Jesus Christ, The Discerner of Hearts: Part 1

Well, I'd like to minister to your hearts this morning. Actually, this is a good follow-up to what Brother Ben preached last Lord's Day. I thank God for, like I said before, these men that Brother Keith has filled in before.

And Brother Ben actually preached for us for the first time since he's been with us in five years. And I was so blessed. The kingdom of God suffers violence. The violent take it by force. Holy violence.

Heavenly violence. And I can say in a sense that what the text we're looking at today is concerns the kingdom of God. Did not Jesus say in Matthew 6 .33, a great great verse, but seek ye first, first, the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other things will be added unto you.

Is there anything more important in this world than our eternal soul to enter in at the straight gate, the narrow way, into the kingdom of God? And everything here in our text is actually speaking about the kingdom of God.

And this will be a part one, but part two I'd like to pick up a little bit more and go into. But if you notice at the end of chapter two of our text in the Gospel of John, so please turn and open your Bible there with me as we continue this study through the Gospel of John.

And we're looking at chapter two in verses of verse 23, 24, and 25. But if you notice this is at the end, this is the context of what is about to be said in chapter three. And Nicodemus, it's interesting that Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews.

And as you well know in chapter three, he comes to Jesus by night and he asks the question. Now actually he says a comment, let me say this. Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God and no one can do these, what?

Signs, these miracles that you do unless God is with them. It's interesting that Nicodemus mentions signs and miracles because here is Jesus when he was in Jerusalem. Let's look at the text. And hear the word of the living God.

Verse 23 of chapter two, speaking of Jesus as the discerner of hearts, the discerner of hearts. And the text says this, now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did.

But, it's interesting that a but is there. You would think, oh wow, hallelujah, this is a tremendous statement. People's coming to the Lord Jesus, many are believing. But isn't it shocking, isn't it shocking, right here in verse 24, there's a but.

But Jesus did not commit himself to them because he knew all men and had no need that anyone should testify of man for he knew what was in man.

What a powerful, shocking verse.

A shocking verse, but a powerful verse, one that we all need to hear in its context. And we're going to carefully look at this within this hour.

Excuse me here, let me get something to clear my scratchy throat.

But here within this text, we pick up in our study at the end of chapter two. And it's interesting that Nicodemus brings this up, that the signs that you do unless God is with them, more than likely that here at the Jerusalem at the Passover, Nicodemus is there, right?

And he sees these miracles that Jesus is doing. As a matter of fact, as John continues his account in the first visit of Jesus to Jerusalem that's recorded in his gospel, we have seen so far in verse 1 to 12, how that the Lord turned the water into wine at the wedding at Canaan in Galilee, which was, by the way, the beginning, the beginning of signs.

If you look at verse 11, the beginning of signs, the beginning of miracles, Jesus did in Canaan in Galilee and manifested his glory. And then we see Jesus, as we have seen, we saw this in two messages, in verse 13 to 22, Jesus is cleansing the temple in Jerusalem at the Passover, his father's house.

He did the father's business and he cleansed his father's house. They made it into a den of thieves, he says, in another gospel, another synoptic gospel, but here they actually polluted it with merchandise and selling and buying and so forth.

And he cleansed it, so we saw the holiness of Jesus in that text. So as he cleanses his father's house with great zeal, zeal from the Lord, a zeal that actually consumed him, that consumed the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now we pick up, here it is, verse 23, and as we read to the end of the chapter to verse 25, this, folks, is a great text, a great, great text. And we're going to look at this today and, Lord willing, next Lord's Day as we come to this wonderful, marvelous text.

So may God bless his time and as we bless him, bless our time, bless as we bless him, as we have heard his word, please bow with me in prayer as we look to him within this hour as we seek our Lord. Our Father and our God, how great and marvelous you are, high and holy, majestic, robed in majesty and holiness.

And even now, angels bow before you, the angelic host by the armies hide their faces from your magnificence and your holiness. And the saints worship you perfectly in heaven. And, Lord, here we are, the church militant.

Not yet the church triumphant, but one day we'll be. But we join in with the church triumphant, Lord, in worshiping you and your holiness and majesty. But yet, Lord, not only are you righteous and holy, you're merciful and good and patient and loving toward all of us.

And we thank you for this this morning that you have showed such great patience toward us through your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And, Father, we beseech you at this time now, as we look into this text, to help each and every one of us.

Lord, our greatest need within this hour is yourself within the church. Lord, we need a vision of yourself, a vision of God, high and lifted up. And, Lord, all we have to do is turn into the word of God and you speak to us about this.

So, Lord, we don't need another experience. We need you. Yes, we can experience you in the beauty and worship you in the beauty of your holiness. But, Lord, it's not experiences we live on.

We live by faith.

Faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us. So, Father, we just praise you for this time that we have together. And, dear Lord, I pray that you would help us in this time of need through your son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Lord, we ask help of your blessed Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of holiness, to aid us, to guide us, to teach us, and to all truth. Because the real teacher is your Holy Spirit, Lord. It's not this speaker here.

I'm just a messenger just bringing the meal before your people. So, Father, we open our mouths wide to receive of your word. And, Lord, our prayer is with the psalmist in the Psalter, in chapter 119 of Psalms.

And he says this, Teach me, O Lord, teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I shall keep it to the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep your law. Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart.

Lord, I pray this for each and every one of us, that that will be our response to your word.

Not to just be hearers, but to be doers.

And we ask this for your honor and glory in the name of the Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

The Church’s Greatest Needs: Repentance, Discernment, and Reform

Now, within this grave hour, I'd like to begin by saying this. I've mentioned the kingdom of God already, and I think that's paramount. I think that's probably the singular most important thing that any of us are facing today.

Because you and I are an eternal soul. We will be living in eternity. A hundred years for eternity from this moment in the future. A thousand years. A million years. And it is critical that we look at this text and know how important it is that we have an authentic, genuine faith.

Let me begin by saying this. Within this grave hour, this perilous hour in our history, at the church in the light of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ that is so very, very near, we just don't look at signs.

Jesus says, wicked and adulterous generations seek signs, don't they? We have the word of God. And Jesus is soon to come back, and He's going to catch people off guard and unawares, and they will not be watching, they will not be expecting it.

The Lord Jesus Christ will come back in great power and glory with the sound of a trumpet, and He's going to take His bride away. We know that this is coming soon. The Scriptures are constantly filled, all the way from all the prophets in the Old Testament to the Lord Jesus Himself, and all the way through the end of the book, the last book that's within these 66 books, the book of the revelation of Jesus Christ, and it closes with, even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

So we need to be ready. But within this hour, the church, the body of Christ, there is a great need, there's a desperate need. Now, we can list the needs that she's in. Many needs of the church that Jesus, of the Lord Jesus has at this time.

I wrote, jotted these down, and the ones that came to my mind was some of these, and I'm sure you have others that are very important, but based upon the hour in which we live, that we know that in the last days, perilous times will come.

One of the great needs, there's no doubt, is for the church to come to true repentance. I believe repentance needs to be preached. The gospel needs to be preached, and actually, it seems like we've departed from the preached word of the gospel, true repentance and true belief, of what the gospel is about, that it's justification by faith alone.

We would all agree with that, no doubt, that we need to return to the basic core truths of the gospel. That great truth is no doubt paramount as well. That's one I jotted down, come to true repentance.

Another great need would be to have a revival, and I speak of a revival not as good meetings, good gatherings, even for weeks. When I speak of a revival, I'm talking about a total change in the moral climate of a whole entire community coming to real brokenness and repentance, a conversion is taking place, and people coming to the Lord Jesus Christ and repenting of their sin, and we see a great revival of repentance and conversion.

But there also needs to be a revival of the majesty and the holiness of God within the church, and this is another great need that we are very desperate of. We don't see much of the majesty and the holiness of God.

We see too much of men. We see too much of preachers being glorified. We need to see the Lord Jesus Christ once again exalted in His rightful place because He is the Lord of the church. He's the King of glory.

Also, another one I would like to put right in there would be for the church to have, I would say, another or a fresh reform as in the days of Luther where at that time in the dark ages, as you well know of, that Luther lived in pretty hard, dark times when the church was the authority and not the word of God, and there was abuses of indulgences.

The people were the poor. The church was just like Jesus saw in Jerusalem that they were taking advantage of the poor.

And taking their money,.

And as Luther saw Tetzel, this priest, selling indulgences and these people, very poor, giving all that they had to these indulgences and somewhat deceived because they could not read Latin, they bought these indulgences and spent much money for them thinking that somehow these indulgences, which were lies, that was drawn up from Pope Leo at that time deceiving people to get into eternity.

Such a deception. And the church was doing this. The church was astray. God used one man by the name of Martin Luther, the reformer, and he did nothing new. He actually took the gospel, the word of God, the just shall live by faith alone, and God used this man to help reform the church.

And you notice what I said.

Help reform the church.

The word of God reformed the church, but God used Luther as a vehicle. In this hour, we need a reform, folks. A reform that will change the total climate of the entire church and come back to the old paths that she has forsaken and which the church has forsaken that has caused so much grief and pain to the heart of God.

Now, I could say much, much more about that topic, but let me move on. All that and much, much more, and I'm sure you can give more on that list as well, that the church stands in great need. And yet there's another need, and I've already touched on it somewhat, and the first is that we need to come to repentance.

The church needs to come to repentance that will cover that list that I just mentioned, and that is given to us by our Lord and that is so easily overlooked, beloved. Turn with me very quickly, and I want you to see this.

It's overlooked in Revelation 3. And we see that in chapter 3 that the Lord speaks to these churches in Asia Minor. Chapter 3, the last church that gets the letter is the lukewarm church. Now, he says in verse 14, and to the angel of the church, and basically the angel is speaking of the messenger.

It's the leader, the elder, the pastor. You can actually put it that way, to the messenger or the angel of the church of the Laodiceans, right? These things says, Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

Jesus says this,.

I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot, and I could wish that you were cold or hot, so then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. This is the church, folks.

Listen to this in this time period.

Jesus himself is given this great warning.

Verse 17, because you say, I am rich, I have become wealthy, I have need of nothing, and do not know, and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. And then he says this, he gives counsel here.

Verse 18, I counsel you to buy from me gold, gold from me, gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich, and white garments, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness be not revealed, and anoint your eyes with eyesalve, and that you may see, and as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.

Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and eat with me. And to him who overcomes, I will grant to him, I will grant to sit with me on my throne, and as I have overcame, and sat down with my father on his throne.

And then he says this, and he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Now, the great need of the church, no doubt, is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Rather than allowing for the common interpretation that most people give to this, of Christ knocking on your heart's door for an invitation to come and say a sinner's prayer, which is, by the way, not the context here.

So many evangelists and preachers have used this as that context, but here is Christ speaking to the church, and actually it is a call to repentance. The context demands that Christ was seeking to enter into his church that bore his holy name, his own church.

He's the Lord of the church, and here he was on the outside knocking. Isn't it interesting? Everything he says here is, you say that you're rich, and you become wealthy and have need of nothing. So, in other words, they don't see their need of Christ.

They're blind.

And I agree with Pastor MacArthur here. He says this, and the greatest need of the church in this hour right now is the need for discernment. And I agree with that because discernment helps us see what we're in need of, what is missing.

And I tell you why there's no reason for discernment today. There's no fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord has departed. There's no fear of God before our eyes. I'm talking about the church, folks.

Now, there was a lack of here, if you read within that church right there, a lack of a single true believer. Isn't that interesting? You had people that professed to be believers, but they were false believers.

In verse 20, how do you know this? Well, it basically says, Jesus the glorified Lord says this, Behold, I stand at the door and I knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come. I will come into him and dine with him and he with me.

Obviously, there is no communion that was going on there. So how does this happen? Verse 19, the Lord gives the answer. At the verse prior, before, I should say, before verse 20, As many as I love. Don't hear that from these churches today that preach love, do you?

Jesus says, As many as I love. What does he say?

I rebuke and chase.

I love them, I discipline them that they may see. And what's the exhortation here? Therefore be zealous. Be consumed. In other words, the original language there.

Means be eager. Be eager and repent. We should be eager to repent.

And take the strong words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Recognizing that one's spiritual bankruptcy to humble ourselves, to repent, that we would be broken before God, submit ourselves, trust in God and saving faith and Christ would enter in, enter back into his own church and true revival and reform would take place.

Now, true repentance. We see true repentance in the scriptures and we see false repentance, don't we? Peter and Judas is a perfect example of that. You see worldly sorrow in Judas. You see godly sorrow in Peter.

Which one persevered?

Peter.

Which one did not persevere?

Judas.

It's the ones that persevere to the end, folks,.

That will be saved.

That's what Jesus said.

It is those who persevere to the end. Not by our strength, but by God's grace and strength. Because we cannot hold ourselves up now, even though Paul says we're to continue. And Jesus said that. He said, if you love me, you continue in my word.

You abide in my word. That basically means you keep pressing on. You keep continuing. No matter what comes our way, we continue in the Lord Jesus Christ. And do not back away. So no doubt, the great, great need of the hour is true repentance.

True repentance.

Godly sorrow.

Alongside that, there would be the great need of recognizing our need, and that is discernment. So along with that need of discernment, knowing that we need to repent, that is the great need. To realize that we do have a need.

The church of Laodicea didn't realize, they thought, hey, I'm rich.

I'm wealthy.

I have need of nothing.

And what did Jesus say about it? And do not know. They do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. Now the reason I mention that, beloved, if you go back to our text, it's very important that here in John, when John is talking about, what he is talking about is so critical.

He gives us an account that when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs,.

Which He did.

They saw the signs. Now, this is very interesting. This text helps us get the proper perspective, the biblical perspective of what belief really is. It's not enough to believe in Jesus intellectually.

Even though it enters through the mind and goes to the heart. There's heart transformation. It must enter into the mind. God is in process right now of renewing our minds day by day. That's why we need to feed upon God's word.

Renew your mind day by day by the word of God. But that's sanctification. Actually, what he's talking about is commitment and submission to salvation here. Many believed in His name when they saw the signs, which He did.

It's interesting. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them. Isn't that shocking? Doesn't that shock you?

It's incredibly shocking.

Why didn't Jesus commit Himself to them?

The scripture tells us.

Because He knew all men. Verse 25. He had no need that anyone should testify of man for He knew what was in man. What's in man? A deceitful heart. A heart that is so deceitful.

We cannot trust our heart. You know, beware of the people.

That tell you to trust your heart. Stay away from that. That is the worst kind of counsel you can ever hear.

If we trusted our own heart.

We would all go to hell, folks.

That's why we need to come.

And examine ourselves in the light of the scriptures.

And I want you to notice.

Something else in our text. Notice that Jesus had no need. Underscore that. No need that anyone should testify of man. No need. Many in that day of the feast believed in Him but Jesus did not believe in Him.

You basically can say these were unbelieving believers. There's two great facts I'd like for us to look at here. In verse 23. Fact number one. Many believed in Jesus. If you can break this up. We'll finish it up next Lord's Day.

But number one. Many believed in Jesus. That's fact number one. Fact number two. Jesus did not believe in them. Jesus did not commit nor trust Himself to men. Break it up there. These two statements basically tell or two truths I should say are at the heart of understanding.

This text. First of all.

Let's look at it. Many believed in Jesus. Verse 23 as I've said. The text says. Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast many believed in His name when they saw the signs. The signs which He did.

Now John's gospel basically translates the word signs generally refers to miracles. They saw.

The miracles.

But we do not find in John any record of the signs or miracles that Jesus did during the visit to Jerusalem. Isn't that interesting? Basically the greatest sign that He gave right there. The first miracle was what?

In Canaan He turned the water into wine. But there He cleansed the temple. Now that was a sign. But there are other signs that Jesus did. There are other miracles that.

Jesus did. But they're not.

Recorded.

And as you well know John tells us in chapter 20 verse 30 and 31 that the record. Because if He did there would not be enough books to contain all the miracles.

That He did.

The books could not contain it. And yet in verse 23 many. Notice what it says. Many believed in Jesus. Many believed in His name.

Belief. Okay there's a belief here.

This verse.

Basically gives and reveals to us in a way the true nature of belief from a biblical standpoint.

That's what we.

Need folks. Aren't you.

Glad?

I rejoice in this that this is the word of God telling me what true belief is. And what true belief.

Can.

Appear to be and it becomes a false belief. And Martin Lloyd Jones puts it this way. It's not a belief at all.

It's false. So you basically have.

A true profession and a false profession.

Many believed.

In His name. But Jesus did not commit Himself. Gives the same Greek word folks the same Greek verb for the word believe. It means that they believed once for all. They believed once for all. Their belief was genuine supposedly.

At least the belief of some. Not all. However the belief of the others was not genuine. So the fact that Jesus knew all men and all those professing belief and yet He did not commit Himself to them shows that their faith.

Was inadequate.

Their faith and their belief was spurious. Verse 24. So why was their faith.

Inadequate? When they saw.

The signs which He did but Jesus did not commit Himself to them. Isn't that again that is one of the most shocking.

Verses.

Many believed in His name but yet Jesus did not commit the signs because of the signs they were following Him after the signs, the miracles, the power, the.

Works. Now.

Does that mean that John is discrediting the signs and the wonders that Jesus did? By no means.

What he's basically.

Saying is.

These people are following Jesus.

Just for these things.

Just for. How many circles of the churches today are following Jesus just for what they can.

Get out of Jesus?

What do we call them? Sensationalist.

Sensationalist.

They.

Follow Jesus for the miracles. They follow Jesus for the power. They follow Jesus for the blessings. They follow Jesus for what they can get out of Him. As Jesus would feed them with the miracles of breaking the bread and the lunch of the little boy and He fed them physically.

Oh everybody.

Was so glad. Oh yeah we'll keep on following Jesus. And actually the scripture basically says that they wanted to make Him a bread king. In other words oh He can produce these miracles and we can keep following Him for this.

What they can get out of Jesus. But when it came to the hard sayings that Jesus says He turns to them and says basically why are you following me? He knew. He knew. It was no mystery to the Lord Jesus Christ.

He knew what was in their heart.

He knew that they were following.

Him for the wrong motives.

And then when He lays the question on the line and even says well except you eat my flesh and drink.

My blood. Many did not.

And the scripture actually says.

Many disciples did not follow.

Him from that point.

They fell away.

And even the inner.

Circle began.

To question.

These are hard.

Sayings. And Peter.

Of course said something wonderful at that time. Where can we go Lord? You have the words of eternal life. There's nowhere else to go because Jesus asked them are you going to go away also?

Lord where.

Are we going to go?

You have the words of eternal life. Well you know these sensationalists. These people that follow Jesus for what they can get out of Jesus and for the works that they saw. The power of God. And they show actually from the text why these people believed in Jesus.

They believed in Jesus for the wrong reasons.

Does not, you know.

I'm speaking of others within the church but does not that search your own heart?

Yeah it does.

I got an.

Amen right there.

Is that Ethan? Yeah.

He's listening. He's listening.

You know what the Greek word for the signs and miracles is? Terris. You know what that means? The spectacular.

The.

Amazing.

The staggering. The dazzling.

The wonders.

Oh Jesus is doing these.

Marvelous things in Jerusalem at the Passover and all these signs. And many believed in his name because they saw.

The signs in which he did.

However, such a shallow belief right? Such a shallow belief made a person only a spectator and not a participator in the kingdom of God. In other words, as R .C. Sproul said and I've heard Ravenhill say the same thing.

They're professors but not possessors. A big big difference isn't it? It's easy to say maybe I'm a Christian but what about living it? What about following the Lord Jesus Christ? What about when hard times come and listen we all you know what the scripture says?

The rain falls.

On who?

The righteous and the unrighteous. The good and the bad. Well all bad of course but what Jesus is referring to the righteous and unrighteous. The rain's going to come regardless. The only difference there and it's a huge difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is.

Christ. Christ.

Is everything to the Christian.

Jesus is in the boat.

So when the storm comes, Jesus is in the boat and he's the one that can take care of the storm because he's the sovereign of the sea. Praise God. But many believed and followed Jesus only because.

It made them feel good.

Or comfortable or secure. And such a faith has a shallow, shallow view. Such a faith is wrong because it's a faith that's based on wrong motives. This word is never used by itself to believe in Christ.

It's a person to have genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He must have some basis of faith other than just the spectacular, right? One example I think of is Brother Keith touched on this this morning and I got it right here in my notes.

But I want to take it to Luke's gospel. Go with me to Luke. Let's look at we got Mark's view this morning but look at Luke chapter 8. Just a brief few verses here. Chapter 8. So what's Jesus talking about?

You know what I love about the Lord Jesus Christ in this sense of his teaching.

Ministry? He was.

So practical in.

His teaching. So very practical. And you think how could they miss this? But many did.

Not have eyes to see.

Or ears to hear. He spoke in parables. And here is a parable of the sower. Look at verse 4 of Luke chapter 8. When a great multitude had gathered. A great multitude by the way at that time in his ministry.

They had come to him from every city and he spoke by a parable. A sower went out to sow his seed and he sowed and some fell by the wayside and it was trampled down and the birds of the air devoured it.

And notice verse 6. This is actually what John is speaking of. Some fell on the rock as soon as it sprang up. It withered away because it lacked.

Moisture.

Stop right there. Isn't that interesting? That what fell on the rock was basically hard ground very shallow.

Soil. The soil.

Was shallow. So what does that mean? The seed could not take root. This basically the interpretation to this parable is basically this could refer to the fickle people that followed Jesus for only his.

Miracles.

They followed Jesus for only the signs and the wonders. The spectacular. What about true discipleship?