Jesus - the Only Way to God? — Al Martin

Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life

Now will you turn with me, please, to the Gospel according to John, that gospel record that we are presently focusing upon in our consecutive reading of the Word of God in our Lord's Day morning services.

But we go ahead a few chapters, and I would ask you to follow as I read in your hearing John, chapter 14, verses 1 through 11. Our Lord speaking to the eleven, Judas has gone out to complete his wretched work of betrayal, and our Lord, now addressing the inner circle as friends to whom he can disclose the deep secrets and concerns of his heart, speaks and says, Let not your heart be troubled.

Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many abiding places. If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.

And whither I go, ye know the way. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest. How can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one cometh unto the Father but by me.

If he had known me, ye would have known my Father also. From henceforth ye know him and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and thou dost not know me, Philip?

He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. How sayest thou, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself, but the Father abiding in me doeth his works.

Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very works. Now let us again seek God's face and ask the blessing of the Spirit of God upon the preaching of the Word as we pray together even as we have sought that blessing in our hymn before the preaching of the Word.

Let us pray. Our Father, we would seek to pause and marvel afresh that we should hold in our hands this Spirit-inspired infallible transcript of the very words of our Lord Jesus Christ. O God, we thank you that we are not left in the dark concerning the great issues of life, of death, and of the world to come.

And as we would focus our attention upon a portion of the words of our Savior, we earnestly pray that His own Spirit will be present, taking the things of Himself and making them real to us. May the Lord Jesus be seen by the eye of faith, by eyes illuminated through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

O God, come and own this time of meditation in Your Word to bring some out of death into life, to confirm others in the life that is already theirs in Christ, further to equip each one of us to be faithful and accurate witnesses of the truth of Christ.

O Lord, come and meet with us, we plead, bind the powers of darkness, drive the enemy and all of his influences from this place, that every mind and heart will be riveted to the Word. And may that Word come with the attendant presence and power of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, we plead through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen. To begin this evening, a relatively brief series of messages entitled, Simple Signpost to the Celestial City. Using the term the Celestial City from John Bunyan's term for heaven in his immortal work, The Pilgrim's Progress, I plan to preach on some of the most simple and clear gospel texts given to us in the scriptures.

In a book by the Southern theologian and preacher, the great Dabney, in that book on preaching, Dabney exhorts the young man under his tutelage not to be reluctant to preach on epitomizing texts. Tension upon some of those stated, and it is basically a two-fold goal.

I want to proclaim by means of simple signposts that I desire to do so. Measure of expectation that God men and women and adults, I am from any prayer and the prayer of others with me, that God then make it effectual to the salvation of not a few.

That there will be many who will point back to these days and say, it is the salvation of those who take me out of darkness into His marvelous light. And then my second goal is that I want to furnish you, the people who are looking acquaintance with the gospel, ought to be able to see that as God gives the opportunity in seeking to set forth the message of life and salvation, it is through in our Lord Jesus Christ.

And since Ephesians 4, 11 and 12 indicates that one of the functions of pastors, that in the preaching of these texts, you will not only be edified and built up as the people of God, confirmed in your understanding of and confidence in the gospel, to communicate that gospel.

The First Signpost: Jesus Alone Is the Way

Words of introduction, I direct your attention to the first of these simple signposts to the celestial city. It is verse 6 of John chapter 14, unto him. I am the way this marvelously simple and yet subtly profound text.

We have our Lord Jesus Christ telling us in his own word came to do and the weighty implications of these things also looking backward to the coming of Christ in the flesh, to his life, death and resurrection and saying things, three things, celestial and triumphant resurrection life.

And according to Acts chapter 1, he will go back from earth to his amazing personal claims is that he claims to be a figure of speed and dad mean when they say that they are saying, let's us by the whims of the promote personal claim is of an animal that was alive until the hunter bagged it in terms of just animate existing passage.

When Jesus said, I am the life he is speaking of life in its rich and highest biblical connotation, which means nothing less in terms of Jesus definition of it. In John chapter 17, where in his high priestly prayer in verse three, he says, this is life eternal.

Then mother and mother, Adam and Eve and can all of Jesus Christ. It is not just God delight in God. John 10 in verse 11 said, I am come with reference to my sheep. Have it something a prophet said would be true about the one to come, nor an apostle looking back, speaking about the one who had come.

This is Jesus in the days of the third with the 11 in that upper room and making this claim. I am personal claims. I want you to note with me two things about in which this emphasis comes forward. If I can put it into a manner of speaking, said I be when our Lord is seeking to underscore a certain dimension of his own claims or the authority of a statement he's about to make in which there is that emphasis upon.

I even I become to point to the truth. I have not merely come to disclose very am. Each man has in himself the sufficient raw materials to sit and stroke his chin is sincere. All that is damnable nonsense.

Human Blindness and the Need for Divine Revelation

The truth is not in us. The scripture that not only tells us that we are all by nature lost, tells us that we are all by nature, spiritually ignorant and spiritually blind men and women and boys and girls hear the word of God, which says there is none righteous.

No, not one. There is none that understand it here. The scripture that says the natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he thought of this world have blinded the minds of the unbelieving and being dark and alien, not reside in any human being, no matter how educated according to the world's standards for again, the scripture says for after that in the wisdom of God, the world by its wisdom, then they are in Ephesians two and say, you have been made alive.

Who were smiling. Harris sat in that upper room with the 11 of his most intimate friends. The way was the Celestials of all by embrace exercises and then become no claims that will be damned for judgment with the amazing personal claims of Jesus.

There are certain deductions we are warranted to make. I articulated the deductions. I hope they carried your conscience as I cited at least three texts for each of those deductions to show that they were not notions spun out of my own noggin.

But here in the text, as you say, I am the way and the truth and the life in claims. Now the sobering deduction often been said in days past and is said right down to the present hour that people have no complaints with Jesus teacher radical, bigoted, narrow minded followers who got into that nonsense.

You listen to Jesus. I'm saying about him. This is something he says about himself, the language of Jesus. No one comes. 1730 says God commands all men everywhere to repent. Why? Because he's appointed a day in which he will judge the world.

Then every one of us shall give a call in that sense. Come to the father. You will see God in the day of judgment and see his approval at having his own son as the appointed come to God as a receipt can come to the father and find forgiveness for him between God and man himself.

Mass operations of his womb entity to his eternal undiminished divinity. And when he said no one cometh to the father but by me, he was conscious of his identity. We're going to say I came down from heaven to be a preacher.

I came down from heaven to be a housewife, a mother, a businessman, a doctor. I came down from heaven not to do my own will. Me, the son of man is calm or claim to be God. It was his overly enthusiastic followers that that exceeded the bounds of propriety and elevated him to the state.

Jesus Christ’s Divine Identity and Saving Mission

It will not stand up to the test of the simple statements of to pick up stones and stone him for blasphemy. He claimed that God was his unique father. He claimed to be one with the father. I and the father are one.

He said before Abraham was I am there, but by me that me out of the stuff about him, whether the robe or the Jesus film or some other nonsense that violates the second commandment under the guise of promoting the knowledge of Christ, Jesus made up of the stuff of Hollywood stories poorly based upon biblical text and exegesis in your early days.

It's not the Jesus made up of the stuff of philosophers and those who do not believe the word of God. It is the Jesus, the only Jesus who exists, the Jesus, the Christ, the undefiled lay down his life as I said, I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give my life a ransom for many.

The idea that the death of Christ of the son of God to ransom a great multitude of sinners is not a theological concept imposed upon some other reality. No, no, my friend, it is the reality that Jesus himself expresses in his own consciousness.

So when he says no one comes to the father, but by me, the me is the Christ who is. Undeniably, it's 17 for I have glorified the on the earth to young people. Hear me now when you get into that class in high school, later on in college and someone with pseudo intellectual impressions, the foundations of your Christian faith and try to say, oh, look, I'm not trying to make a pagan out of you, but I just want to read you of some of those narrow minded notions you've picked up along the way in your very rigid, insulated Christian family.

And in that even more rigid church, which formed and shaped much of your thinking in the Sunday school class with its Bible stories and catechism instruction and old hymns that were just with doctrine and all of the rest.

And then that kind of dogmatic preaching and all the rest. I just want you to be more well rounded. I don't want you to give up Christ and give up religion and become a bum or a slut or a no good. And they want to begin to erode your convictions that the only Christ to exist is the Christ who exists in this Bible.

Listen to me, kids. The first temptation that comes. Remember this. Give up the Christ of the Bible and you give up salvation. Give up the Christ of the Bible and you've opened the door to hell, said no father undeniably to the father hit the nail on the head in some of his comments on gospel portions.

No Other Way of Salvation

Commenting on this very text, the old bishop said, we should mark in these verses how expressly the Lord Jesus shuts out all ways of salvation. He declares no man comes unto the father. Nothing that a man is clever, learned, highly gifted, amiable, charitable, kind hearted and zealous about some sort of religion.

All this will not save his soul if he does not draw near to God by Christ atonement and make use of God's own son as his mediator and savior. God is so holy that all men are guilty and debtors in his sight.

Sin is so sinful that no mortal man can make satisfaction for it. There must be a mediator, a ransom payer, a redeemer between ourselves and God or else we can never be saved. There is only one door, one bridge, one ladder between earth and heaven.

The crucified, whosoever will enter in by that door may be saved, but to him who refuses to use that door, the Bible holds out no hope at all for without the shedding of blood. There is no remand to heaven, though he knows nothing of Christ.

This idea is deadly and ruinous error. Never wipe away our sins. It is not true that every man will be saved by his own religion no matter what he believes, provided he's diligent and sincere. We must not pretend to be wiser than God.

Personal Examination Before the Judgment of God

Christ is no man. Having looked at this text under the two headings, first of all, the heading of the amazing personal claims of Jesus Christ's conclusion, I want to give you some searching personal questions based to address some searching questions to every man, woman, boy or girl who can hear with understanding to use the language of Nehemiah concerning the group that gathered for the reading and exposition of the word men and women, it says, and all could hear with understanding.

Listen to these questions and you pre-adolescent and you teenagers and young and old men and women go through the next three to four days. Each one of us were able to go. You were sitting down three feet away and no one else was there, not even your husband or wife.

In light of this text, I want you to conceive of yourself as in that setting. I'm not here earning my salary for use to me being in this pool with what appears to be earnestness and sincerity that down under the vision of Pastor Martin, just doing his thing in God's name, asking you with judgment, honestly in your heart, have no wing dishonest thought.

He knows every mean that comes out of your mouth. He knows our thoughts from afar. Every one of us is having dealings with God right now, and every one of us will have dealings with God in the day of judgment.

But you see Hebrews 10 .31 says it's a fearful thing into the hands with God to fall into his hands to have God deal with you in judgment and cast you into hell. Now my question is this, fellows, girls, men and women, the conviction in your own heart, dealings with God will one day come to that conviction, either in this life, hopefully leading to conversion or in the day of judgment leading to eternal despair.

The day of judgment will be God's universal heart from Jesus into the conviction that only the Christ of the Bible, only the Christ of the Bible to come to the conviction is not in yourself. It's not in your deeds.

It's not in your prayers. It's not in your size. It's not in your groans. It's not in your church attendance. It's not in your participation in the sacraments. It's not in rituals and forms. It's the casting of yourself, I say it reverently, into the arms of Christ, laying hold of sinners, come to the conviction that only the Christ of the Bible, the third and final personal question is Jesus Christ right now.

Knowledge, yes. The holiness of his person and in the perfection of his person, I'm convinced he is. The seed of my soul upon his. The most profound and on the most simple issues that a little child asks, Mommy, what happens when I die?

Where do I go? And take all that the philosophers have said and pile it up. And it's nothing more than a dung heap of human ignorance. A dung heap. You say reality is what Jesus says it is. No more. No less.

Christ’s Resurrection, Spirit, and the Believer’s Life

Truth about the only way that sinners can be made right with the Holy God through the bloodshedding of the incarnate God, the Lord Jesus, through the triumph of his resurrection, through the impartation of his spirit.

You say, you know what it is to say I once was dead. As the father said of the prodigal, this my son was dead, but now is alive. He was dead in terms of his father's ways and his father's rules. But when he came back to see his father's face and live in his father's presence and live under his father's government, the father says my son was dead and is now alive.

But the father's fellowship to everyone who can say by the grace of God, Pastor, he is that to me. Listen to the old bishop exhorting Christians who can say that forever, let us grasp and hold fast these truths to use Christ.

And he is faithful and just to forgive. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the father. That's what the old bishop means when they use him as the way go to him as the only mediator. Live on him, believe on him as the truth, all that he says about you and about life and relationships.

Embrace it as the truth and then live on Christ daily as the life. How can you own children to fathers and citizens to state in the massive as our life? The old bishop says to use Christ day package, please.

You have embraced your father. How we thank you for this text of scripture. We thank you for our Lord Jesus. We thank you that he ever spoke these words about himself. And we are bold to plead that he who promised that the spirit would come and would take of the things of himself and make them real to men that when he was come, he would convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment of sin because they do not believe upon him.

Oh, Lord, we ask, do that work in hearts in this place, in this hour that some may indeed point to this very day is the day of days. And then we plead that we who are your people who have come to know our Lord Jesus is the way, the truth and the life will more consistently daily use him as the way, believe him as the truth on him as our life.

And then, oh, Lord, make us bold to speak of him to others. For all around us, we know there are groping, could not know spiritually their left hand from their right.