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 11, 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' sake.
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.
Now I wish to begin this evening a
relatively brief series of messages entitled, Simple Signpost
to the Celestial City.
Taking 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.
That is, texts which capture in very short
compass and in a succinct way the central
truths of the Word of God.
And in this series entitled, Simple Signpost to
the Celestial City, we are going to be
focusing our attention upon some of those epitomizing
texts.
Some of those texts in which we have
the gospel of the grace of God set
before us in a nutshell.
And my aim in doing this is quite
straightforward and uncomplicated, and it is basically a
twofold goal.
First and foremost, I want to proclaim by
means of these texts, these simple signposts to
the Celestial City, that gospel which is the
power of God unto salvation.
And I desire to do so with the
prayer, and I trust some measure of expectation,
that God will make that preaching of the
gospel with these texts as our sphere of
reference, the very power of God unto salvation
to some who sit among us.
There are certain texts which boys and girls
and young men and women and adults should
hear preached in their lifetime from any pulpit
claiming to be a gospel preaching pulpit.
And it is my earnest desire, and I
trust it will be my increasingly fervent and
believing prayer and the prayer of others with
me, that God will take this series and
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 was
during the proclamation of those texts, those simple
signposts to the Celestial City, that God was
pleased to bring me out of darkness and
into His marvelous light.
And then my second goal is that I
want to furnish you, the people of God,
with a working acquaintance with some of these
most crucial texts which ought to be part
and parcel of every mature Christian's stock in
the trade of witnessing to others the kinds
of texts that you ought to be able
to sit down and open up to son
or daughter or to neighbor and work associate
as God gives the opportunity in seeking to
set forth the message of life and salvation
in our Lord Jesus Christ.
And since Ephesians 4, 11 and 12 indicates
that one of the functions of pastors is
to equip the saints unto the work of
service, it is my goal 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, but better fitted to
communicate that gospel to others.
So without any further words of introduction, I
direct your attention to the first of these
simple signposts to the Celestial City.
It is verse 6 of John 14.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way
and the truth and the life.
No one cometh unto the Father, but by
me.
In this marvelously simple and yet subtly profound
text, we have our Lord Jesus Christ telling
us in his own words who he is,
what he came to do, and the weighty
implications of these things as they relate to
each and every one of us.
Note with me first of all in these
words of the Lord Jesus what I am
calling the amazing personal claims of Jesus Christ.
The amazing personal claims of Jesus Christ.
In this text we do not have a
prophet pointing forward to Christ and saying amazing
things about the coming Messiah.
We do not have an inspired apostle looking
backward to the coming of Christ in the
flesh, to his life, death, and resurrection, and
saying things concerning Christ.
But we have Christ himself making these most
amazing personal claims with respect to himself.
And those claims are with respect to three
things.
Look at the text.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way
and the truth and the life.
First of all, our Lord Jesus claims to
be the way.
Now this word way is used in a
figurative sense.
A way is a path or a road
leading from one place to another.
And in the context, Jesus had just spoken
of the Father's house, heaven, the celestial city.
Verse two, in my Father's house are many
abiding places.
I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive
you unto myself, that where I am, that
is, in the place that I have prepared,
you may be also the place of many
abiding places, what John Bunyan calls the celestial
city.
And in this particular personal claim, the Lord
Jesus Christ is declaring that he is the
way.
That is, all of the building materials needed
to construct a road from earth to heaven
for sinful men, all of those materials are
to be found in the Lord Jesus Christ
himself.
He is the way.
And in the context, he is the way
with reference to the question that was asked.
Thomas said to him, Lord, we don't know
where you are going.
How can we know the way if we
don't know where you're going?
How can we find the road that gets
there?
Jesus has been speaking of where he is
going.
He will, in a few short days subsequent
to the horrible ordeals of Gethsemane and Gabbatha
and Golgotha, he will be laid in Joseph's
tomb.
He will come out of the tomb in
triumphant resurrection life.
And according to Acts chapter one, he will
go back into the presence of the Father.
And he says, with reference to the one
and only path that leads from earth to
heaven, I am the way.
But then the second aspect of his amazing
personal claims is that he claims to be
the truth.
Here we have no figure of speech.
Truth is an accurate statement of reality.
You kids get in a fight with one
another in the family room.
Mom or dad come in and say, what's
going on in here?
Well, she's doing this.
He's doing that.
She did this.
And they stop and say, wait a minute.
Let's get at the truth.
And what do mom and dad mean when
they say that?
They are saying, let's establish reality.
Who did what to whom and why and
how.
Let's get at the truth.
Truth is an accurate statement of reality.
And therefore, when Jesus in this text makes
this amazing personal claim not only to be
the way, but the truth, he is saying
in the context with reference to the great
issue of man's ultimate destiny, making one's way
to the many dwelling places prepared by the
Lord Jesus, that everything pertaining to how one
is fit for those dwelling places, how one
obtains a title to those dwelling places, how
one can actually arrive at one of those
many abiding places in Jesus Christ is the
truth with respect to those great and all
important issues of heaven or its opposite, hell,
of knowing God and dwelling with God.
It is the personal claim of Jesus Christ
that He is the truth.
So in a sense, long before Pilate cynically
asked the question later on in this gospel
in chapter 18 and verse 28, what is
truth?
As though there were no absolute truth, as
though truth were a nose of wax to
be pushed and shoved and shaped by the
whims of some philosopher or someone with his
own cause to promote, Jesus has already answered
the question.
Truth incarnate stood before him who cynically said,
what is truth?
For his amazing personal claim is, I am
not only the way, but I am the
truth.
But then thirdly, his amazing personal claims culminate
in this claim, I am the life.
The life.
Now the term life is not mere existence.
We can talk of a fly that was
alive until the fly swatter got it and
it lay on its back dead.
We can speak of an animal that was
alive until the hunter bagged it in hunting
season.
And there we use life in terms of
just animate existence.
But in this passage when Jesus said, I
am the life, He is speaking of life
in its rich and highest biblical connotation, which
means nothing less than realized communion with God
Himself.
Life in terms of Jesus' definition of it
in John chapter 17, where in his high
priestly prayer in verse 3 he says, this
is life eternal, that they should know thee
the only true God, and him whom thou
didst send, even Jesus Christ.
What is life?
What is life eternal?
What is that life which was forfeited by
our first father and mother, Adam and Eve,
and can only be realized in and through
the person and ministry of Jesus Christ?
It is nothing less than life known and
experienced in the realm of communion with the
living God.
The knowledge of God, delight in God, this
is the very essence of life.
And the Lord Jesus in John 10 in
verse 11 said, I am come with reference
to my sheep that they may have life
and that they may obtain life and have
it more abundantly.
Now these are the amazing personal claims of
the Lord Jesus.
This is not 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 his
flesh, gathered with the eleven in that upper
room and making this claim, I am the
way, the truth, and the life.
Now having looked at these amazing personal claims,
I want you to note with me two
things about those claims that are very, very
crucial.
The first is that Christ is these things
in himself.
Christ is these things in himself.
In the original there is a construction in
which this emphasis comes forward very forcefully.
If I can put it into a manner
of speaking, it's not that the Lord Jesus
said, I am the way, the truth, and
the life.
But he said, I, even I, am the
way, the truth, and the life.
There is that construction found quite frequently 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.
In other words, I have not come to
create a way.
I have not merely come to point to
the truth.
I have not merely come to disclose a
way of life.
But I am in myself the way.
I am in myself the truth.
I am in myself the life.
That's bound up in the very linguistic framework
within which Jesus makes these amazing personal claims.
He is these things in himself.
And secondly, note, he is these things exclusively.
He does not say, I, even I, myself,
am a way, a truth, a life, a
way, one among many.
Oh yes, a way.
And if you choose me as the way
to the Father, to heaven, and the knowledge
of God, you will find me to be
a true way.
But I am one way among many.
Oh no, he said, I am the way.
The way.
Miss me.
And there is no backup avenue to heaven
and to God and to spiritual reality.
I am not one way among many.
I am the way exclusively.
I am the truth exclusively.
I am the life exclusively.
I am not only these things in myself,
but I am these things exclusively.
These are the amazing personal claims of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
And since he made them, and his word
is truth, there are some inevitable deductions about
you and about me that grow out of
those claims.
Do you see what they are?
If Jesus says, I, myself, am the way,
then you see the way to heaven is
not in us or in any of our
fellow men, in any structure, in any institution,
be it religious, be it sociological, be it
educational, whatever it is.
If Jesus Christ, in himself, is the way
and exclusively the way, then the way is
not in us.
Apart from him, we are lost without a
way.
Apart from him, we are lost now without
a way.
Apart from him, we will be lost forever
without a way.
And the graphic, sad, doleful picture of a
lost soul given to us in the book
of Jude will be true of every one
of us unless we find that way.
It speaks of lost souls as wandering stars
to whom the blackness of darkness hath been
reserved forever.
What a picture.
Think of it, a star that shoots across
the vast reaches of the outer edge of
some galaxy with no path upon which to
ride.
And it shoots from one place to another,
to another, and to another.
A wandering star through the deep, dark, impenetrable
recesses of space as we know it.
God says that's a picture of what you'll
be forever.
If Christ does not become your way, the
way is not in ourselves.
The way is not in any of our
fellow creatures.
We are all, by nature, lost men and
women, boys and girls who desperately need a
way to God, even the one who said,
I am that way.
Furthermore, the second deduction is clear.
The truth is not in us.
The whole idea that each man has in
himself the sufficient raw materials to sit and
stroke his chin or to twiddle with her
locks and come up with some insights about
God and truth and reality, and so long
as one is sincere, all will be well,
my friends, that is damnable nonsense.
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 understandeth.
Hear 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 know them.
Hear the scripture that says the God of
this world hath blinded the minds of the
unbelieving.
Hear the scripture that speaks of their understanding
being darkened, alienated from the life of God.
The truth is not in us.
It does 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, knew not God.
If Christ's amazing claims are valid, and they
are, and he is the way and the
truth, then the way is not in us.
We are lost.
The truth is not in us.
We are spiritually darkened and ignorant.
And the life is not in us.
We are spiritually dead.
This is why Paul could write as he
does in Ephesians 2 and say, you have
been made alive who were dead through your
trespasses and your sins.
When Jesus speaks of our state and condition,
he likens it to people entombed in the
death of our sin.
That is our true condition.
The life is not in us.
If Christ says, I myself am the life,
and he is that in himself, and he
is that exclusively, then there is no life
in us.
Now imagine Robert Schiller, that plastic-faced, Cheshire
Cat smiling heretic, saying nowhere did Jesus Christ
ever call anyone a sinner.
That would bruise their positive self-image.
When Jesus sat in that upper room with
the eleven of his most intimate friends and
said to them, I am the way, the
truth, and the life, he was not flattering
them, for he was telling them that in
and of themselves the way was not in
them.
That they were lost by nature.
That the truth was not in them.
They were ignorant and spiritually darkened men by
nature.
The life was not in them.
They were dead men by nature.
My friend, Jesus Christ is the great physician
of souls.
He never flatters his patients.
He tells them what they really are.
And if we would see in this text
a simple signpost pointing to the celestial city,
we must begin first of all by embracing
these amazing personal claims that Christ himself makes
about himself.
I am the way, the truth, the life,
and accept the inevitable deductions that grow out
of those claims.
It will not do to say, oh yes,
he is the way, the truth, and the
life, unless you are prepared to say, I
therefore in and of myself cannot make a
way to God.
I have no way to God.
My fellow men can construct no way to
God.
There is no truth beginning with me.
There is no truth to be concocted by
me.
There is no truth that will be hammered
out upon the anvil of my own intellectual
exercises and then become the revelation of the
answer to the great issues of life.
No, I am spiritually dark and ignorant, and
the life is not.
Are you prepared to face those amazing personal
claims of Christ with their inevitable deductions?
If not, my friend, you know the price
you will pay?
You will be damned for your arrogance.
For Christ said, I am the way, I
am the truth, I am the life.
And he further said in the close of
John's Gospel, Chapter 12, the words that I
speak unto you shall judge you in the
last day.
And if you go to the day of
judgment and Christ has not become your way
to God, your truth from God, your life
of God, then these very words you have
heard tonight will rise up and judge you
in the last day.
Christ's amazing personal claims.
Then consider with me, secondly, not only the
amazing personal claims of Jesus Christ, but secondly,
the sobering conclusion drawn from these claims by
Jesus Christ.
The sobering conclusion drawn from these claims by
Jesus Christ.
You see, after looking at his claims, I
said 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, Jesus Christ himself
draws a sobering conclusion from his own claims.
Look at it.
No sooner does he say, I am the
way and the truth and the life, there
are the amazing claims.
Now the sobering deduction conclusion.
No one cometh unto the Father, but by
me.
No one cometh unto the Father, but by
me.
Now you see, it is often been said
in days past and is said right down
to the present hour that people have no
complaints with Jesus as a good man, a
good teacher, but it is the narrowness of
his followers, the fanatical claims his followers make
that unless you believe as they believe, you
are lost and damned and will roast in
hell.
People say that is the offense of Christianity.
It is not Christ, the meek, the gentle,
the loving, tender Jesus who went about doing
good, who taught us the golden rule, who
gave us the sermon on the mount.
We have got no complaint with Jesus.
It is these fanatical, bigoted, narrow-minded followers
who go far beyond Jesus and say, unless
you believe as we believe, you will roast
in hell.
Our problems with those characters.
Oh no, no, my friend, if you have
bought into that nonsense, you listen to Jesus.
Listen to the meek, lowly Jesus.
This is not something I am saying about
him.
This is something he says about himself.
And this is what he says.
The sobering conclusion drawn from those amazing personal
claims is this.
Here it is.
No man cometh unto the Father but by
or through me.
Note in this conclusion that it is universal
in its scope.
It says no one, no one comes to
the Father but through me.
No one of any age, in any place,
of any background, of any race, of any
ethnic, social, religious, educational, cultural framework, at any
time in human history, it matters not.
It is universal in its scope, this conclusion.
It says no one.
No one boy, no one girl, no one
pre-adolescent, male or female, no teenager, male
or female, no young adult, male or female,
no middle-aged, no gray-haired, no-haired
man who is on his way down to
his grave.
No shaking, tottering, arthritic, grand or great-grandmother.
No one.
This is Jesus' own conclusion based upon his
amazing personal claims.
It is universal in its scope.
It touches every single one of us in
this building.
You, and you, and you, and you, and
the preacher standing in this pulpit.
It is universal in its scope.
Now notice, it is undeniably exclusive in its
intent.
It is undeniably exclusive in its intent.
Look at the language of Jesus.
No one comes to the Father but through
me.
Now what does he say?
Well, surely he is not saying no one
will see the Father as judge in the
last day.
Because that would contradict the rest of scripture
and many other statements of the Lord Jesus.
Acts 17.30 says God commands all men
everywhere to repent.
Why?
Because he's appointed a day in which he
will judge the world.
Romans 14.12 says, so then every one
of us shall give account of our sins.
Of himself to God.
Yes, you will 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 judge seated upon his
throne when the books are opened.
Yes, you will have dealings with God.
But what Christ is saying is this, none
can come to God as Father and find
him a welcoming God, a pardoning God, a
receiving God, a gracious God.
None can come to the Father and find
forgiveness for all of their sins, for all
of their iniquities, acceptance and welcome.
No man or no one cometh unto the
Father but through me.
That is, through me as the way to
the Father, through me as the truth concerning
how sinners can approach the Father, through me
as the life who alone can impart that
knowledge and saving relationship to the Father.
In other words, Jesus is giving the most
explicit, simple affirmation that he is the exclusive
mediator between God and man.
He is saying before the apostles said it
in 1 Timothy 2.5, there is one
God and one mediator or go-between between
God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus who
gave himself a ransom for all.
One God, one mediator between God and man.
And that is the Christ of biblical revelation.
When Jesus said, no one cometh unto the
Father but through me, who is the me?
It is the Christ of biblical revelation.
It is the Christ who came to us
by way of a virgin conception in the
womb of Mary.
When in the mysterious operations of the Holy
Spirit there was conceived in Mary's womb the
man Christ Jesus, taking a true humanity to
his eternal undiminished divinity, the Word became flesh.
The Word was with God.
The Word was God prior to Mary's womb.
After the Word took flesh, he was still
God.
But now he is enfleshed.
He does not cease to be all that
he ever had been.
He begins to be what he never had
been, the God-man.
And when he said, no one cometh to
the Father but by me, he was conscious
of his identity.
This is why he could speak of, I
came down from heaven.
None of us talks that way.
If we have the most clear sense of
our calling in life based upon the Word
of God and the providence of God, none
of us would be so arrogant 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.
None of us would say that.
It would be blasphemous.
But Jesus again and again said, I came
not to do my will but the will
of him that sent me.
I came down from heaven not to do
mine own will but to do the will
of him that sent me.
The Son of Man is come.
All of that language shows his self-consciousness
of his unique identity.
This stupid notion that Jesus never claimed to
be God.
It was his overly enthusiastic followers that exceeded
the bounds of propriety and elevated him to
the status of a God.
My friends, it will not stand up to
the test of the simple statements of Scripture.
Here in the Gospel of John, several times
he made claims that caused the Jews to
be ready 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.
So when he says, no one comes to
the Father but by me, that me is
not Jesus made out of the stuff of
what you've picked up along the way from
popular books and movies 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.
It is not the Jesus made up of
the stuff of Hollywood films and Sunday school
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 biblical revelation.
The Virgin conceived eternal word become flesh.
It is the Jesus who passed through every
stage of normal human development.
He grew in wisdom, in stature, favor with
God and man, yet never once sinned, holy,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners who could look
his most bitter enemies straight in the eye
at spitting distance and say, which one of
you can convict me of sin?
Think of it.
Would any of you dare say that to
anyone who's far beyond spitting distance?
Which of you can convict me of sin?
Would you dare say that to your wife,
to your husband, to your son, your daughter,
mom or dad?
Who of you can point out a sin
that I've committed?
He could look his bitterest enemies who've been
hawking and hounding him all over the various
regions of Palestine, looking for something to pounce
upon.
And he dared to hurl the challenge into
their moral teeth and say, which of you
convicts me of sin?
The sinless one.
It is the Christ who knew, even as
he spoke these words, in a few short
hours he would be going out as a
lamb to the slaughter, voluntarily to lay down
his life as a sacrificial offering unto God.
The one who 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 was
the purchase of the blood 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 the Christ of biblical
revelation.
And he is making this undeniably exclusive conclusion.
No one comes to the Father but by
me.
Me in terms of the uniqueness of my
person.
Me in terms of the uniqueness and sufficiency
of my work on behalf of sinners.
I, the Christ, who in a few short
hours will cry from my cross, not I
am finished, but it is finished.
Literally, it stands accomplished.
That's why he could pray as he did
in John 17, for I have glorified thee
on the earth.
I have finished the work which thou gavest
me to do.
My friends, listen to me, especially young people,
hear me now.
When you get into that class in high
school, later on in college, and someone with
pseudo intellectual impressions whacks away at the foundations
of your Christian faith and tries to say,
oh, look, I'm not trying to make a
pagan out of you, but I just want
to rid 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 stodgy 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 and to
outer darkness.
For he said, no, no one, no one
comes to the father now for forgiveness, pardon,
acceptance, life, salvation, and no one will come
to the father in the last day to
receive one of those dwelling places except Jesus.
He said through me, through me, universal in
its scope, no one undeniably exclusive in its
intent.
No one comes to the father except through
me.
Listen to old Bishop Ryle, how the old
bishop could hit the nail on the head
in some of his comments on gospel portions,
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.
But himself, he declares, no man comes unto
the father, but by me, it avails 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 Son of God, 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 remission.
Let us beware if we love life of
supposing that mere earnestness will take a man
to heaven, though he knows nothing of Christ.
This idea is deadly and ruinous error.
Sincerity will 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 is diligent and
sincere.
We must not pretend to be wiser than
God.
Christ has said, and Christ will stand to
it, no man cometh unto the Father but
by.
Having looked at this text under the two
headings, first of all, the heading of the
amazing personal claims of Jesus Christ, secondly, the
sobering conclusion drawn from these claims of Christ,
now thirdly and finally, I want to give
you some searching personal questions based upon Jesus'
claims and his own conclusion.
I want 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.
And I ask you children to listen to
these questions and you pre-adolescent and you
teenagers and young and old men and women,
some searching personal questions.
I want you to envision that we dismiss
the whole congregation and set up appointments that
they had to go through the next three
to four days.
And each one of us were able to
go into the back room where the elders
meet for prayer.
And you were sitting down three feet away
and no one else was there, not even
your husband or wife.
And I looked you straight in the eye
and I asked you these questions in the
light of this text.
I want you to conceive of yourself as
in that setting.
I'm not here earning my salary, folks.
Some of you I still don't think believe
that.
You've gotten so used to me being in
this pulpit and speaking with what appears to
be earnestness and sincerity that down underneath you
really got the suspicion, oh, Pastor Martin's just
doing his thing in God's name.
Please, please, in God's name, junk that stupid
notion.
I'm on my way to judgment to answer
for the stewardship of preaching to you.
And I'm asking you with Judgment Day earnestness
and intensity and tenderness, hear these questions, answer
honestly in your heart.
Question one, have you, not your wife, husband,
son, daughter, father, mother, cousin, uncle, aunt, no,
have you come to the conviction that your
own condition is such that you can have
no safe dealings with God apart from Jesus
Christ?
Have you come to that conviction that you
can have no safe dealings with God apart
from Jesus Christ?
Why do I say safe dealings with God?
Well, you're going to have dealings with God,
my friend.
You're having them right now.
Whether you think of God or not, he
thinks of you.
He knows your every thought, every idle word.
He knows every unclean, dishonest thought.
He knows every mean, petulant, selfish, ungodly word
that comes out of your mouth.
He sees the envy of your heart.
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, a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God.
That's not a safe dealing with God, to
fall into His hands, to have God deal
with you in judgment and cast you into
hell, saying, depart from me, I never knew
you.
Now, my question is this, fellas, girls, men
and women, teenagers.
Have you come to the conviction in your
own heart that you can have no safe
dealings with God apart from Jesus Christ?
Every man, woman, boy or girl who's ever
lived 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
impartation of the conviction to every unsaved man
or woman that they could not have safe
dealings with Him apart from Christ.
Now there the choice stands before you.
Face the humbling reality of your sin now,
and say, I dare not face Him who
is a consuming fire without my sins being
washed in the blood of Christ, without Christ
being to me the way to God, the
truth from God, and the life of God.
I ask you, have you come to the
conviction that your own condition is such that
you can have no safe dealings with God
apart from Jesus Christ?
Second question, have you come to the conviction
that only the Christ of the Bible, only
the Christ of the Bible can secure your
acceptance with the Father?
Have you come to that conviction?
If I do not lay hold of and
have answering for me the Christ of the
Bible, I can have no safe dealings with
the Father.
Father, have you come to the conviction that
only the Christ of biblical revelation can secure
your acceptance with the Father, that your acceptance
is not in yourself, it's not in your
deeds, it's not in your prayers, it's not
in your sighs, 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 is outside of
yourself in a person, and that person is
Jesus Christ, and faith is the casting of
yourself, I say it reverently, into the arms
of Christ that He might present you.
It is laying hold of Christ as the
pierced one, the resurrected one, saying, Lord Jesus,
be my mediator with the Father, with the
incensed Godhood that has righteous anger against my
sins, Lord Jesus, be my propitiation, the one
who turns away the wrath of the Godhead
from me, because you bore that wrath in
the room instead of sinners upon the cross.
Have you come to the conviction that only
the Christ of biblical revelation can secure your
acceptance with the Father?
Well, then I come to the cruncher, the
third and final personal question, is Jesus Christ
right now your way, your truth, and your
life?
Can you say to the best of your
knowledge, yes, I have turned away from ever
hoping to find in all the universe the
raw materials that will make a way to
God?
I believe they are all in Jesus Christ,
in the uniqueness of His person and in
the perfection of His work.
I am convinced He is the way, so
convinced that I have placed the whole weight
of my soul upon Him.
I have put the feet of my soul
upon Him as the way, the only road
that leads to the Father.
I joyfully acknowledge that He is my way.
Is He your truth?
Have you embraced Him as the one who
speaks the words of God, whose truth makes
free and liberates from the tyranny of men's
silly notions?
About life, the meaning of life, death, and
what lies beyond the grave?
Take all of the theorizing of the most
profound, insightful, intellectual philosophers of all the ages
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 is nothing
more than a dung heap of human ignorance.
A dung heap of human ignorance!
Christ is the truth!
Is He your truth?
Do you cling to Him with a death
grip in terms of His Word?
You say reality is what Jesus says it
is.
No more!
No less!
Christ is my truth.
Is He your truth?
Your truth about yourself, that you are a
sinner?
Your truth about God, that He is holy?
Your truth about the only way that sinners
can be made right with a holy God?
Through the blood-shedding of the incarnate God,
the Lord Jesus?
Through the triumph of His resurrection?
Through the impartation of His Spirit?
Is He your truth, and is He your
life?
Can you say, I know I have passed,
in the language of John, from death unto
life?
Do 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 communion with
his father.
Dead in terms of delight in his father's
presence, in his father's ways, in his father's
rules.
But when he came back with the disposition
of desire 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.
And so it is true when Christ becomes
our life.
We love the father's face, we love the
father's fellowship, we love the father's rules.
Is Christ your life?
Is He your way, your truth, and your
life?
I conclude by saying 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 daily
as the way, to believe Christ daily as
the truth, to live on Christ daily as
the life.
This is to be a well-informed, a
thoroughly furnished, and an established Christian.
Isn't that precious?
You want to be, in the truest sense
of the word, well-informed, thoroughly furnished, established
as a Christian?
Then spiritually believe Christ daily as the truth.
Use Christ daily as the way.
If we confess our sins, 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 he
says, 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 obey the words of truth
that He gives to husbands and wives and
fathers and mothers and children to fathers and
citizens of state and the massive array of
biblical precepts that are to shape and govern
us?
For He said, without me, He can do
nothing.
But we are to live upon Him as
our life.
Paul says, Christ who is our life.
And the old bishop says, to use Christ
daily as the way, to believe Christ daily
as the truth, to live on Christ daily
as the life.
This is to be a well-informed, a
thoroughly furnished and an established Christian.
And oh, if that is your experience, then
I ask you, my brothers and sisters, how
can we be silent about Him in the
presence of the unconverted who have no way,
who know no truth, who have no life?
There are many ways that we could help
our neighbors.
Surely one would be to say, you know,
a week, two weeks, a month, two months
ago, I heard a sermon on a simple
text that our pastor said was a simple
signpost to the celestial city.
Could you give me five minutes while I
just tell you what Jesus said in that
text?
Dear people, we're without excuse.
We don't need little package presentations.
Surely this text is enough to sit down
with a friend and explain the good news
and why men need such a Savior so
perfectly suited to every need of the sinner.
May God grant that this first of our
simple signpost to the celestial city will be
owned of God as a means to bring
some of you to embrace Him who is
the way, the truth, and the life, to
cause us all who have embraced Him to
use Him daily as the way, to believe
Him daily as the truth, to feed on
Him daily as the life, and then out
of that living relationship to Him, to speak
of Him boldly to others that they may
come to know Him who is the pearl
of great price to us.
Let us pray.
Our 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
as the day of days, and then we
plead that we who are Your people who
have come to know our Lord Jesus as
the way, the truth, and the life will
more consistently daily use Him as the way,
believe Him as the truth, and feed upon
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, confused, battered
men and women, boys and girls who do
not know spiritually their left hand from their
right.
Oh, God, give us compassion, we pray, and
boldness that we may be ready to speak
of our glorious Savior.
Hear, then, our prayer and seal Your word
with the blessing of Your continued presence by
the Spirit.
We ask through the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.