy which came into God's good world.
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And Jesus Christ when
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He was on the cross and He died and He was buried and He rose again. He rose again to demonstrate that He had conquered death.
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Now I'm a firm believer in what's called penal substitutionary atonement. I believe in the atonement
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Christ took our penalty, acted as our substitute and provided us atonement. But there are other aspects of the atonement that we should not deny simply because we affirm penal substitution.
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And another one of the aspects of the atonement that we can affirm as Christians is something called
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Christus Victor. Christus Victor is Latin for Christ the victorious one.
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Because we believe He actually as the one who conquered death was victorious when
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He came out of the grave. And we can say not only has He taken our punishment, not only has
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He received in Himself what we deserved, not only has He provided us the righteousness that we were so desperately lacking, but He also defeated our greatest enemy.
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Christ the warrior went against our foe and He won.
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And He won the victory for us. So we can say whosoever believes in Him will never perish.
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You say, but I'm going to die one day. No, no, no. You will die, but you won't perish.
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Your body will go into the ground, your spirit will be with the Lord and then one day when
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He returns in glory, your body will come out of the ground or out of the urn or whatever it's in.
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It will be reunited with your soul and you will stand body and soul before the
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Lord your God and be with Him forever because He has won the victory over death.
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Our greatest enemy was defeated by our Savior. Therefore we can say if you believe in Him you won't perish but you will have eternal life.
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Your eternal life begins when you believe. You're never going to be more saved or less saved than you are when you trust in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. But your eternal life continues even when this life ends and it culminates in that final day when you're with the
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Lord forever. So I ask you this morning as we close if you're a believer on the
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Lord Jesus Christ, do you look forward to that day? Do you live every day in expectation of that coming day when you will be with the
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Lord forever? Do you long for that moment when you see Him face to face?
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In just a minute we're going to take communion.
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And we're going to come as it were face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ. He said when you take this cup and you take this bread you remember me.
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You withhold or behold that which is the symbol of my presence with you. And if you're a believer this morning whether you're a member of this church or whether you're a visitor from another church as long as you are not under discipline from another church and as long as you have in your conscience come prepared to take the
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Lord's Supper you are welcome to participate. And remember what Christ has done. But if you're not a believer
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I want to go back to what I said at the beginning of the message. Whoever believes in Him if you believe you will have eternal life.
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What's keeping you from it this morning? What is keeping you from believing on the
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Lord Jesus Christ? It's not the facts. The facts are in His favor. What's keeping you from trusting the
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Lord Jesus Christ? Let's pray. Father I thank you.
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I thank you for this passage which we have had the last three weeks to examine.
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May it be oh God that through this examination you would save souls. And that you would enlighten those who have been saved towards a closer conformity to the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Father thank you for your word. Thank you for your
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Son. And thank you that it is through faith in Him and Him alone that we can have life forever.