Will You Die In Your Sins? - [John 8:21-30]

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I would invite you to take your Bibles and open them to John chapter 8. John chapter 8,
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I have a few quotations here dealing with death.
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I mean, I have to say, let me just preface it by saying this, that this is a very...
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I mean, it's a difficult message, but it's a difficult subject. You know, it's very personal,
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I think, for many of us as we think about death. But let me start on a light note here. A few quotes here from Winston Churchill, one.
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I won't imitate him. I am ready to meet my maker.
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Whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter. Ambrose Bierce, who was an author and quite a satirist, said this.
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He says, death is not the end, there remains the litigation over the estate.
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Then I have a couple of Woody Allen quotes. There are worse things in life than death.
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He says, have you ever spent the evening with an insurance salesman? I like that one. This one, though, is really good.
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He says, I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying.
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That's kind of the goal, isn't it? People would like to not die. I mean, death isn't funny.
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It's painful. But men, what do they try to do? What do people try to do with death?
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I think there are a few things that people try to do. One is to assure themselves that it's not really going to be that bad.
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That whatever lies past death is going to be okay.
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I mean, I've listened to George Harrison a number of times just talk about how we come back, you know, he's a
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Buddhist. You know, we just come back again and again and again. The one thing that they definitely don't want to think about is the finality, the end of life, and they don't want to think about what will come, which is judgment after death.
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They don't want to believe that death is going to be all that bad or that the Bible is correct in what it says.
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But even as Christians, what do we know about death? We know that it can be painful, and that its consequences are always final.
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Even in talking to Flo last week, I mean, one of the things that you find, even with my dad, and I'm sure you've had this experience if you're old enough, is that you realize that that person is no longer there.
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I mean, this is kind of a duh statement. But when you pick up the phone, you want to call dad, and you can't.
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Or you know something is happening where he would always call you, and he doesn't call.
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Well, why is that? Because there's no more conversation to be had. It's final, it's over.
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Death is painful, it is a loss. And sometimes it's really hard to measure that pain.
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So what do we do? How do we respond to it? How do we respond to death? Well, the
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Bible says that we weep with those who weep. And ultimately, we know one thing is true about death, that each of us will experience it.
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We're each going to have to face death. Unless the Lord returns, everyone in this room is going to die.
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That's a sobering reality. It's hard to think about. It's an uncomfortable topic.
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And even as I see family and friends suffer now, I mean, I couldn't go to sleep last night.
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Sister -in -law, who a few months ago, she went in for surgery for this disease that she has, which causes strokes.
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And she basically is in almost a vegetative state now.
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Her eyes are open, but she can't really do anything. And just watching her, because she just has a brand new grandbaby, and they're propping up the grandbaby in her arms.
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And you just realize that this life is so fragile, and it's so short.
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But there's one question I want to ask you tonight. Will you die in your sins?
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We're all going to die. But the question is, will you die in your sins? And the answer is, you don't have to, but you might.
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And for those of us who can say confidently, no, I will not die in my sins, then death is gain.
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Death is a promotion. Death is victory. But for those who are not confident, death is a terrifying enemy, the greatest enemy, because it ushers those who are in sin, those who remain in their sin, into the judgment of God.
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Let's read John 8, verses 21 to 30. Jesus speaking, of course.
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He says, John 8, verses 21 to 30, so he said to them again, "'I am going away, and you will seek me, "'and you will die in your sin.
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"'Where I am going, you cannot come.' "'So the Jew said, will he kill himself, "'since he says, where I am going, you cannot come?'
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"'He said to them, you are from below, "'I am from above.
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"'You are of this world, I am not of this world. "'I told you that you would die in your sins, "'for unless you believe that I am he, "'you will die in your sins.'
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"'So they said to him, who are you? "'Jesus said to them, "'Just what
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I have been telling you from the beginning. "'I have so much to say about you, "'and much to judge, but he who sent me is true.
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"'And I declare to the world what I have heard from him.' "'They did not understand that he had been speaking "'to them about the father.
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"'So Jesus said to them, "'when you have lifted up the son of man, "'then you will know that I am he, "'that
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I do nothing on my own authority, "'but speak just as the father taught me.
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"'And he who sent me is with me, "'he has not left me alone. "'For
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I always do the things that are pleasing to him.' "'As he was saying these things, many believed in him.'"
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Now, a brief review. This gospel is written by John, the beloved apostle.
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And he wrote this gospel with an emphasis on the deity of Christ, the truth that Jesus is God. His desire that all, was that all that who would read it would come to know that Jesus is the
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Messiah, the chosen one of God. Because it is through faith in Jesus that eternal life is granted.
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And the setting for this evening's text, the physical setting for it, is on the temple grounds.
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It's near where the offerings were made. And it would be very near where the Sanhedrin or the temple leadership where they would meet.
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And it's possible that they may have even been able to hear the exchange between Jesus and the
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Pharisees. As you may recall, this follows a series of dramatic exchanges between the
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Pharisees, the visiting Jews from all around Israel, outside of Jerusalem, maybe outside of Israel.
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But the many who'd come into Jerusalem because of the festival of booze, the festival of tabernacles as it's sometimes called.
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So they're all gathered in there and Jesus is teaching on the temple mount. Now the
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Pharisees had been anxious to avoid this very situation, Jesus preaching to a crowd.
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And so they really wanted to arrest him before he got into Jerusalem. But he avoided this by not traveling with his brothers, by not going in the expected way, showing up in the middle of this celebration.
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And the Pharisees still wanted to arrest him, but they also wanted to avoid inciting any kind of a riot.
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So between the confusion of the crowds, the big throngs of people, the lack of communication between the
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Jewish authorities, the different power structures, and the sheer power of God, Jesus was not arrested during this entire series of exchanges that he had with them.
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And we know that it was the power of God because verse 20 tells us that his hour had not yet come.
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In other words, the father was preserving Jesus from arrest until the appropriate time, until the appointed hour.
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So tonight, I'm going to present to you five ways that you can die in your sin.
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I guess I could reverse that and say five ways not to die in your sin. But these are the five ways in which you would die in your sin and thus have no hope of heaven.
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I guess these, I should say, these are five things to avoid, right? I mean, who wants to die in their sin?
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I don't. Our first, procrastinating the day of repentance.
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Procrastinating the day of repentance, putting it off. Look at verse 21. So he said to them again,
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I am going away and you will seek me and you will die in your sin.
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Where I am going, you cannot come. Jesus prophesies here of his own death.
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When he says, I am going away, he didn't mean he was going on a vacation. He was leaving town. He was vacating the premises.
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He meant he was leaving this world. He was going to die. Now it's interesting.
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He says that they will seek him. Well, what did he mean? They would seek him after he went away, after he died.
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I mean, they wanted him dead, but it meant simply that they would look for a
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Messiah, someone else. They weren't satisfied with Jesus. They rejected him as a
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Messiah. If they were satisfied with him, they'd be his disciples, but they did not like him. They hated him.
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They longed to kill him. They had determined since the time he had healed that layman on the
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Sabbath, that he was someone that represented a threat to their authority. We could put it this way.
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We could say their glory, they were not going to share with another. They liked their position. They liked their authority and they weren't going to give it up.
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But if they went looking for another Messiah, there was no other Messiah. There was no one else to pay the price of sin, to take away the sin of the world.
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So their search would be futile, meaning they would, as our text says, die in their sins.
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What does it mean to die in your sins? Well, it means simply to go to hell.
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Leon Morris said to die with one's sin unrepented and unatoned for is the supreme disaster.
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Why? Why is it the supreme disaster? Because there's no second chance.
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Hebrews 9 .27 says it was appointed to a man once to die and then comes judgment. There is no opportunity after death.
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It's also a disaster because no unholy thing, that is to say nothing kind of soaked in sin.
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When it says you will die in your sin, what does that mean? Sin permeates you, it infects you.
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It inhabits your entire being and no unholy thing will enter into heaven. Habakkuk 1 .13
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says of God that his eyes are purer than to see evil and he can't even look at wrong.
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I mean, if we're gonna put it another way to ask a question, will the holy, holy, holy
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God of Isaiah 6 spend all eternity in the presence of sinners, of those who remain in their sins?
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Well, Revelation 21 .27 says nothing unclean will enter its heaven nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the
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Lamb's book of life. And those who are written in the Lamb's book of life are the ones who Jesus died for.
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They're the ones who have had their sins atoned for. So they will not die in their sins.
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Now the Jews would have understood what Jesus was saying about dying in sin in some measure, but they would have thought of themselves how?
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As really the very paragons of virtue, as the best of the best, as those who were not, not only did they not see themselves as in sin, but they saw themselves as the embodiment of righteousness.
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We all know the parable of the Pharisee and the public and the tax gatherer, right?
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Where the Pharisee says, you know, I thank you Lord that I'm not like these men, even this tax gatherer.
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Jesus didn't make that up out of whole cloth. He'd seen these guys. This was his entire life experience, watching these
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Pharisees, their pride in their external righteousness and the fact that they kept rules.
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Well, if you know too many, or if you know people today, if you confront them with the gospel, what do they think? Often their attitude is much like the
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Pharisees. I'm a pretty good person. I do good things. I don't need an intercessor.
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Nobody has to pay for my sins because my sins really aren't that bad. Well, the
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Pharisees, again, just concerned with attitudes, not attitudes, with the actions on the outside.
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They weren't concerned with their attitudes. They justified themselves by their external obedience, all the rules and regulations they kept, even how far you could walk on the
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Sabbath and what you could do in certain situations. And how often did
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Jesus confront them on this very thing, on having the wrong attitude, having the wrong heart attitude?
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Here's one simple illustration, Matthew 5, verses 27 and 28. Jesus says, you have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery.
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But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
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Their attitude would be, as long as I don't touch her, I haven't committed adultery.
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And Jesus is like, you don't get it. Sin doesn't start with your physical action, it starts in the heart.
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It shows itself, your lack of faith, your lack of love for God starts inside, not outside.
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Sin is not only in how one fails to obey externally, but in how one thinks.
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The Pharisees were going to look for another Messiah, one who was never going to show up because he didn't exist.
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That's what they wanted, they wanted someone else, not Jesus, because their Messiah was one who was going to deliver the nation from Rome, throw off the shackles of Rome and free them.
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They wanted a political Messiah, not a spiritual Messiah. They didn't want somebody to pay for their sins, they wanted somebody to redeem
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Israel. How many people, just talking about they wanted to wait, they were going to go find another
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Messiah later. Well, how many people today want to procrastinate? They hear the gospel preached to them and they say, you know what, that's kind of interesting, maybe someday
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I'll get my life right. Or I know that there's a God and when I kind of sense
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I'm older or when I sense I'm dying, that'll be the time when I'll start putting things in order.
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I would say that to anyone, to anyone here, if that's you, know this, you will never be ready and you can never make yourself ready.
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You will never get your life in order, you will never get your life right. Now is the time to repent and believe on the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Our second way to make sure that you die in your sins is to love this world.
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Look at verse 22, verse 22. So the
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Jew said, will he kill himself since he says where I am going, you cannot come. He said to them, you are from below,
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I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world. Well, they misunderstand him, he says, unless you do this, you're gonna die in your sins and he's leaving.
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They understand that he's talking something about death, but look what they do. They take it to an extreme.
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Will he kill himself since he says where I'm going, you cannot come. Why would they say that?
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Because in their minds, where are they going? They're going to heaven. They're the chosen, they're the perfect ones.
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They're the righteous ones. They're the ones whom God will not just welcome into heaven, but they'll be a blessing to him.
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They think that they are heaven bound. So if they're going to heaven and Jesus says, well, you know what, where I'm going, you guys can't go.
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He had to be talking about hell. And to the Jews, the easiest way, the fastest way to make sure that you went to the lowest depths of hell was to commit suicide.
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Life was precious, which is true. Life was a God given gift. And they understood that they were image bearers, that they were made in the image of God.
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And so life was to be cherished and to be protected. Now they did admittedly have a few exceptions.
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In other words, there were some people who committed suicide where they said, well, you know what, that was okay.
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And their exceptions, the exceptions that they generally agreed to were Samson, because after all, he killed all those
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Philistines when he committed suicide. And then the other one, anybody have a guess what the other exception would be?
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It was an old miniseries not contained in the Bible. Like most miniseries aren't contained in the
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Bible. How many of you have been to Israel? There's a fortress there near the
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Dead Sea. What's it called? Masada. And so the
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Romans had this Masada. Now it's interesting, why did the Romans go to Masada? Because the
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Jews that were left fled up into Masada because they would not obey the
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Romans. And so the Romans sent legions in there to get the Jews. And they eventually surrounded
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Masada, this fortress with all this food and everything else. And when the Jews could no longer hold off the
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Roman legions, what did they do? They committed mass suicide. And so those two exceptions, they thought, well, those folks are okay, they're in heaven.
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But suicide was one sure way to get to hell. And they knew that Jesus was talking about, if he wasn't going to heaven, because they were going to heaven, then he must be talking about hell.
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And so suicide sort of made sense to them. Well, in a sense, he didn't commit suicide, but what did he say?
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What would he say even later on in the book of John? He would say that he was going to lay down his life at the direction of the father.
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Why? For the sheep. And who was going to put him to death? Well, it was these very men.
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It was a sacrifice that he had the power to avoid. So in that sense, in the most general sense, you could say, well, this is kind of like suicide.
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It wasn't, but he had the power to avoid it, but he didn't. He voluntarily went to the cross.
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He obeyed the father all the way to the cross for the benefit of his sheep.
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And the truth was that their affection was for the trappings of this world. Look what he says. Jesus told them, you are from below and you are of this world.
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Well, those are the two phrases he uses. Well, he didn't mean to say that they were from some nether region, some subterranean place.
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What he's saying is we're of a different stripe. You folks are focused on earthly things, on the things below heaven.
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You are of this world. You belong to the world system. You value the things of this world. This world is your home.
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He was trying to make the distinction between their affections and his affections, their loyalties and his loyalty.
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Now, after his brothers, Jesus' brothers, invited
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Jesus to go to the Feast of Tabernacles with them back in the beginning of John chapter seven, he said to them, he said to his own brothers, he said, the world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.
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He said, the world can't hate his own brothers. Why? Because they weren't believers yet. They were also part of this system.
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They also ran just like everybody else. They ran to the course under the power of Satan.
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Talking about the love of the world, the apostle John wrote in 1 John chapter two, verses 15 to 17, do not love the world or the things in the world.
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If anyone loves the world, listen, the love of the father is not in him.
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In other words, you don't love God the father if you love the world. That's exactly what
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Jesus is saying to them. You love the world, you don't love God. Verse 16, he says, for all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the father, but it's from the world that belongs to this earthly realm.
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Verse 17, and the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
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Eternal life belongs to those who are not focused on the things of this world. And our minds are either set on the temporal, that is to say the things of this earth, the things that are fading away or the eternal.
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Jesus plainly states the focus of the Pharisees was on the temporal. Thus, they would have their reward, what they really wanted in this life.
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They would keep their prestige, their titles, their power, but those things would not benefit them in the very least on the day of judgment.
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Why? Because their sins would remain, they would die in their sins. So far, two ways to remain in your sin.
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First of all, procrastinating the day of repentance. Secondly, loving the world. And third, failing to believe
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Jesus is all scripture says he is. Failing to believe Jesus is all scripture says he is.
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Look at verse 24. I told you that you would die in your sins for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.
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First notice that while sin was singular in verse 21, it has now become plural.
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Small, small point, but why is that? Because unbelief is a sin and it is the sin that leads to all other sin.
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It's because you don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that you commit other sin. People who believe perfectly don't sin.
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What does it mean when you sin? It's a failure of your faith. You don't believe
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God as much as you believe or as much as you want to sin, so you sin. Sin begets sin.
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The act of disbelieving itself, it takes more and more sin to maintain. Imagine what the
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Pharisees had to do. They sinned and then they told themselves that they were righteous. They sinned and they told themselves they were righteous.
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What were they doing? They were hardening their hearts step -by -step, convincing themselves that they were good.
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Why? Because externally they maintained certain rules and regulations.
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It's not easy trying to justify yourself in your own eyes. You have to really be lacking in introspection and willing to gloss over a lot of things.
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Takes a constant attitude of excusing one's sins and ignoring the inner alarm bells of conscience.
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Imagine every time you sin, I mean, the first time, I mentioned it this morning, the first time you ever lied to your parents, the first time you ever lied to a teacher at school, the first time you hit somebody or stole something or did something wrong that you knew was wrong ahead of time.
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What happens? There's this rush of adrenaline. Why? Because you internally, your conscience is telling you, this is wrong,
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I shouldn't be doing this. But you do it anyway because you want to do it. So imagine having to convince yourself that all these little rushes of adrenaline are okay.
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Why? Because even though you may suppress it internally or externally, internally, you're just going away right along with it.
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Why? Because you're convinced that your outward actions are all that matter. You make yourself righteous.
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I mean, I've told the story before, but it's interesting when you go over to Jerusalem and you see the things that some of these people do to impose the
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Sabbath on everyone. I mean, they park their cars in odd and funky places to block traffic and stuff like that.
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Why? So that nobody breaks the Sabbath. If you go into a building that has multiple stories, you stop at every single floor.
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They have an automatic setting so that the elevators don't get, you don't push the elevator because under the rules of the legalistic
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Jews, pushing an elevator is work. You can't work on the Sabbath. They have a jillion rules.
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I don't even know half the rules, but keeping these rules makes you righteous.
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It'll wear you out trying to do that. But look at verse 24. Look at those three words in the
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English. It says, I am he. Those three words in the English are really just two
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Greek words. And if you listen, you'll recognize these words, ego eimi, which means
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I am. That's all it means. And you may have a different wording depending on your translation.
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But these are the same words. These two words are the same words where he says, I am the bread of life.
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I am the good shepherd. All of his seven famous I am statements start with ego eimi.
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But here he doesn't use a metaphor. He's not talking about any kind of metaphor. He just leaves it right there.
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He says, unless you believe I am he, unless you believe I am is what he says.
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And it's similar to what he says in John 8, 58, where he says before Abraham was,
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I am. And if you recall, and although we haven't got to verse 58 yet but what's the response of the crowd?
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They're angry, they wanna kill him. Why? Because they understand that he made himself out to be
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God. Well, that's what he's doing here, but he does it in such a way that they don't really connect all the dots, at least not right away.
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It hearkens back to Exodus 3, 14, where Yahweh says to Moses, Moses says, who shall
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I tell the people of Israel is sending me? God says,
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I am who I am. Tell them, I am who I am is sending you.
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In Isaiah 43, again, similar language. You are my witnesses, declare the
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Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.
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Same wording, but this time it's in Hebrew. He goes on to say, before me, no
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God was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I am the Lord, and besides me, there is no savior.
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I declared and saved and proclaimed when there was no strange God among you. And you are my witnesses declares the
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Lord, and I am God. And, or I'm sorry, also henceforth,
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I am he. There is none who can deliver from my hand. I work, and who can turn it back?
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This is a statement in John 8 of Jesus' sovereignty and of his eternal existence.
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He's claiming to be God. However, the key challenge he brings to the
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Pharisees is that he must be accepted on his own terms. He's saying, unless you believe that I am, unless you believe that I am all that I say that I am.
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Unless they took everything that was said about Jesus in scripture, all that he said about himself, and they took it in the way that it was meant and intended, they would die in their sins.
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And that's true of us, it's true of everyone. You have to believe everything the
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Bible says about Jesus in order to be free from your sins.
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Believing everything that scripture says about Jesus results in the removal of sins.
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You don't wanna be dying in your sins. Instead, you wanna have your sins removed. You want your sins removed, as the psalmist writes in Psalm 103, as far as east is from the west.
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You want God to remember them no more. Jesus does not make a list of actions they must take.
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He doesn't give them a to -do list. He doesn't explain to them a laundry list of Sabbath rules that they must keep.
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He says, you must believe all that he says about himself, all that he is, you must take him out of his word.
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What's the result of that if you do that? All of your sin transferred to Jesus' account, which he gloriously paid on the cross, the perfect spotless lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, takes away the sin of all who fully believe in him.
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How is it that Christians can boldly enter the throne room of grace and prayer?
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How is it that we expect to enter into heaven one day without shame?
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I mean, I used to think about it this way. You ever think about actually going to heaven? And I used to think, you know, when
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I got there, I'd probably just kind of stand in the back and just sort of hope that nobody really noticed I was there. I don't think that's how it is.
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I think we leave from judgment, we go to heaven, but it's like, we're not ashamed.
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We're not embarrassed. We're not going, okay, I don't really know. I'm not really sure if I belong here. We know.
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How do we know? Because we've heard Jesus tell us. We believe him.
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And it has nothing to do with what we have done because we couldn't do it.
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Jesus obeyed. Jesus was sinless. It is this faith that is a complete trusting in Jesus and his office as a sin bearer, a substitute.
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How do we get such faith? How do we come to believe all that the Bible says about Jesus?
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We have to be born again. There must be a transforming work of the Holy Spirit. When that happens, a soul once dead is brought to life.
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A soul once incapable of believing now flees to the only refuge, the cross of Christ.
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Because we now know that it's his death, his burial and his resurrection, all that he is, all that the
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Bible says about him, that is our hope. He is not just a vague hope.
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He is our sure hope. He intercedes for us every single day. And he will intercede for us on that day of judgment.
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Our fourth way of ensuring we die in our sins, which we don't wanna do.
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Challenging the authority of Jesus. Can you imagine such a thing? Challenging the authority of Jesus. Who would do that?
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The Pharisees. Verse 25, so they said to him, and this is,
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I don't know how else to say it other than this is a direct challenge. They say, who are you? In other words, he said, unless you believe
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I am, in other words, unless you believe that I am who
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I say I am, everything that the Bible says, everything that has been told to you about me is true.
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Unless you believe that you will die in your sins and they go, who are you to say such a thing? What gives you the right to say that?
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Jesus said to them, just what I have been telling you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true and I declare to the world what
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I have heard from him. They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the
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Father. Listen, they're mocking him, the Pharisees. There's just not a genuine interest.
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They're not like, oh, who are you? Please tell us. That's not the Greek at all.
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That's not the emphasis at all. Why? How do we know that? Well, let's just think about it in totality.
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How many times have they heard Jesus? And not only have they heard him directly, they've also heard about him.
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They've heard these reports from all over the place. They've even talked to people that he's healed.
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There's no lack of information about Jesus for the Pharisees. They intellectually know plenty about him, but intellectual knowledge is not the issue.
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Jesus says, unless you believe that I am. Again, a statement of deity.
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And they respond with mocking, with a scornful dismissal. They understood something of his claim and they weren't having any of it.
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The essence of their question is, who are you to be saying such things? And his response is that he's been consistent.
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There's no variance in his message. I am exactly who I've been telling you from the beginning, always.
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This is what I've always said. But notice also in verse 26 that he says he has much to say.
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This is kind of odd. Much to say about you. You know, would you ever say to your spouse,
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I have a lot to say about you. If you did that, you'd be in trouble. If you said,
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I have a lot to say to you, that would be okay. But I have a lot to say about you. To whom?
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That's what I want to know. You know, if my wife said, I have a lot to say about you. You know, is that at my funeral or, you know?
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But look at what follows. And much to judge. So he is going to have a lot to say about them.
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It's going to be on that day of judgment as he recounts all the times that he testified, that he told them who he was and they did what?
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Rejected him, mocked him, persecuted him. And ultimately had him arrested and crucified.
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And he will judge them on that day of judgment. And he will determine their eternal destiny.
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They have rejected their Messiah, their only savior. So they will die in their sins.
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Now from that terrible day of judgment, Jesus moves back to the father, starts talking about him.
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And really this is something again that they would understand. Even though they didn't understand it was the father, they would understand this idea of representing someone.
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Because they would expect that someone who claims to represent someone else would resemble them, would accurately portray them, would talk about them in a right way.
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But they don't even understand who he claims to be representing. They don't get it according to verse 27.
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But here's the gist of Jesus' words. He's saying that they are rejecting the words of the father.
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Why? Because he only says what the father told him to say. So they're going to face judgment for refusing to accept the teaching of the very
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God that they profess to love. They say they love the father, but they're gonna reject
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Jesus. Jesus says, listen, I'm saying exactly what the father told me to say.
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And if you reject me, you're rejecting the father. He has much to judge.
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So ways to die in your sins. So far we've seen procrastinating the day of repentance. Secondly, loving the world.
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Thirdly, failing to believe Jesus is all scripture says he is. Fourthly, challenging the authority of Jesus because when you challenge his authority, you are challenging
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God the father as well. And fifthly, suppressing the truth about Jesus. So Jesus said to them, when you have lifted up the son of man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the father taught me.
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So when their murderous schemes are finally fulfilled, when they buy the information they need from Judas Iscariot and turn
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Jesus over to the Roman authorities and ultimately have him put to death, at that point and not before, they will know that Jesus is the
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Messiah. Says here that they'll lift him up.
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Well, there are two ways. There's one that he actually would be lifted up immediately, that's physically on a cross.
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Jesus said that, he prophesied his own death there. But there's another sense in which he would be lifted up.
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What happens after he is crucified? He's buried in the tomb, he's raised from the dead, and then he ascends to heaven and he's exalted.
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He's lifted back where he belongs to the rightful place at the right hand of the father.
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However, their knowledge of Jesus, the Pharisees' knowledge of Jesus is not equated with saving faith.
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Even though it says there, when you have lifted up the son of man, then you will know that I am he, they will know something, but that knowledge isn't saving.
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Is it possible that some of the Pharisees saw the crucifixion at that moment? They themselves were pierced and believed?
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Yes, it's possible. But again, there's so much hardness of heart on their part.
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So much hardness of heart. I mean, what do we know? After the death of Jesus, there was a lot of persecution of the disciples of the believers.
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Well, who led that persecution? It was the Pharisees. So it's doubtful that they were the ones or that many of them were saved even at the point of the crucifixion.
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If any of them were saved, it was not because of a mere intellectual realization that there was more to this man than they wanted to acknowledge at that time.
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It would have had to have been that they were born again at that point. But also look at Jesus' testimony here of the unity of the
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Trinity, of the inner workings of the Trinity. Verse 29, "'And He who sent Me is with Me. "'He has not left
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Me alone, "'for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.'" The Father sends and attends.
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He stays with the Son. Why? He tells us there, "'Because I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.'"
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He always obeys. Now we know that later on, the Father would in some sense leave
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Him on the cross because He would say, "'My God, my God, why have you forsaken
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Me?' But Jesus here is testifying to the complete union of the Father with the
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Son. And again, this is just kind of implied.
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This is something, again, that they would have understood that someone who sends you would stay with you, that they would stand behind you.
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I just want to focus just for a moment. Just think about that phrase. "'I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.'"
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To the Father, to God. Who could say such a thing? Who could stand before their creator and say, "'I have always done what is pleasing to You.'"
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The answer is no one could do that except for the Lord Jesus. Look at verse 30.
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"'As He was saying these things, many believed in Him.'" Well, was this saving faith?
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That's kind of a cliffhanger. I'll get to that later. Not tonight, but later. Because believing, as we will see in John, doesn't always necessarily mean savingly.
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Some people believe and then they leave. We saw that earlier in John, I think it was John chapter six, where people believed after the feeding of the 5 ,000, but they depart when
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He raises the stakes, when He makes the cost of discipleship too high. But the truth is, and just in closing, that death is a reality.
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It's a reality that each of us will face unless the Lord returns first. What greater terror can there be than to fall in the hands of a living
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God? What more frightening prospect could there be than to go into eternal, endless punishment for sin by God?
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Eternal life, when we think of that, we think of heaven. We think of all the pleasures of heaven, of being with Christ forever and ever.
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But we have to contrast that with eternal judgment and the difference couldn't be more stark.
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Every single eternal destiny hinges on the state of one's soul on the day of death.
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Are you in sin or not? Are you going to die in your sins?
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What does that mean? It means to die without hope. You know, what do we say?
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What's the picture of an ideal death situation? I mean, ideal and death don't often go together.
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But you know, if you think about how you would like to die, what do you want to die? How do you want to die? You want to die surrounded by your loved ones, by your family members.
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But to die in your sins means this. It means your family members may be there.
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They may be holding your hands, but there's no hope. This is more like, instead of just thinking, you know, this is a moment of pain and then
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I'm going to be in the presence of Christ forever. This is more like drowning in quicksand.
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There's no hope as you sense that you are surrounded by dread, fear, because you are moments away from standing before your creator and you have no mediator, no excuse, and no hope of mercy.
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And when you think about that for other people, relatives, friends, don't you want to be the messenger of hope?
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Don't you want to go to them and say, you don't have to die in your sins. You don't have to be afraid of death.
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Christ has conquered death. You can be free of your guilt and the righteous punishment that you deserve.
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Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. For the believer, as they approach death, there may be some part of you that wants to stay, but you know it's better to go.
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Will you be in your sins or will you be washed in the blood of the lamb? In his body, his humanity,
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Jesus paid the price for sin for those who believe. You don't have to die in your sins.
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Let's pray. Father in heaven, what a great
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God you are to have created such a plan of salvation.
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Father, although we deserve nothing, you have granted a means of escape, a means of not dying in our sins, of escaping the judgment that we deserve.
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Father, the gospel is an amazing truth. It's beyond our ability to fully grasp why you would do this, but you have given us the ability to believe it.
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For each one here, I just pray that we would have a greater sense of what we have been delivered from, of the burden that we have been set free from, and of the hope we have to offer people.
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Father, would you grant us just a burning desire to tell people about Jesus Christ, to tell people that they don't have to die in their sins, that they don't have to face you without any hope, without any excuse, without any defender, that forgiveness full and free is available in Christ Jesus.
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Lord, we pray for this, and just for the peace that surpasses understanding to those that are in Christ Jesus.
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Lord, would you just fix that in us, give us a boldness and a courage to face whatever circumstances lie before us.