Why You Don't Believe - [John 5:31-40]

I want to invite you this morning to open your Bibles to John chapter 5. You know,

I, well, let me just ask you a question. How many of you are thankful for unbelievers? See a show of hands.

I am thankful for unbelievers because you know what? Unbelievers represent a few things.

For all of us, they represent what? The opportunity, they're the mission field, right? Without unbelievers, the

Great Commission would be over. We'd have nothing to do. I'm thankful personally for unbelievers because they're great sermon illustrations and my interaction with them.

I have a friend who recently wrote and said that he did not believe in God because there's no evidence that there's a

God. No evidence for the existence of God. You know what?

I'm even thankful for that kind of response. Why do you suppose I'd be thankful for that? I'm thankful because, first of all, it validates scripture.

Romans 118 says that, you know, in spite of everything that they see around them, the evidence of God's handiwork, the fact that they draw a breath, you know,

I mean, if you get into all the numbers, you know, the fact that the access to the earth is just so and all these things that all the wonderful circumstances that the

Lord has created for us to exist in, everything would tell us that there is something behind that.

And it's not like unbelievers don't know that. They see these things and the Bible tells us in Romans 118 that they do what?

That they hold it down, that they suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Now, eventually, this same man said, because I challenged him on it, and he said, well, it's true.

I don't want to be accountable for my actions to God says,

I hope there is no God because I don't want to stand before him. But his response to was this, and it's the same with virtually all unbelievers.

They say, you know what? If God would just show himself to me, I would believe. And I say this all the time.

What's the correct answer? The answer is no, you wouldn't. Now, that may not sound very charitable, but it's true.

And it's not because I don't want them to believe. It's not because I don't want the gospel to change their hearts.

It's because we have the Bible. The Bible shows us that people see God in the flesh, in the person of Jesus Christ.

They don't believe we can look at the Old Testament. Israel had ample evidence of the existence of God.

After all, he delivered them miraculously from Egypt. Time and time again, he delivered them, sent them prophet after prophet after prophet.

And what did they do? They turned again and again and again and again to idolatry.

Even after being carried off into captivity, faithless, Israel was, gave her a land, blessed her with every possible blessing.

But unbelievers have an unlimited capacity for rejecting evidence, for walking around as it were blindfolded and then bumping into walls and, you know, pardoning themselves.

They really don't care how strong the evidence is. It's not the evidence that demands a verdict.

It's the truth about Scripture. The Scripture itself forces a verdict to either ignore or deny or suppress that truth and unrighteousness or, as the

Holy Spirit works, to believe. Now just a bit of review.

We're going to be looking at John chapter 5 verses 31 to 40, but we really need to have a setting for us.

We need to have this set up a little bit as we work our way through the gospel of John over the next 15 or 20 years.

Who knows how long it will take? I have no idea. But the purpose of John's gospel is to demonstrate that Jesus is eternally

God. He wants us to know that he is the Messiah, the Christ, the Chosen One, the fulfillment of all the

Old Testament prophecies. Fully man and yet fully

God. And in fact, in chapter 1, John describes his eternality, that he always existed.

Then he talks about how he entered the world that he himself, Jesus, created.

Chapter 1 also introduces us to John the Baptist and his ministry of preparing the way of pointing to the

Lord Jesus Christ. In chapter 2, our Lord performs his first sign at the wedding in Cana.

He turns the wine into water, really astonishing his disciples, but not making a big show of it.

And it really was the beginning of his public ministry where he performed so many works, so many powerful works, so many miracles that even

Nicodemus, the preeminent teacher in Israel, comes to Jesus in chapter 3 to ask him how he can do these things.

And Jesus, instead of answering that question, tells Nicodemus that he must be born again in order to go to heaven.

Now because word eventually spread about Jesus because of all the things that he was doing, because of the turning over of the tables in the temple, and because he's not ready for a confrontation with the

Pharisees, it wasn't time for that, he moves out of Jerusalem into the wilderness and then to Samaria.

And that's where chapter 4 begins, as the Lord really shocks a Samaritan woman, first by speaking to her, because that would be against the customs of the times, and him being a

Jew and her being a Samaritan, that would be another wall between them. But he tells her about her past, and tells her enough to convince her that he is the

Christ. And we know the story well, she goes into the village, and the villagers impress upon him that they want him to stay, and he does for a time.

But in the rest of chapter 4, in the beginning of chapter 5, the Lord heals a child, and then this crippled man, this handicapped man, who'd been handicapped for 38 years, he does it in a way that unmistakably marks him out as someone sent specifically of God.

But you remember the Pharisees' response, and we'll see this a little bit more as we develop this, they're more concerned about him breaking their own rules, their man -made rules, than they are about this man himself.

They're more concerned about his work than the person of Jesus Christ.

But let's read our text, John chapter 5, verses 31 to 40. Our Lord speaks, if I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true.

There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true.

You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. Not that the testimony that I receive is for man, but I say these things so that you may be saved.

He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light, but the testimony that I have is greater than that of John.

For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the

Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me.

His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.

You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

Now this morning from this text in John chapter 5, verses 31 to 40, I will show you five heaven -sent witnesses so that you will clearly see the deity of Christ.

Now for any here this morning who do not yet know Jesus as their

Lord and Savior, I pray that this morning would be that morning where your eyes are opened. For those of us who do, we will mostly be nodding in agreement as we see this, we'll be encouraged again by the person and the work of the

Lord Jesus Christ, and we'll marvel, I think, that anyone seeing his life, hearing this, would not believe.

Our first witness is the Lord Jesus himself. Look at verse 31.

If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. Now what does it look like?

It sort of looks like at first glance it looks as if he's saying, you know what, I could tell you about myself, but if I did it would be a lie.

That's not what he's saying. He is saying, or he's anticipating, their rejection of his testimony.

He knows that they won't believe him. He knows how they have responded to him thus far.

In fact, when he healed this man who had been disabled for 38 years, we remember he couldn't get himself into the pool, and Jesus said, you know, do you want to be healed?

Then he healed him. And they were angry because Jesus had done this on the Sabbath. Their rules were so important that they did not care what

God had done for this poor man. They were more concerned with who had done this, who had violated this rule that they had, who had worked on the

Sabbath. In response, he said what? That he was only doing what he saw the

Father doing. He said the Father had given him judgment over all men.

He said that failing to honor him was failing to honor the Father. He said that he only did what the

Father directed him to do. Now, did they accept any of this? No. Would they accept anything he said about himself?

No. In fact, ultimately, what they decided to do was what? To kill him because of what he had done.

Now, there's another issue. If Jesus had decided to testify about himself, to talk about himself, to try to prove, to establish his own deity, his own office, if he had said,

I am the Messiah, I am the Christ, I am the one whom you have been awaiting, he would be acting independently, in a sense, breaking fellowship with the

Father. But he does not do that. He never does that. He acts in perfect harmony with the

Father. What does he do? He does only what he sees the Father doing. He does the will of the

Father. We see these phrases over and over and over again. It's a stress that there is a bond, an inseparable bond, between the

Father and the Son. It cannot be broken until the cross.

Why is it so painful there? Because for the first time ever, you know, where he says, my

God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why was that so painful? Because it's the first moment in time where he'd ever experienced that separation, that pain of being separated from the

Father. One writer said it this way. He said, the very existence of Jesus' witness is conditioned by his absolute unity with and dependence on his

Father. His self -testimony would be an act of severance from the center and fountainhead of the spiritual world.

In other words, from the Father, he would be cutting himself off. He can't do that.

He never changed his focus. He was not worried about whether or not the

Jewish leadership accepted what he said. He was not going to change the reason or shift off the reason that he was sent.

And he was sent to perfectly submit to the Father, to obey all that the Father wanted, and to maintain perfect harmony with the

Father until the wrath of God demanded it be temporarily ended.

The witness of Jesus is basically like a non -witness. I mean, everything he does is a witness.

But here he's like, I'm not going to testify about myself. The second witness, the witness of John the

Baptist. Look at verse 33. And I'm skipping over verse 32. We'll come back to it later.

You sent to John, not the Apostle John, but to John the

Baptist. And they sent to John in the sense that, if you recall back in the

Gospel of John, they sent a delegation. I called it at the time a grand jury because they were investigating

John the Baptist. They wanted to know who he was. They knew that he was a rather wild and crazy man who'd come out of the wilderness wearing odd clothes, animal skins, and hair all messed up, and eating locusts and honey.

This was one strange individual. But what they wanted to know was, was he the

Christ? And it may seem like an odd question to us until we understand that there was an anticipation that the time for Messiah had come.

And so here was this man, and they wanted to know if he was, in fact, the Christ. And he said no.

And, in fact, he consistently, as soon as he, from the time he saw Jesus, he consistently pointed to him.

And we know the famous statement that he pointed to Jesus and said, Behold the

Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He said that to his disciples. There was almost like a handoff from him to Jesus of his disciples.

In other words, John had borne witness to the truth. That's what Jesus said. He had borne witness to the truth.

Now that verb that they sent to John is rather unusual, and it's unexpected.

It's a perfect tense, which means a one -time action with ongoing results.

So in what sense was it that they sent to him and that had ongoing results?

It was in this sense. That John the Baptist's testimony had a lasting impact on these

Jewish leaders. Did they believe him? No. But there was a sense in which they couldn't shake his testimony.

It was that ringing in their ears as it were. They knew that there was something unusual about John the

Baptist, and they couldn't shake that sense. But Jesus is not dependent upon the word of any man.

Not even the greatest mere mortal ever born. In fact, Jesus himself said that. That he was the greatest.

John the Baptist was the greatest of all men born of women. And what he meant by that was, in terms of human beings,

John the Baptist was the greatest one ever to be born. Now look at verse 34.

Not that the testimony I receive is from man. In other words, I'm not dependent upon John the

Baptist's testimony. The emphasis is on divine testimony. Proof, as it were, from God.

Our Lord is not interested in entering a debate. That's why he doesn't rely on his own testimony, or even the testimony of John the

Baptist, because that's not going to satisfy the Pharisees. They hated him. They wanted to kill him.

And they were not going to be easily dissuaded from the course that they had set their focus on.

Why? Because Jesus had made himself out to be God, and they were determined to put an end to him.

And in that sense, really, if we look at the Pharisees, the Jewish leaders, they are perfect stand -ins for each and every unbeliever in your life.

We want to think that unbelievers are morally neutral. In fact, when I look at my little grandkids, my little granddaughters,

I love them. They're cute. They're adorable. They're perfect, but they're really not.

They're enemies of God, just as every unbeliever is. Until the Holy Spirit brings them from spiritual life, or from spiritual death,

I should say, to spiritual life, or as Jesus said to Nicodemus, causes them to be born again.

You must be born again in John 3 .3. Until that happens, they're estranged from God.

And these Pharisees, even in their hatred, really were just a perfect portrait of what every unbeliever thinks of the

Lord Jesus Christ. And notice, Jesus is not anything other than generous, gracious to them.

He says, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He wants them to be saved.

Why? He refers back to John the Baptist and he says, look, listen to John the Baptist. You guys were impressed by what he had to say.

Think about his words. Why? Because I want you to be saved. Think about what he said. Think about what he did.

And what was John the Baptist's work? Well, we'd see that in John 1 .8. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify about the light.

John the Baptist perfectly pointed to Jesus over and over and over again.

And if they believe John the Baptist, they would be saved. Now, again, they had some belief in John the

Baptist. They had some, he had some impact on them. Look at verse 35. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.

Now, notice, first of all, the past tense, he was. It's very likely by this time that John the

Baptist is either imprisoned or he's been executed, beheaded. But the message of Jesus about John the

Baptist is this. You Jewish leaders were drawn to him. You were drawn to this odd man, this last prophet of the

Old Testament. You liked the kind of religious fervor that he stirred up.

You were impressed by him, but he was a lamp and not the light. He burned out.

He was extinguished. And you rejoiced for a time. You were much like insects drawn to a light.

But it was only for a time. You did not mourn when he was imprisoned or killed.

And ultimately, you disregarded him because he was the ultimate, you know, what

Pastor Mike likes to call Johnny One Note. What's a Johnny One Note? It's a guitar player who only knows one chord.

That's all he can play. John the Baptist over and over and over again, his function was he, why was he the greatest of all men?

And I think it was because what he was created for, he did perfectly. He was created for one thing to just consistently point to Jesus Christ.

And that's what he did. And that was a message the hard hearted Pharisees could not abide.

They would not receive it. They rejected it. They did not want Jesus as their

Messiah. So we've seen the witness of Jesus. Secondly, the witness of John the

Baptist. And thirdly, we have the witness of the works of Christ, the witness of the works of Christ.

Look at verse 36. But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John.

For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish the very works I am doing. Bear witness about me that the

Father has sent me the works he was doing. You know, we tend to think, oh, it's the miracles, you know, the healings.

Those were the works. Well, it's more than that. It's more than changing the water into wine. It's more than if we were to go on, you know, walking on the water.

All the things that he did. All the evidences he provided. It's more than that.

The works of Jesus comprised everything he said and did. Think about it. Perfect obedience to the law.

If they'd sent a grand jury like they did, you know, a representation to follow Jesus around, they would have seen that he never sinned.

They would have seen that he perfectly taught scripture. They would have seen that everything he did was right and good.

That he cared more about others than he did himself. He would have embarrassed them. But these were not neutral people.

The Pharisees were not neutral. No one's neutral. And what do I mean by neutral?

Well, I just mean they were neither predisposed to believe or disbelieve. If that was the case.

If they went with an open mind, as some people like to say. You know what? I'm open. If God will just reveal himself.

If there's more evidence than lack of evidence, then I'll believe. If that was the case. And it's not.

If they were just looking for evidence, there's more than enough evidence to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ just by looking at his life.

Now, what did he do? If you look at chapter 5, verse 19. Truly, truly,

I say to you. Listen. The Son can do nothing of his own court, of his own volition, of his own will.

But only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the

Son does likewise. How should they have known that he was the Messiah, the

Son of God, the Christ? By looking at his life. By seeing what he did. By listening to what he said.

His life was excellent evidence that he was who he claimed to be. It was enough.

It was greater than the witness of John the Baptist. His eyewitness testimony.

Spirit -born testimony was not as compelling as the life of Jesus Christ. Our fourth witness is the witness of the

Father. Now, let's just go back to verse 32. I'm just going to make a note about this.

There is another who bears witness about me. And I know that the testimony he bears about me is true.

It's not John the Baptist that he's referring to here. It is the Father. And really, verses 33 to 36 are parenthetical to that.

So look back at verse 37 now. And the Father who has sent me has himself borne witness about me.

His voice you have never heard. His form you have never seen. And you do not have his word abiding in you.

For you do not believe the one whom he has sent. Now, this kind of almost shifts from offering evidence to what?

This is an indictment. This is a challenge. This is not pure testimony.

In other words, Jesus has just gone on the offensive. The Father had borne witness to Jesus in a very real and full sense if we think about it this way.

All of history had focused or had pointed towards this moment.

The Father had taken great care to bring this exact moment to pass, prepared everything perfectly for the

Son to enter history. And yet, they didn't get it.

Now, let's look at the indictment of Jesus, his indictment of these Pharisees. And really, it's made up of three parts.

There are three charges against them. Number one, you've not heard the Father's voice. In Exodus 33 verse 11,

Moses heard the voice of God. Now, these leaders obviously couldn't have been there a few thousand years before.

They did not hear, but that's not the full meaning of Jesus' words. Why? Because Jesus spoke the very words of the

Father. Listen to John 3 verse 33. For he whom God has sent,

Jesus, utters the words of God. The words of Jesus they had heard.

They'd heard him speak on many occasions. So, was he just saying, you know, you've not listened to me?

No. He was saying, my words, the very words of God have entered your ears, but they've had no effect.

They've had no impact on you. You don't listen. You say you're

God's children, but you won't listen to what he says. If you would listen to what he said, you'd listen to me.

But you won't. Second charge of the indictment. You've never seen him.

You've never seen God. Their forefather, Jacob, wrestled with the pre -incarnate

Christ. He knew that was God. The parents of Samson and others had seen him.

I just like the illustration of Samson for a number of reasons. It sets up kind of a stark contrast between these people and the parents.

Think about this. The Pharisees, they were the most religious people around. They were the so -called experts on scripture.

You know, they knew, they probably had vast amounts of it memorized. They studied it, and we're going to see more on that in a minute.

The parents of Samson, Manoah and his wife, were kind of country bumpkins.

They were ignorant rubes by comparison. They knew nothing about scripture. Jesus was

God in human flesh, but they refused to see it or acknowledge it. It wasn't for a lack of information.

It was a willful refusal to believe. You want to know how really sort of ignorant the parents of Samson were.

Here they had a visit from the pre -incarnate God, pre -incarnate

Christ, an angel of the Lord, and then they visit him after he visits them.

They eventually feed him and everything, and they say what? That they're going to die because they've seen God. They know who it was, and yet these people, with all the information they have, they have

Jesus living among them, and Jesus says, you've never seen

God, even though they've seen him. Why? Because they were walking around with a blindfold. I don't see

Jesus. Well, I see Jesus. I don't see God. They were like, my friend, show me evidence that God exists.

They were like, show us evidence that you are the Christ, and he's like, just look around. Watch what

I do. Hear what I say. You would know. But they'd never seen him.

Third indictment, you do not have the word of God within you. Now, that's a tough one.

So, as I said, they were students of the word of God, but listen to what the psalmist says in Psalm 119 .11.

I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

Now, these Pharisees had all the knowledge in the world when it came to Scripture.

I want to say vowel pointing, but that wouldn't be accurate because, not that you care, but the Masoretes later added the vowel pointing, so it doesn't really matter.

You're like, what's that? If God's word had been in their heart, like the psalmist said, they would not be sinning against the

Son of God. If they really believed the word of God, if they were really anticipating the coming of Messiah, they would watch him, they would pray, they would see that he is the one

God sent. But they didn't believe. They didn't have the word in their heart.

They had it in their head. We often talk about the 18 inches between head knowledge and heart knowledge.

It's one thing to know the truths of Christianity. It's one thing to know the doctrines of Christianity.

It's one thing to know what Scripture says. It's another thing to believe it, and they did not believe it.

They had knowledge, but they didn't have faith. They had information, but they had no love for God.

Now, just as an aside, what is unbelief? We talk about it really is the root of all sin.

Even in our own lives, if we believed God more fully, we would sin less. Why was it that Jesus, being fully human, never sinned?

It's because he never doubted. His faith never wavered. There was never a moment where he was able to, as I like to say, send the

Holy Spirit on a vacation and sin against him. Filled with the

Spirit at all times. Fully faithful to the end. But for them, they had no faith.

They had no love for God. All they had was empty knowledge. So our first witness, the witness of Jesus.

Our second witness, the witness of John the Baptist. Our third, the witness of the works of Christ. Our fourth, the witness of the

Father. And our fifth is the witness of Scripture. Look at verse 39.

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. And it is they that bear witness about me.

Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. Now first, just as a side note, if you have the

King James, I think it's unfortunate here that it says search the

Scriptures because it's not a command. It's not really in keeping with the context.

It should be you search. In other words, it's a description, not a command. And if we just looked at the context, we would understand that he's indicting them for their lack of belief.

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. They did search the Scriptures. They were super diligent.

Nobody studied the Scriptures on the level of the Pharisees. In fact, one of their leading rabbis taught that the more that you study the law, the more reward you would have for yourself in the afterlife.

One of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament, not scriptural,

Baruch, says this. This is the book of the commandments of God, and the law endureth forever.

Listen, all they that hold it fast, cling to the word, are appointed to life.

They were convinced that studying the word of God was its own reward. It wasn't the object of faith,

God. It was the object of faith, the word of God. They were worshipers of the physical Scripture.

They devoted themselves to it. And again, here's their problem.

They knew Scripture, but they did not come to know the main subject of it, the

Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I won't ask for a show of hands, but I suspect the answer is most of us.

How many of us have written a book report? Most of us. So just imagine this.

You write a book report, you turn it in. It comes back to you and says, you know what? That was by far the best font choice anybody ever chose.

That was excellent. I really loved your use of italics and bold and underline, and that was all great.

But I have to ask you, did you read the book? Because I read your book report, and it doesn't sound like you understood what the book was about.

And here's what he says, in essence.

Great job with all the study. Excellent. All of Scripture points to me.

So how is it possible that you spent your entire lives, you devoted your lives to studying Scripture, and you missed the point?

This concept, by the way, that all of the Old Testament points to Jesus, appears six times in the

Gospel of John, and there's no specific reference to the Old Testament that he's referring to. It's just a generic kind of everything the

Old Testament does points to Jesus. Why?

Again, it's because we're to understand that the totality of Scripture is about him. If we understand that the

Bible is the story of God reconciling sinful man to himself, how is it that a holy, righteous

God can maintain his justice and yet forgive sinful mankind and allow them into heaven?

How is that possible? It's possible in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He had to send, the

Father had to send a mediator, one who is both God and man, who is able to perfectly live the life that we do not live, that we're commanded to but don't, and one who is able to sacrificially die in our place, one that he would raise from the dead.

We know from Hebrews that all the sacrifices in the temple, all the bulls, all the goats, all the birds, everything that was ever sacrificed could not redeem a human being.

We had to have a fully human substitute. Yet any mere man, any mortal would be born with a sin nature because of Adam and therefore would be incapable of the perfection demanded by God.

There's no other substitute. Why was he the lamb? Because there could be no other. But Jesus says that these

Pharisees, even though they studied the Scripture, and even though the Scripture testifies of him, that his point is pushing them to understand who he is and how sinful man could be reconciled to God, they refused to come to him.

They refused to come to him. The Scriptures themselves were not eternal life. Jesus was and is eternal life.

It's in him that we live. Again, the

Pharisees could probably discuss all the fine points of the Scriptures, subtle nuances that maybe take us years to get, but they had a problem.

They did not have the illumination of the Spirit, and we know from 1 Corinthians 2 .14 that apart from the working of the

Spirit, it is impossible for us, for any person, to grab the ultimate meaning, to extract it from the text.

And when we think about it, it's the same today. There are many liberal scholars who spend countless years of their lives poring over Scripture, studying the original languages, writing whole books, whole commentaries.

They can write entire essays on some minor point of Hebrew or Greek grammar, but at the end of the day, that's all it is, head knowledge.

They still deny the Lord Jesus Christ. They don't believe. They're just fascinated by Scripture.

Now, what should be the response of a believer to the witness of Christ, to the witness of John the

Baptist, to the witness of the works of Christ, the witness of the Father, the witness of Scripture? I'd suggest, first of all, that we ought to be driven back to Scripture.

We ought to be just students of it. Why? Because the more we understand God and Christ and ourselves, the greater our joy is, the greater our thankfulness is.

As I've been discussing in Sunday school, I think the greater our capacity to forgive is. But even as we think about the life of Jesus Christ, we ought to be stunned.

We ought to be amazed. We ought to be in awe. As we look at John the Baptist, we ought to think, you know what, I don't say this lightly.

There's somebody we can emulate. Why? Why? Because all he did was point to Jesus. When we think of Scripture, just pointing to Jesus, leading us to the

Savior. That's how we ought to look at it. Now, some Christians wrongly think that Christianity is, like Kierkegaard said, a leap of faith.

It's blind faith. It's irrational faith. It's what my unbelieving friend would say. You know,

I just don't see the evidence. And you're irrational. That's why you believe. But that's wrong.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Who are the blind? Those who have the truth right in front of them and refuse to see it.

Who are the irrational? Those who have consciences and yet chalk that up to evolution.

Those who look at the world around them and think, boy, aren't we lucky. Who are the deaf?

Those who haven't even studied the Word of God, therefore the voice of God, and yet don't hear it, don't have it penetrate their ears and their hearts.

How about you? Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Has the information about him that's contained in Scripture transformed your thinking and your life?

Has it made that little trip of 18 inches from your head to your heart? When you read the

Bible, do you recognize your own helplessness to attain the perfection that God demands? Have you come to an end of any hope that you might have had to kind of get by on your own efforts to be good enough to somehow be?

You know, I used to think about it this way, that of all the people going to heaven, if I was the last one in, that was good enough.

It's just wrong thinking. It's wrong thinking. We have to come to an end of ourselves.

There must be the Word of God informed by the Spirit of God must transform you.

You must be born again. You must believe that Jesus Christ is who he says he is. Fully God, fully man.

The sacrifice intended to redeem sinful people. The one whom the father raised from the dead.

Why? To prove that his death on behalf of sinners was acceptable, that it actually propitiated the wrath of God, that it satisfied his wrath, that he's no longer angry with us, that he has forgiven us.

If you don't believe that, then I would encourage you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ even today. Let's pray.

Father, what a joy it is to look at the Gospel of John, to see how you work throughout history, to see how you even in the life of Christ, by his works, by his words, how he testified to himself, how you gave us

Scripture, that we might see your handiwork, your hand, as it were, guiding all the events of history, that at the proper time, at the appointed time,

Jesus might appear. And Father, even now, for those who aren't sure what they believe, for those who have wrongly assured themselves that they're right in your eyes,

Father, I pray that you would cause each one here to examine himself, to see if we are indeed in the faith.

Would you by your Spirit convict those who are in need of it? Father, would you so work through your word, through your

Spirit, to save even today?