Dead Men Walking (Pt 2)

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I want to invite you to take out your Bible and turn with me to John chapter 3 and hold your place at verse 16.
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And today is part 2 of what
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I began last week and this is part of a larger series in our study of the
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Gospel of John. So if you are a visitor, welcome. You're coming right into the middle of our study with us, but you'll be able to follow along.
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I'm sure we simply walk verse by verse through the text of the Bible and so today just continues where we left off last week.
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And where we are in John's Gospel is we are finishing today,
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Lord willing, the section that includes
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Jesus' interaction with the Pharisee Nicodemus. Nicodemus came to Jesus by night.
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We're not told why. We can speculate as to the reason, but it simply says that he came by night and when he came,
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Jesus gave him insights into what it means to be born again.
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In fact, he said, unless a man be born again, he will not see the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God.
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And Nicodemus did not understand Jesus, so Jesus dives deeper, tells him about spiritual birth as opposed to physical birth.
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He says, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the spirit is spirit. This is why we say you must be born again, must be born of the spirit.
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Nicodemus still didn't understand, and so Jesus gives him an illustration from the
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Old Covenant. He said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so too must the
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Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. Now that is the end of verse 15.
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Jesus has given an illustration, and if you're unfamiliar, in the Old Testament there was a time where the people of God argued, they moaned, they complained against God and against Moses, and so God sent snakes to bite them and to punish them.
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And I've said before, and I'll say it again, that's the worst of all punishments I can imagine. But they cried out for mercy, and God gave them mercy.
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God told Moses, take a serpent, put it on a pole, and everyone who looks at it will be healed. And it said that they did.
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It said Moses put the bronze serpent up, and everyone who looked at that serpent was healed.
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So Jesus, in verses 14 and 15 of John 3, gives us the type and the anti -type, the figure and the fulfillment.
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He says, just as Moses did this, so too the Son of Man does this.
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So if you ever wondered why that story is in Numbers 21, why in the world did this happen? Well it happened because it prefigured a greater event.
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It prefigured something else. It was a type of Christ who was to come. The serpent on the pole brought healing to all who looked in belief, and Jesus provides healing from sin to all who look at Him and believe.
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Therefore we come to verse 16, most famous verse in the
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Bible. And I've said this the last few weeks, I don't know if verse 16 continues the words of Jesus, or if verses 16 through 21 are a commentary by John the
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Gospel writer, and it really doesn't matter because it's all inspired by the Holy Spirit anyway, but if you have a red letter
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Bible, it probably continues with red letters all the way down to verse 21. And that's fine, that's a translator's choice.
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But there are those who believe that at verse 16 what we have is John's commentary on the words of Jesus.
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And if you do step back and read it, you'll notice that 16 to 21 is a commentary on verse 14 and 15.
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Jesus says, as the serpent was lifted up, so too must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes on Him would have eternal life.
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And the first question that should come into our mind is, why is looking to Him going to heal us?
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Why is looking to Him going to save us? In fact, what does it even mean for Him to be lifted up?
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All of those questions come after verse 15, and verses 16 to 21 answer those questions for us.
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We spent three weeks looking at John 3 .16, so I'm not going to exegete that passage any further.
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And last week we looked at verse 17. Well, today we'll be focusing mostly on verses 18 to 21.
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But as it is our custom, we are going to stand to read the whole text. So let us stand and read beginning at verse 16, and we'll read down to verse 21.
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John 3 .16 begins, For God so loved the world, that He gave
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His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
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For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.
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Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only
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Son of God. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world.
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And people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
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But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
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Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Father, we come this morning desperate to hear from Your Word.
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Lord, there are many who seek to give wisdom in this world and insight, but Lord, it is
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Your Word that is the standard of all truth. It is the norm of norms.
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It is the standard of standards. It is that which all other things will be judged.
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So Lord, today I pray to be faithful to Your Word. Pray that You would keep me from error, especially the error of my own foolishness.
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I pray, Lord, that as Your Word is proclaimed, that Your people will hear it, and those who know
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You would be saved, or rather, those who know
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You would be encouraged in their salvation, and those who do not know You would be saved.
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Father, may it be that throughout the preaching of Your Word, that I would decrease, that Christ would increase, and Lord, ultimately, that Your Spirit would apply the
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Word's truth to our hearts. And as we consider today the juxtaposition between the believer and the unbeliever, between the condemned and the uncondemned, between the wicked and the righteous,
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Lord, which is so clearly displayed in this text, I pray that You would, in Your mercy, give us eyes to see and ears to hear.
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In Christ's name, amen. In our text last week, in our message last week, we looked at verse 17, and we saw that verse 17 makes a distinction between Christ's first coming, and even though it doesn't mention
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Christ's second coming, it does, in a sense, remind us that Christ's two comings are for two totally different purposes.
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Look again with me at verse 17. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.
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And as I mentioned last week in our outline, I said this is telling us the difference in the purpose of Christ's two advents.
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His first coming was to save, and in His second coming,
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He will come to judge. One of the early church writers was a man by the name of John Chrysostom.
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John Chrysostom, in his commentary on this particular text, writes these words.
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He says, For there are two advents of Christ, that which has been and that which is to be, and the two are not for the same purpose.
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The first came to pass, not that He might search into our actions, but that He might remit or forgive.
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The object of the second will not be to remit, but to inquire, to judge.
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Therefore, of the first, He says, I came not to condemn the world, but to save the world. But of the second, when the
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Son shall come in the glory of His Father, He shall set the sheep on His right hand and the goats on His left.
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God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world. God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world the first time.
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He sent His Son into the world to save. But there is coming a day when
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Christ will come again, and He will come as judge. And the reason why I want to emphasize that part this morning is because when we move from verse 17 to verse 18, we immediately begin to see that the text is going to deal with that judgment.
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The text is going to point out the reality of that judgment. If you have the
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English Standard, which is what I preach from, you will notice in verse 18, it says, whoever believes in Him is not condemned.
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However, if you have a New American Standard Bible or another translation, perhaps it may say who believes in Him is not judged.
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Well, the word is the same in the Greek. To judge and to condemn, we might say, well, they're not exactly the same thing because you can judge positively.
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But in this sense, it is in the negative. It's in the judgment of condemnation.
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And so what we have in verses 18 to 21 is we have the position and the condition and the disposition of man, both apart from Christ and in Christ.
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We have the disposition, position, and condition of man who is outside of Christ, and we have those things of man who are in Christ.
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And so today, as we walk through this text together, we're going to see what this text tells us about man who is in Christ and man who is outside of Christ.
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And I want to point this out. The first thing it says in verse 18 is whoever believes in Him is not condemned.
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By itself, that could be a sermon. By itself, that's one of the greatest truths in all the
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Bible, that I can look at you and I can say to you, if you are in Christ, you're not condemned.
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In fact, I want to challenge your thoughts on something. And this may sound really weird, especially coming from me, because I have taught on, written on, spoken on, done podcasts on my issues with Roman Catholic theology.
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I am reformed through and through. I am a Protestant, no doubt.
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I have several conferences coming up in the fall. Three of them are me preaching on Sola Fide.
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People want me to come and talk. Somebody asked yesterday, what's a hill you're willing to die on?
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That's one. That we are justified by faith alone. Absolutely.
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But oftentimes, one of the issues that is brought up with Roman Catholic theology that I think we should at least step back and consider is this idea of the priest offering pardon.
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You go to the priest and you confess your sin and the priest offers pardon. We all say, well, the priest, we don't need to go to a priest.
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We go to God and we go to Christ. That's true. I get it. But even in the historic reformed church, separated from Roman Catholicism, there has been something called the prayer of confession and the assurance of pardon.
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That is where the people of God will pray and they will pray a prayer of confession and then the pastor or elder or deacon or whoever it is who's leading the service will pray a prayer of assurance of pardon.
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Now it's not saying I pardon you because guess what? I don't have that. I don't have the ability to give you pardon.
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But I can tell you, if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you trust in what
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He has done and you have confessed and trusted in His finished work, I can tell you, you are not condemned.
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And I can assure you of your pardon, not based on me or a priesthood that I possess, but based upon His work and His priesthood,
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His sacrifice, His death, burial and resurrection, I can say you are in fact forgiven and you are in fact not condemned.
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And we ought to be able to have that assurance. We ought to be able to say, if any man be in Christ, He is a new creation, old things have passed away, behold the new has come.
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We should be able to say in Romans chapter 8 verse 1, there is therefore now no condemnation.
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Big theological debate going on right now among some scholars even in the reformed community is the question of final salvation.
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Do our works contribute to our final salvation? Answer is no.
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But it is a big debate going on because there are those who think, well, we are justified initially by faith, but we are justified ultimately by faith plus works.
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That's going right back to Rome, guys. Because we are not waiting for a day where we will be marked as not condemned.
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If we have believed we are not condemned right now, therefore, what does
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Romans chapter 5 verse 1 say? Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
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Lord Jesus Christ. It's a beautiful truth. Why do we have peace with God? Because we are not condemned.
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We were children of wrath like all mankind. This is not what
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Ephesians says. But God, who is rich in mercy by His grace, saved us, made us alive with Christ and marked us out as His own.
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And we are now not condemned. I said
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I was going to get through verse 21 and I need to because I'm not going to be here to finish this next week. But I could preach about that all day long.
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The fact that in Christ we are not condemned. That's a great joy and comfort to our soul if we are in Him.
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But if we are not in Him, we should be greatly concerned. Because what does it say right after that?
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It says, whoever believes in Him is not condemned but, oh for the terrible adversative.
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Sometimes but is great, but sometimes but is hard.
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And this is one of those times where the but brings a hard thought. Because it says, whoever believes in Him is not condemned but, whoever does not believe is condemned already.
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Because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. I want to tell you something.
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I would never question the Bible's truthfulness, accuracy, or consistency.
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Because I am not a fool. But, this is one of those times where I would think it would have said something different.
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I'm not saying it should have. Hold back your tomatoes.
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I'm not saying it should have, but when it says in this text, whoever does not believe is condemned already, what
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I would think it would say next, is whoever does not believe is condemned already because he's a sinner.
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Is that not true? What brings about our condemnation?
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According to scripture, it is our sins. It's our sins that have separated you from God. Going all the way back to the garden.
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Adam was in the garden with God. He was there with his wife. And they had unfettered access to God's presence.
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God would walk with them in the cool of the day. And they had an unbroken relationship with God.
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When they eat of the... Oh, by the way, I don't want to forget to mention this. God was very generous to them because He said,
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You can eat of any tree of the garden. A lot of people make a big deal because God didn't give them the tree of knowledge.
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And they forget that He gave them everything else. You are free to eat of everything else in the garden.
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You can eat of every tree, every fruit -bearing plant. You have it all. It's all yours. And you have dominion over it.
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I'm giving you authority over it. What does
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Adam do? He takes from the one that he is commanded not to.
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What's the first thing he experiences? The first experience
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Adam has after eating the fruit is shame.
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How do we know? Because the very first thing he does is try to cover himself.
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And we're going to see this in John 3 later because it says the one who hates the light, right?
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The one who doesn't want to go near the light. That's what happens when we experience the shame of sin is we want to hide.
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Most of us do our sinful deeds outside of the eyes of others. Adam felt shame because he was guilty before God.
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He knew that he was condemned. Because what did God say? On the day that thou shalt eat of it, dying you shall die.
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You will be judged if you eat this fruit. He ate the fruit and he knew he was condemned, so he ran off into the woods clothed with fig leaves and his wife, and they hid from God.
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God comes, calls to Adam, gives him an opportunity to confess.
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Adam, where are you? I'm naked.
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How did you know you were naked? Did you eat of the tree that I told you not to eat?
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That one action brings death into the world, brings disease, destruction, sin, comes into the world, and the world is now under the curse of sin.
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And so can I say to any man, you are condemned because of sin?
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Yes. Absolutely. But John 3, verse 18 doesn't say that.
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It doesn't say we're condemned already because we're sinners, even though that would be true.
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In fact, if you go to Romans chapter 5, and you walk through Romans 5, it clearly says that Adam brought sin into the world, that sin has been passed on to all of us, and we're all condemned because of it.
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We've all been made guilty, made trespassers because of Adam's sin, right? That guilt, that condemnation, that trespass, we have all inherited
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Adam's behavior. We've all inherited his sin. We all are sons and daughters of Adam.
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This is why it says in Adam all die, and in Christ all are made alive. In Adam all die.
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Why do we die? Because we are like our father Adam. We sin against God. That brings about our condemnation.
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But John 3, verse 18 doesn't say that. John 3, verse 18 does not say they were condemned already because they were sinners.
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What it says instead is that they were condemned already because they did not believe.
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Because they did not believe. The word because is a conjunction.
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It introduces the reason or cause for something. It says they are actually condemned because they don't believe.
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And quite frankly, I think this needs to be understood because of a couple of different reasons, not the least of which is what about those who never hear?
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That's a big question that comes up in this text. Well, how can they believe if they've never heard? And yet they're still under the condemnation of sin.
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But also, even before we go there, I want you to consider this thought.
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And I've really wrestled with this as I was trying to figure out how I was going to explain this. If you are condemned and there is an opportunity for you to be rescued and you reject the rescue, you have added to your condemnation.
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You have increased the weight of your own condition.
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Christ came into the world and did He not say, Come to me, you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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What happens to the man who doesn't come? Well, he was condemned because of his sin, but now his condemnation is added to by his rejection of the
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Son. Because there's no other way to be saved. And I want to give you an illustration that may tweak your ear a bit.
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It's from a movie, if I might. This is the summer. This is our summer movie series.
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Just kidding. It's not Superman, even though I did go see it.
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1975, first summer blockbuster ever was the movie Jaws. First movie to ever be considered a summer blockbuster.
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For those of you who have never seen it, Jaws is about a killer shark that terrorizes a small Nantucket town and the sheriff of the town, feeling the need to protect the people, goes out on a boat with a surly ship captain and a marine biologist to kill the shark and protect the people.
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As they are out on the boat, they find out that the shark is now hunting them and the shark is surrounding the boat and he's running into the boat and causing water to come into the boat and the boat is now sinking.
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The sheriff, Brody, runs in and grabs the radio.
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Mayday! Mayday! This is the orca! We're taking on water!
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We need to be saved! Well, the surly ship captain pulls out a baseball bat and he walks in to the hull of the ship and he bashes the radio with the baseball bat.
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And now the sheriff is holding the broken radio in his hand and he says,
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You're certifiable, you know that? This was the only way we had to be saved.
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You've condemned us. This is all we had.
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It was called for help and you've taken it away. We don't have any hope.
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There is no other salvation outside of Jesus Christ and if you reject
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Him, you've given up all hope. And that's certifiable.
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That's crazy to look into the face of the only one who can save you and say,
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I don't want that. I don't need that. I'll handle it on my own.
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By the way, the ship captain, he got eight. And that's a good illustration of what happens when you reject
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Christ. There's no other salvation. There's no other way.
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Why are we condemned if we reject Christ? Because there's no one else to turn to. You turn to Buddha, you're going to come up wanting.
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You turn to Muhammad, you're going to come up wanting. You turn to Joseph Smith, you're going to come up wanting. You turn to anyone else other than Jesus Christ and you are going to find yourself condemned right along with them.
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We are condemned already because we have not believed in the name of the only
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Son of God. Verse 19, moving on. And this is the judgment.
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This is an expansion on this idea. This is the judgment. Light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
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For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed.
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You ever wonder why people reject Jesus? Oh, there's tons of reasons you'll hear people give.
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People will try to come up with intellectual reasons. I don't believe in a man who can produce miracles. I don't believe in a man who was born of a virgin.
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I don't believe in a man who rose from the dead. Those are intellectual objections. But when we dig into the heart of the objection against Jesus Christ, the vast majority of our objections are not intellectual, but are in fact moral objections.
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We reject Christ because He is light and we prefer the darkness. And what does light do to darkness?
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Exposes it. Earlier I was talking about corporate confession and corporate assurance.
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You know what's great about corporate confession? It's all of us coming together and admitting together, yes, we are in fact sinners.
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Did anybody this week make it all week without sinning? I want to put you on camera, brother.
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I was going to say, did you make it past Monday? But you just, oh, okay. When you come to Christ, you are laying yourself open before God.
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This is why when we come to Christ, we don't come to Christ confessing our goodness.
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What do we come confessing? Our sins. We come to Him confessing our brokenness.
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We come to Him confessing our need. Jesus did not come to save the righteous, but who? The wicked?
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The problem is that that's all of us. All of us are sinners.
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And when we come to Christ, we're laying ourselves open and confessing our wickedness before Him. And most men do not want to do that.
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Most men do not want to have their sins exposed, even before God.
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We hide and we think that even God Himself cannot see us. There's a place in the
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Middle East. It's called Bahrain. Bahrain is a place, unlike other places in the
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Middle East, because under Arabic law, it's very strict morality, very strict rules.
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But in Bahrain, there are casinos and there are strip clubs.
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Why? Because according to the theology of those who believe it, that's a place
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Allah doesn't look. Allah doesn't look there. So we can go there and enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, and Allah won't see because He doesn't look there.
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Now, I'm not saying all Muslims are so foolish as to believe such a silly thing, but there are those who do. They believe.
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It's just Allah doesn't look there. I'm convinced Christians have places in their life that they think
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God doesn't look, whether it is places that are physical or even places in our mind and heart.
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Can you imagine what it would be like to be faced with God and everything in your heart and life be exposed before Him?
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This is what it means when it says in this text, people love the light rather than the darkness because their works were evil.
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And notice what it says. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light. I want to tell you something.
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Before I came to Christ, or before Christ came to me, let me be very clear. Before Christ saved me, on the outside,
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I would have been a relatively good boy. I mean,
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I was faithful to my parents, loved my dad and my mom, stepmom, stepdad, loved them, didn't rebel much, came home when
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I was supposed to come home, worked a job, played in the band, high school band, marched, did all the things.
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But I hated the light. And I know that I hated the light because I'd go to church and I'd hear them talk about God and I'd hear them talk about His Word and I would not listen.
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I didn't have any choice to go, but I had a choice not to listen. I think a lot of people today, we hate the light.
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We don't want to hear it. Think about something else.
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Put our minds somewhere else. Focus on something else. Can I figure out a reason to turn my mind off so I don't have to hear this?
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Even as a Christian, becoming a Christian didn't solve all my sin problems.
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I don't know if you, again, none of you became perfect either, but there are still times in my life where I struggle because the saying is true.
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The Word will keep you from sin or what? Or sin will keep you from the Word. And oftentimes, when we are struggling with sin in our life, we don't want to hear
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God's Word because we know it's going to expose us to the light.
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Our condition is so wretched. We are so broken.
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I hear people say, oh, you Reformed theologians, you're all so focused on man's brokenness.
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You're all so focused on, you call men worms. You sing about men being worms. But I don't know about you, but this is actually what gives me great hope is that I don't trust in me.
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But when I consider the fact that yes, I was broken. I was separated from God.
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I hated the light. God actually did a miracle in my life and He changed my heart.
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And even today when I struggle, I struggle in a different way than I did before. Because notice what it says, and I want to point this out to you.
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It says, Everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his work should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
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The difference between the believer and the unbeliever is the unbeliever stays in the dark, but the believer comes and lays himself bare before God, exposes himself before the king of the universe and trusts that God will do a work in his heart.
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Notice what it says, His works are carried out in God. You realize all the good that we do as Christians is because God is working in us.
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It doesn't come from us. It comes from God. Philippians chapter 2 tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
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And a lot of people, they stop right there and they lose their mind. Am I supposed to sit wringing my hands scared to death over whether or not
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I'm saved? And if I'm to work out my salvation with fear and trembling, does that mean I'm working for my salvation?
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And if I'm working for my salvation, doesn't that violate the doctrine of justification by faith alone?
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Oh, heaven help me. And I say, just read one more verse.
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Because it says, Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
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For it is God who works in you both to will and to do
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His good pleasure. Augustine's famous prayer, which ended up leading to the division between he and Pelagius in the latter part of the 4th century, was a simple prayer.
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And it went like this. God, command what you will and give me the ability to do what you command.
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God, command what you will and give me the ability to do what you command.
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See, Pelagius argued that if God commands it, you must already have the ability to do it.
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If God commanded you to do it and you didn't have the ability to do it, then God would be unjust. That was Pelagius' position.
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Many people take that position today. God can't command you to do something you can't do, otherwise God would be unjust.
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I say, well, first of all, God is not unjust. And second of all,
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God says, be holy, be perfect, neither of which I can do, apart from Him.
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You see, God commands us to do and then He gives us the ability.
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God tells us what to do and then God enables us to do it.
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So again, looking at verse 21, whoever does what is true, and by the way, in the context here, doing what is true, you know what it means to do what is true?
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It means to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, because that's the context of all this. Doing what is true here means to come to Christ.
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Now, coming to Christ, as we know, coming to Christ doesn't simply mean a tip of the hat, a nod of the head, or a signing of the card.
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It means to count the cost, pick up your cross, follow Him. That's what it means. That's what's doing what is true.
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And it says, whoever does what is true, comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
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Hear this and hear this very clearly. Faith is something that should be obvious, not hidden.
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Consider the juxtaposition of the darkness and the light. We hide in the dark for sin, but we come into the light to do what is true.
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So the call is to come out of the darkness and come into the light, to go away from the sin and come into the righteousness, to trust in the
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Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Our faith should be clearly seen in a life that has changed, particularly in our affections.
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And I've said this to you all many times, but I cannot help but say it again. When we come to Christ, our affections change.
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And this is what worries me about so many people, is they pay lip service to Jesus, but they have no outward change of life.
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We used to do the fair ministry. We haven't done it in a few years.
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We've been doing the parade instead, but the fair ministry taught many of us a very important lesson.
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And if you don't know what that is, we would go to the county fair and we would set up a booth and we had a booth for 10 days.
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It was a lot of work, but it was a great investment because we had the opportunity to share the gospel, thousands of gospel tracts, hundreds of conversations, tons of prayers.
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I mean, it was a great 10 days. Exhausting, but good. But one thing you will find, if you go to Callahan, Florida, which is where I live, and you go to the
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Callahan Fair, which is the one we went to because it was the big northeast Florida fair, but it's in Callahan, you'll find that every other person you talk to is a
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Christian. Do you believe in Jesus?
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Oh, absolutely. Believed in Jesus when I was 7. Okay. Where do you go from there?
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What do you think? What do you do? Do you just say, okay, no problem, good. Praise the
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Lord. Or do we inquire further? And do we say, if you trusted on the
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Lord Jesus Christ, how has He changed your life? What does it say in this text?
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It will be clearly seen. It will be clearly seen.
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I am convinced, as was
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A .W. Tozer, that many people have confessed to have a relationship with Christ, but have never entered into one by faith because they still love the darkness rather than the light.
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And they will not come to the light. The light is Christ, by the way. Back in John 1 it says, Christ is the light. Light came in the world.
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This is what it's for. Won't come to Christ so that their sins be exposed.
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Are you afraid to lay bare before the King of the universe? I'm not asking you to come up here and tell everybody in here all your secrets.
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But have you confessed your sins to God? Have you laid yourself bare before the
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King of the universe? Or do you still hold today something back from God and saying, this is my
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Bahrain. This is the thing I don't want you to see. This is the thing that I hold dear. Man apart from Christ is condemned already.
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He loves the darkness. He does what is evil and he hides from the light.
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But the man in Christ is not condemned. He loves the light. He does what is true.
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And he comes to the light. This morning you are either in one of two conditions.
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You are either under condemnation or you are in Christ. And if you're in Christ there's no condemnation.
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But I fear there are many who will remain outside of Christ because they love the darkness rather than the light. My call to you this morning, my encouragement to you this morning, my urging to you this morning is if you are still in darkness to run to the light.
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Here's the beauty. We are told in John's Gospel chapter 6 if we come to Him He will not cast us away.
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All the Father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me I will not cast away.
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There is not a sin you've committed that Christ isn't greater than. And Christ is a greater
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Savior than you are a sinner. Lay yourself before Him today if you never have and trust in His forgiveness.
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One of my favorite hymns and we're going to sing it while we do communion. One of my favorite hymns is grace greater than all of our sins.
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And as we sing it in just a moment I want you to remember these words.
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It says marvelous grace of our loving
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Lord grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt.
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Yonder on Calvary's mount outpoured there where the blood of the
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Lamb was spilt. Grace, grace, God's grace.
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Grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, grace,
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God's grace. Grace that is greater than all of our sin. Christ's blood
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His atonement and His grace is stronger than your sin.
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Is more powerful than your sin. And is able to forgive to the uttermost those who draw nigh to God through Him.
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Turn from the darkness. Turn to the light if you never have. And if you are in Christ this morning joyfully remember that in Him there is no condemnation.
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Let's pray. Father I thank You for the opportunity to preach
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Your Word again. I pray Lord that everyone who has heard this
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Word that they have not trusted in Christ would turn from loving the darkness and that they would love the light.
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That they would go from being under condemnation to being under grace. That they would rather than running from Christ that they would rest in Him.
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Lord may it be that Your grace overshadow this place and Your Word go forth and save souls.