Well now, we return again this morning to
our main theme in these morning hours, from
Simon to Peter.
And it's going to be quite a time
really before we arrive at Peter.
We're on the way.
The aspect of the theme that we are
going to consider this morning, we have billed
as early confirmations of the Saviour's claims.
Early confirmations of the Saviour's claims.
The claims of the Lord Jesus Christ were
breathtaking.
There is no question about that.
No one will dispute that fact.
But so also was his entire life and
ministry.
There was no other life like his.
There was no other birth like his.
There was no other life, there was no
other death, and certainly there was no other
resurrection and ascension.
There were no others.
And there will be none.
It's most remarkable, as you read the Scriptures,
to see how the wheels of providence move
in due course from one claim that he
makes, to a corresponding confirmation of its truth.
May I suggest that you read the New
Testament from time to time with this in
view.
You notice our Lord Jesus Christ making a
claim.
And you may be tempted to say to
yourself in the quietness of your hearts, this
sounds too good to be true.
Now we might not give expression to our
doubts, but in our hearts we might be
tempted to think like that.
But follow the reading.
Pursue the paths of the Saviour.
Keep close to him.
And it is—it's uncanny.
It is altogether incredible, were it not so
evidently true, that as you pursue the footmarks
of the Lord Jesus Christ, you see that
each claim is substantiated, proved to be true
and accurate.
And even when you come to the end
of his life and see how his resurrection
seals the hole that has gone before, you
have to say, yes the resurrection proves much.
But there is so very much in him
still to know, still to discover, still to
discover for ourselves.
Now Simon Peter was told by our Lord
Jesus Christ that he would be a different
man.
Standing before the Saviour, Jesus said to him,
Sir you are Simon, son of Jonah.
You shall be called Cephas, which being interpreted
is Petros or a stone, a rock.
Those words sounded almost too good to be
true.
Did the person who thus spoke to Simon
really know him?
Did the Lord Jesus Christ know the man
in front of him?
Or was this a sheer guess?
Now you will appreciate, I'm quite sure, sooner
or later Simon Peter must have asked himself
this question.
He said to me that I would become
a new man and bear a new name
corresponding to my new nature and my new
character.
But what did he know about me?
The first four chapters in John's gospel appear
almost to be a commentary upon what happened
there in the presence of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
It is, may I use the word again,
almost uncanny.
These first four chapters in John's gospel serve,
among other things, to prove first of all
to Simon Peter that the Lord Jesus really
knew him.
And then, in the second place, to prove
that the same Lord who knew him and
understood the intricacies of his nature, was also
well able to cope, even with a man
like Simon.
That he had not only wisdom and understanding,
but he had power and grace to transform
the man whom he had thus addressed.
Now I think it is necessary for us
simply to mention at this point that the
first four chapters of John's gospel refer to
incidents in the life of our Lord which
really come before those that we encounter in
the other three gospels.
Speaking historically, we must place the first four
chapters of John's gospel before the beginning of
our Lord's public ministry as recorded in Matthew,
Mark, and Luke.
Therefore, the events recorded in John 1 to
4 come fairly soon after the first interview
of Jesus with Peter, or Peter with Jesus.
And it is against that background that I
want to come today to one thread to
which I've already mentioned.
Namely, the confirmation to Simon of our Lord's
knowledge of him, of our Lord's understanding of
him.
Now before we come to that, let me
put this in a personal way.
Why is this so important?
Well, I would put it like this.
Haven't you ever been so confused with your
own heart, and your own sins, and your
own failures, that inwardly you have wanted to
ask some such question as this?
Did the Savior who called me really know
me?
Did he know what he was in for
when he called me after him?
Did he know the kind of trouble I
was going to give him?
Did he know the kind of sins that
were latent in my heart, the kind of
evil propensities and possibilities that lay dormant in
my soul?
Did he really know me?
Now I find myself constantly asking this.
And I've no doubt but that I'm not
alone in this.
In other words, we may be tempted to
think that really he may have called other
people but not called us.
We are a little bit of a surprise
to him, and because we believe that, we
lose out.
We tend to think that there may come
a situation which is not catered for in
the teaching, and in the ministry, and in
the provisions of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh how necessary it is, right at the
beginning of the Christian life, to be assured
my Savior knows me.
Now this is what I want to get
across this morning.
It was something that our Lord, by providence
and grace, got across to Simon Peter.
And our prayer is that the Holy Spirit
will enable each one of us to leave
this service this morning with this thing underlined
and underscored.
My friend, whatever your name is, and wherever
you live, and whatever your nature, and whatever
the sin that so easily besets you, he
knows.
And when he called you to himself, he
knew everything that you could possibly do that
was evil.
And yet he called you, and yet he
loved you, and yet he died for you,
and yet he makes all the promises of
grace over to you.
Now that's why I'm taking this tact.
The confirmation of Jesus' ability to know me.
Obviously I'm only going to choose excerpts this
morning from John 1 to 4.
Four chapters is quite a lot to cover.
I'm only going to choose three excerpts, three
illustrations of this principle.
But the principle is evident.
Now the first thing I want you to
notice is that he who claimed to know
Simon knew others also, and proved that he
knew others.
And the first one that he evidently knew
is Nathanael.
Now here we have a very delightful record
in John chapter 1 verses 45 to 51.
If you'd like to have your your testament
open before you, please do so.
Now if you're acquainted with this record, and
if you're not, please read it as soon
as you can when you get away from
the service this morning.
If you're acquainted with this record, you will
see that a similar kind of excitement which
had earlier sent Andrew bounding after Simon, and
saying to him, Simon, Simon, we have found
the Messiah.
Now sends a man called Philip, with equal
enthusiasm to share his identical discovery with a
man called Nathanael.
Philip, we read in in John 1 45,
Philip found Nathanael and said to him, we
have found him of whom Moses in the
law and also the prophets wrote.
Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, we
found him, says this man, we've discovered him.
Quick as a trigger came the retort from
the frank and honest Nathanael, can any good
thing come out of Nazareth?
We have found him, says Philip, of whom
Moses and the prophets wrote.
Jesus of Nazareth.
Ah, says the honest Nathanael, wait a moment,
it may be, but but but but hardly,
if he comes from Nazareth, that Nazareth should
be his home, casts a dark shroud of
doubt over Philip's reference to Jesus.
It was incomparable, it was it was impossible
in his estimation at that point, that the
Messiah should have anything at all to do
with Nazareth.
And honest that he was, he expressed his
doubt.
Not that his skepticism was based on prejudice,
but rather upon two facts, known to him
and known well to him.
On the one hand he knew something of
the glory of the one of whom Moses
and the prophets wrote.
He knew something of the regal majesty of
the Messiah that was to come, of his
splendor, and of his grace, and of his
mercy.
On the other hand he knew something of
the mean, mean character of Nazareth.
And he simply could not bring these two
things together, that the glorious Messiah of the
scriptures should come from such a meanly background,
as the little caravan village of Nazareth.
Now Philip was very wise.
You can't argue much with honest doubt.
And Philip simply took him by the hand
and says, all right I'm not arguing with
you, but just come and see for yourself.
Come and see!
And he did what Andrew had done with
Simon earlier on.
He took him to Jesus.
Now please note the evident similarity between our
Lord's approach to Nathanael, as he is brought
into his presence, and his approach to Simon
earlier on.
You notice what happened?
Just as Simon was brought by Andrew, Jesus
spoke to him and said, so you Simon
the son of Jonah, you shall be a
different man.
Now, as this man Nathanael is being brought,
just as he's coming near, Jesus said to
those around him, and Nathanael obviously heard it,
behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no
guide.
Now watch the response.
There's hardly anything more revealing of character and
of the true condition of a person's heart
than his reaction to praise and commendation.
Far too often is our ego thereby titivated
and our pride so aroused that we are
prepared to dance to any tune that he
will require of us who has first given
us a word of praise.
Isn't that so?
And if a man comes to you with
a word of commendation, far too often our
ego is so bloated at that moment that
we'll do anything he asks us, we'll say
anything, we'll go anywhere because of the praise
he's heaped upon us.
Nathanael was as unmoved by the commendation of
Jesus as by the earlier confession of Philip
that he had found the one of whom
Moses had written and the prophets.
Honest as he was, he said there was
one thing he needed to know before he
gave any significance to this word of commendation.
Turning to the Lord Jesus, he said, how
do you know me anyway?
How do you know me?
What do you know about me?
Why are you commending me?
What's the basis of it?
Is it just an ordinary word of greeting
and you're just hoping that I am this
kind of person?
What do you know about me?
Can you see the honesty of the man?
And then comes the thrust.
Oh, this wonderful word of the Lord.
You see, here is honest doubt.
Not dishonest, not equivocating, not wanting to wriggle
out of the obvious truths of the situation
and the realities of the situation, but honest
doubt.
And now the Lord Jesus manifests his omniscience.
Nathanael, he says, verse 48, before Philip called
you, when you were under the fig tree,
I saw you.
Now, we can't really go into the details
of this because we don't know what Nathanael
was doing under the fig tree.
But the obvious truth is this.
He was doing something which was intimate, something
that was personal, something that was commendable, because
our Lord spoke of him as an Israelite
in whom is no guile, no twist, nothing
of the kind that Jacob had, who was,
to use the word here, a twister.
There is a contrast here between this Israelite
that has no subtlety and Jacob who was
a subtle man.
I saw you there, says the Savior.
Now, the only thing that we can say
is this.
Nathanael must have been doing something under the
cover of a fig tree that no one,
no one had been able to see.
He was alone.
He was away from the crowd.
He was away and aside from every human
eye and the vision of every mortal.
But the blessed Lord Jesus who addresses him
now knew him there.
And instinctively, knowing how well guarded and shielded
and camouflaged he'd been there, instinctively this man
says, Rabbi, you are the Son of God.
You are the King of Israel.
Why did he say that?
Because of the evident capacity of the Lord
Jesus to know him.
He knew him.
Jesus not only knew Simon when he said
to him, Thou art Simon, son of Jonah.
He knew Nathanael.
Thus he who claimed to know Simon, son
of Jonah, without there and then proving his
claim, confirmed his evident capacity for knowing men
by his holy supernatural knowledge of this man
Nathanael.
How this must have comforted Simon.
Come to the second.
The same one who professed to know Simon
and proved that he knew Nathanael, also and
most certainly knew Nicodemus' heart.
Now we're moving into John chapter three.
The setting and the context of John three
needs to be carefully noted if we are
to see its relevance to our particular theme
this morning.
Now you will notice that the previous chapter
concluded with these words, in verse twenty-three
down to verse twenty-five in chapter two.
Now when he, that is Jesus, was in
Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in
his name when they saw the signs which
he did.
But Jesus did not trust himself to them,
because he knew all men, and needed not
that any man should bear witness of man,
for he himself knew what was in man.
Now we do not understand John chapter three
and the incident of Nicodemus unless we understand
those closing words of chapter two.
Because Jesus knew men universally, he knew all
men.
And because Jesus knew man generically, he knew
what was in man as man.
He did not commit himself to those who
had committed themselves to him in Jerusalem.
And the same word is used in both
cases.
Or if you want me to translate it
differently, and it's quite legitimate, there were people
in Jerusalem who believed in him, but he
did not believe in them.
They believed in him, but he did not
believe in them.
They made a profession of faith in him,
but he had no confidence in them.
All they said that they thought he was
the son of God.
They acknowledged this, and they acknowledged that, but
he had no confidence in what they said.
Why?
Because he knew all men.
He knew the significance of what they were
saying.
Now if we rightly understand the meaning and
the significance of a little Greek particle, with
which the third chapter begins, then it would
appear that John is telling us at this
point that there was one exception to the
otherwise general rule that Jesus made no response
to the people who professed to believe in
him at Jerusalem.
And that one exception was Nicodemus.
Now lest you think that I'm taking too
much upon myself, let me quote to you
from an Anglican divine, B.F. Westcott.
In his commentary on the first verse of
chapter 3, he writes thus, the word man,
you notice chapter 3 begins, there was a
man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus.
The word man is to emphasize the connection
with verse 25.
And you remember what verse 25 had said?
Verse 25 said, he needed not that any
should testify of man, because he knew what
was in man.
There was a man of the Pharisees named
Nicodemus.
The word man, then, is to emphasize the
connection with verse 25.
There, Nicodemus offered at once an example of
the Lord's inward knowledge of men and an
exception to this general rule which he observed
in not trusting himself to them.
Jesus did not trust himself to the multitudes
in Jerusalem who said that they trusted in
him, but as far as Nicodemus was concerned,
Nicodemus was an exception.
To Nicodemus he opened his heart.
He took Nicodemus aside when he came to
him by night, and oh, he had a
lot to tell him.
And my dear friends, let us notice this.
Jesus said more to Nicodemus as an individual
than probably to any other individual in the
New Testament.
For right up to verse 21, it's his
sermon to Nicodemus, to this one individual and
whoever may have been listening as well.
Now, assuming that our Lord's assessment of the
shallow nature of the general response to his
signs in Jerusalem was true, and I believe
it was true, of course.
Assuming that, in due course, we are right
in concluding that many of the folk who
professed to believe in him early in Jerusalem,
at the end of his ministry, joined the
crowd and shouted, crucify him!
Away with him!
Assuming that our Lord's assessment of them was
right, how do we know, how do we
know that his assessment of Nicodemus was right,
that he knew Nicodemus' heart?
Well now look, take another look at this
record.
Have you noticed that Jesus Christ answers, according
to John, a question that has never been
asked?
How closely do we read these narratives?
You know, it's very important to read the
scriptures carefully.
Have you noticed this?
John tells us that Jesus answered a question
which had never been asked.
Now look at it.
Look at the passage.
Nicodemus approaches our Lord with what is virtually
a confession of belief concerning the Lord Jesus.
It may have been incomplete, but it certainly
was not a flimsy confession.
These are his words.
Nicodemus comes and he says, Rabbi, we know
that you are a teacher come from God,
for no man can do these signs that
you are doing unless God is with him.
Now, the rhythm and the flow of the
language, according to the grammarians competent to judge
this, clearly tell us that Nicodemus is in
full verbal flight.
He started a sentence and he's in process
of going on and suddenly he's interrupted.
Listen to it again.
Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher
come from God, for no man can do
these signs that you are doing unless God
is with him.
Therefore, what?
Well, he's not come to his conclusion yet.
And the only perfect gentleman that this world
has ever seen interrupted him.
But now notice how John refers to that
interruption.
John refers to the interruption in verse 3
in these words.
Jesus answered him, answered him, answered him.
Jesus answered him.
Truly, truly I say to you, unless one
is born anew or born from above, he
cannot see the kingdom of God.
But Nicodemus hasn't asked a question.
Now this is the point you see.
Nicodemus is all talk at this point.
You know how we do this kind of
thing if we're a little bit nervous and
a little bit excited.
We go to someone and we talk and
we eat about the bush and we say
this, that, and the other, because we're all
afraid to say the thing that's in our
heart.
Or for some reason or other, we don't
want to expose our soul.
Jesus answered him.
He did not answer the question that Nicodemus
had asked verbally, but he answered the question
of his heart.
He shut his mouth to expose his heart.
He closed his own ears to the words
falling from Nicodemus's mouth, one after another like
a cataract, and stopped him short in order
to attend to the question of his soul.
What is the need of his heart?
What is the question of his soul?
Ah, it is death.
It relates to the concept of the kingdom
of God enunciated by Jesus.
If Jesus' teaching about the kingdom of God
is right, who on earth is going to
get in there?
How do you get in?
And our Lord from that very moment takes
Nicodemus by the hand and leads him step
by step and deals with the question of
his heart, leads him step by step, until
at last, albeit a secret disciple, Nicodemus's profession
in Jerusalem was proved ultimately to be something
that savored the beginning.
And Jesus revealed to him that the life
that is necessary to enter the kingdom is
a life that is to be mediated by
his own death upon the cross, for God
so loved the world that he gave his
only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life, even
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, says Jesus to Nicodemus.
And he knew that incident very well.
Even as Moses lifted up the serpent, that
the dying Israelites looking should live.
So he says, you may look to me
when I am lifted up and have life,
and that is the birth from above that
makes it possible for you to enter into
my kingdom, to enjoy the privileges thereof.
Marvel not that I say unto thee, ye
must be born again as an individual man,
except a man generically and universally, but born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,
men everywhere, men in general, men before me,
you Nicodemus, personally.
You must be born again, and there is
only one way.
It is life through my death, it is
a new birth through my bearing away your
sin and breathing pardon to your soul.
He knew Nicodemus, he knew him.
He who knew Simon and Nathanael knew Nicodemus
also, one other.
The same one who promised to change Simon
to Peter, proved his unique capacity to know
men by his dealings with Nathanael, Nicodemus, and
lastly the woman at Sychar's well.