Address—Don Rule
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This afternoon with the hymn that we ended with at the end of the last meeting.
250 We will sing the 3rd and the 4th verses of #250.
250 Verse 30 Lord, the way, the truth, the life.
Henceforth, let sorrow, doubt, and strife drop off like autumn leaves.
Henceforth, is privileged by the simple.
Wonderful word, simple and undistracted. 2 wonderful things that we all have trouble with. I think our souls, which to the cleave and the words I want to emphasize in verse four are childlike.
Attend to what thou wilt say #250 beginning with verse 3.
Lord, save our sweet, sweet dream.
Turn with me to John's Gospel, Chapter 14.
John 14.
And verse 6.
Jesus saith unto him.
I am the way.
And the truth.
And the life.
No man cometh unto the Father.
But by me, Luke's Gospel, chapter 18.
Luke's Gospel chapter 18. The last three words of verse 22.
Com.
Follow me.
In a certain sense, I'm done.
But I'll follow Jim's admonition and put a few words around it.
I trust that every one of us will and has responded to those 3 words.
Com.
Follow.
Me.
I am the way.
The truth.
And the lights.
The world and everybody in it always makes choices.
It's been said that.
It's not so much whom.
What you know, more important is who you know.
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It's true. It's important to let you know that. It's even more important who you know.
It could also be said.
It's important what you follow, but it's even more important who you follow.
And everybody in this room has made choices and you're following.
Someone or something, your life is characterized by what it is that you follow.
If someone were spiritually discerning, they could observe your life for a little while and perhaps be able to tell.
What it is that is motivating you and governing, controlling your life?
Hear the Lord Jesus says to a man, Come.
Follow.
Me.
I am the way.
I am the truth.
And I am the life.
Before we consider for ourselves what choice we perhaps have made.
Uh, Adam and Eve made a choice.
And everybody since has made choices, and those choices are, in one sense rather simple ones, but they have a profound effect upon our lives and upon the world in which we live.
I am the way.
Turn with me to Jeremiah, chapter 10.
Jeremiah chapter 10 and verse.
23.
Oh Lord.
I know.
That the way of man is not in himself.
It is not in man that walketh.
To direct his steps.
I'm going to make an application of this verse.
That is significant and important to the world in which we live and to your life and mine.
When Adam made the choice to disobey God.
I did it.
He was lost.
And every single person who has lived since Adam.
Has entered in this world.
In that condition.
Of being lost.
A person is lost because of what they are not so much because of what they have done.
We're sinners because of what we do, but we are lost because of what we are.
When Adam disobeyed God, he lost.
The moral center of his life.
He lost the connection between himself and God, and when he lost that connection, he became a wanderer.
Cain, who went out from the presence of the Lord.
Was a wanderer and a fugitive.
He was a wanderer because he had no center outside of himself to guide him anymore.
And the way of man is not in himself. Man is not a creature that is sufficient within himself to rightly guide his own way. He must have something outside of him, that is that which guides and directs and controls his life.
And when Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, he was a wanderer.
He wandered the rest of his life as far as the scriptural record gives us.
When he as a wanderer.
Mistreated by murder his fellow man, he became a fugitive.
And his life was characterized by being a wanderer and a fugitive.
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The way a man is not in himself.
It's important to accept that as the truth.
We live in a lost world. We live in a world full of people who spend their whole life wandering.
They never find anything.
They wander and wander and wander and they never find anything, and they have no moral center to their life.
They have nothing that provides to them something that will give them a solid center.
Or is it sometimes said object, reason for existence and belief in being?
They wander.
If you sit in this room and it's not a gospel meeting necessarily, but I'll use the gospel in it.
And you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ. You're a wanderer.
And you'll wander your whole life, and you will never find.
Outside of the way.
A true center.
You're lost.
That's why Jesus Christ tells us in Luke 19. He came to seek. You have to seek somebody that's lost. He came to seek and to save the lost. The whole world full of them.
Lost people. The world is full of lost people and it's a sad condition to be in. I am the Way is the alternative.
The Lord Jesus says I am the truth.
The world.
Is a lie.
The world is a lie.
When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden.
They made a choice between truth and the lie.
The truth was.
Thou shalt surely die.
If you eat of that fruit of that tree, the lie was thou shalt not surely die.
They made a choice except of the lie, and they refused the truth.
They went out, came, went out from the presence of the Lord.
To live a lie.
It was a lie because it wasn't a proper What's the truth?
Well, we know something and what we would call facts and true statements and so on, but that's not what truth is. In its essence, Truth puts everything in its right order and its right relationship.
And the minute.
Adam and Eve disobeyed God.
They got the truth substituted by us, a lie, and they put themselves out of their proper relationship with God.
And so.
When Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, he lived a life without its proper relationship to God, and after a while it caused him.
Not to have his proper relationship with his fellow man.
And man lives the lie.
I often ask a group of young people, do you believe I've lied?
Never had him once in spite of me standing there and probably they hadn't seen me commit a lie. They all immediately say yes, you've lied.
I say I taught my children never to lie, and I had three children. Do you think any of them ever lied?
They say yes. Why?
Because man's become a liar.
Nobody fully believes everything his fellow man says.
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The world itself is constantly promoting things which in truth or a lie.
They do not hold anything in its proper balance and relationship with respect to God.
I am the truth, the Lord Jesus says.
The alternative the alternative choice for life is to live the life.
And the whole world system is.
And will have to be removed.
Completely from God, it tells us in John the whole world lies in the wicked one. And what is he?
The father of lies.
Does he promise? Sure he does.
He promises with great swelling words of vanity.
Liberty.
Many a man.
Says here, come follow my way, the way of liberty, the way of pleasure.
And makes another man a bond slave to the same corruption that he's in.
Pitiful, isn't it?
But it's true.
It's true. It is the moral condition of what you're living in.
Young person, older person, every person.
There's the truth and there's the lie.
I in the way is the alternative. I am the truth.
Is the alternative.
I am the light.
The day that thou eatest thereof.
Thou shalt surely die.
We live in a dead world.
Sure, everybody has physical life, everyone goes about daily life, everyone struggles with it and so on.
But God looks at it as a dead world, a dead place, a place in which the Spirit of God has to come and breathe to bring life to dead souls.
It's a dead world.
When it doesn't have God.
When it doesn't have the Lord Jesus, I am calm that they might have life.
And that they might have it more abundantly.
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
The contrast.
Wandering.
Lies.
What's the choice you've made?
What's the path of life you're on? Are you lost?
Are you living the lie?
Are you like the woman in Proverbs? It says.
She being dead while she lives.
You live a dead life.
Life, that it could be said, the way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
Where is your life so-called headed?
Is it headed to life eternal or is it headed to death?
It's when it's all over, is it going to be shown that it was just a lie? Or when it's over, is it going to be shown that it was a life of truth?
Are you going to wander all the way through life?
Miserable way to live.
Well, you're not sufficient in yourself to find your own way the way a man is not in US.
It's not in us to direct our steps.
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One way or another.
Or followers.
Let's go back to the man to whom these words were addressed in Luke's gospel and read it and think about him.
Luke, chapter 18.
Luke 18, verse 18.
A certain ruler asked him saying, Good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good save one, that is God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor thy father and mother. And he said, All these things have I kept from my youth up. Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him.
Yet lackest thou one thing?
Sell all that thou hast and distribute to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come follow me.
And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful, for he was very rich.
And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God?
For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.
And they that heard it said, Who can be saved? And he said the things which are impossible with men are possible with God.
Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all, and followed thee. And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house or parents.
Or brethren, its brothers and sisters, or wife or children, for the Kingdom of God's sake.
Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time and in the world to come, life everlasting?
Amazing young man.
Really.
He comes to the good master, the good teacher.
And he's interested in having eternal life.
Good, good desire.
He wants to know what he has to do to have it.
So we asked the teacher.
The teacher responds first by saying, if you're gonna look at me as a teacher, you have to remember there's only one that can be called good. That's God.
But then he goes on.
As a good teacher.
To tell him you know the commandments, you know what you need to do.
And he names to him five of the 10.
The man says it's amazing, really. We assume it's a true statement. I've kept all five of those.
I don't know how many people in this room could stand up to that man's character.
Would you care to come up here and stand beside me? I can't stand here. I'll get off the platform. You can come up here and say.
No, I haven't committed a Moultrie. I haven't killed. I've never stolen.
I asked that same question to the kids. They said I raised three children and I taught them never to lie, never to cheat, never to steal. Do you think anyone of them ever lied, cheated or stole?
When they get over a little bit of shyness of having to answer to me. Yep.
Really. I I taught them not to steal. Do you think any of them ever stole?
I don't know how many could stand up in this room and stand here beside me and say I've never taken anything that didn't belong to me. I've never stolen. Maybe you could name some of the others and say I I couldn't stand up to honoring my father and mother always.
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Anyways, this man could, he could say I've kept all these from my youth up.
Amazing really, and in admirable character among men and these particular.
Commandments have to do with our relationship to our fellow man.
Buddy wants to know what he has to do and the Lord takes him up on that and he says OK.
Now that we've established that you've done that, you're missing one thing.
Go.
Sell all that you have and give to the poor.
And come.
Follow me.
The test was.
Would those things that he had keep him from following or responding to the words, come follow me?
This man wanted to add to what he had. He didn't say, Lord, what is it? I need to give up. He was content with what he had, accepting. He wanted eternal life in addition to it. And so he wanted to come to the Lord and see what he needed to do to add this additional possession to what he already had. He was very rich.
He had a lot.
Anybody also wanted to have eternal life?
The Lord said.
Select.
And give it away the results.
If the Lord Jesus.
This afternoon walked through those doors and walked up to you and said to you this afternoon, come follow me.
I suppose the original reaction of our hearts. Of course I would do it.
But there's a test in it.
You have anything?
In your life right now.
But you won't sell.
That is give up.
Anything.
Anything.
That's the difficulty this man had.
He was a lost man.
Really.
He was lost, he was living a lie. He didn't have life. He didn't have the Lord Jesus, so he didn't have life.
He didn't have a right relationship with God through the Lord Jesus, so his life was really a lie.
He was wandering.
The evidence of it is he wasn't satisfied with what he had. He wanted. He needed, he wanted something he didn't have. He wanted to add to what he had.
To find the satisfaction that his heart craved.
And he thought that would be eternal life.
But he wasn't going to give up.
What he hired to get it.
So we as far as we know, he went out to wander some more.
Spend his life a wanderer.
So close, you might say he only missed one thing. There was just one little hang up. Just one little thing that kept him.
From following those words come.
Follow me.
Is there one little thing in your life?
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It's got control of you.
That is that object.
Be it a pleasure, be it of ambition, be it of desire for power or importance in some thing and for yourself that is controlling you.
That is your. What you're following there is something.
And the Lord Jesus was putting this man to the test.
You must 100%.
Make the choice. It's one or the other. You can't have both.
He went away sorrowful, very sorrowful.
Couldn't have both.
Probably none of us in the room qualify to be very rich like this man was and this world's goods that are used in this illustration.
The disciples, however, the followers of the Lord, they had a sense. Lord, this is difficult.
This is like impossible. We can't do it.
Now how can anybody do it?
But then Peter.
He says we left all and followed you.
And they had wonderful they were true disciples of the Lord.
But I believe morally the Lord gives one extra thing here that is difficult for us who aren't so rich.
What is it?
Lord says to them, Verily I say to you, There is no man that hath left.
House or parents?
Or brethren.
It's your family or wife or children.
The Kingdom of God's sake.
Very often, natural relationships hinder our willingness to wholeheartedly.
Come.
Follow me.
We won't have, we will give up lots of things.
But the Lord puts the test down to the root of what's difficult really for us in nature.
Because he's teaching them that nature.
What man is naturally speaking isn't sufficient to be a full follower of the Lord Jesus.
As hopefully we'll see.
A few minutes.
But so we put this test on, I mean, he says.
Willing to live father, mother, children, wife, whatever.
In other words, is something going to have a place that, if push comes to shove, is more important in your choices than me?
It's a pretty difficult.
It's pretty difficult if we deal with it honestly.
Well, for we fully answer that.
A little farther down in the chapter, we have another lost man.
He's a blind beggar.
Want to look at him for a moment or two?
He's a vine Baker. The Lord Jesus is passing by and he hears, he said. Who is it? He can't see. He's blind and they tell him.
They say Jesus Nazareth passeth by and he says.
Thou, Son of David, have mercy on me.
The seeker of the lost stops that those words.
And has them. He couldn't come to the Lord.
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He couldn't see him.
You couldn't be a follower in that way because he was blind, but he comes.
They says bring them to me.
So they bring the man to him and he he doesn't say one thing. You lack do this. Come follow me now. He takes us all up individually. He takes this man up his his need was and.
He says to him.
In our words.
What can I do for you?
Which would you prefer?
Would you prefer to go to the Lord Jesus and say to him?
What must I do?
Or are you willing to come or be led to the Lord Jesus and have him say to you, What can I do for you?
This man got found.
The Lord of Glory says to him, What can I do for you?
And uh, he says, Lord, that I might receive my sight.
And he receives his sight.
But umm.
I like the way the new translation. I'll just read it. Uh.
Jesus said unto him, See.
That nice.
Just says C.
He got his need met. He saw.
What power? In the words of the Lord Jesus see and Esau, what's the result?
He followed him.
He followed him.
He didn't have to say leave aside your rags, leave aside your beggars, Sand.
No.
This man's heart was attracted to the Lord Jesus and he didn't need to be told come follow me, he just did it.
Just did it.
He followed him.
Turn with me to John 13.
Where we were this morning, but we're going to read farther down in the chapter.
Verse 33. John 1333.
Little children, yet a little while I am with you.
Ye shall seek me.
And as I said, under the Jews, whether I go, you cannot come.
So I say unto you.
A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you.
That she also loved one another, and this by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Simon Peter said unto him.
He's not exactly all that interested in being at the moment. He has something else on his mind. Lord says you're not gonna be able to follow me now, but umm, I want you. I'm saying to you now, love each other.
And uh.
Peter ignores that bit, that little word. He's interested in what the Lord said. You're not going to be able to follow me now. And so he responds to that and he says, Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither thou goest, here's a man. I will come and follow you.
Whither thou goest another? Where are you going? Jesus answered him.
Whither I go, Thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards.
Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now?
I will lay down my life for thy sake.
My life for thy sake.
Jesus answered him.
And here it it asks it as a question. I'm gonna read the new translation.
Thou wilt lay down thy life for me. Exclamation point.
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I verily, verily, I say unto you, the **** shall not crow till thou hast denied me rice.
There is in this little conversation between the Lord and the disciples a truth, a principle that's very important about Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life.
The only way to follow the Lord Jesus.
As the way the truth and the life is through death.
Is through death.
The Lord Jesus is the way, the truth and the life cannot be followed.
In this lost world.
He can only be truly, properly followed.
According to the truth that we had yesterday in Romans 6, you're dead.
With Christ.
And the moment we take it up in the energy of that atom life, we will fail.
We will not be able to follow him. We will not give up those things that we count dear to ourselves, all of which have to do with.
The other side of the cross.
In the world that lives on the other side of the cross.
The only path today of following the one who is the Way is through death.
Peter thought he could do it.
That he could follow the Lord into death. But he couldn't. And the Lord said no, you're gonna deny me. And he did. He tried. He gave it his best effort. He was all sincerity. But he couldn't do it. Nobody can.
It's impossible.
But.
The Lord Jesus was presenting to his disciples. You can't do it now.
You can't follow me that way now.
But you will be able to follow me.
In the way that I ask.
After.
Death.
And resurrection turn with me to see this it's important to.
Umm, Second Corinthians.
Chapter 5.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14.
For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we are all dead.
And that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves.
But unto him which died for them, and rose again.
Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh? Yeah, though we have known Christ after the flesh.
Yet now henceforth know we him no more.
We judge that if one man died for all, then we're all dead, that is.
The very fact that Jesus Christ died for all was proof that all men were dead.
He was the only way. He was the life.
And without his death, there is no life for man.
He came into the world. I am the truth, but there's no capacity in man to live the truth unless he has the life.
There is no capacity in man to follow the instruction, no henceforth live for themselves, but unto him that died for them and rose again. That is, the way is open through death.
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I am the way.
The truth.
And the life come.
Follow me.
That's I believe why, brethren, that in this, that's where it says the love of Christ.
Constraineth us.
Because we have life. We have a life that is constrained by that love.
The man of the world does not, and he is not constrained.
By that love.
In fact, the world, the lost world.
Hey, what it isn't?
It's a perfect man.
And.
The state of lost condition in which it was and is was. We don't want it.
There was no constraining love. Oh wonderful man, let's all follow him.
Yes, there was following him for what he could give in terms of food and.
Healing and so on, but not a following for what he was.
That the fruit was all right, but not the root.
And.
We want the lie, not this man, but Barabbas.
Not innocent.
Will take the guilty.
Let's get him out of sight and out of mind so that we can go on.
I'll say with our wandering, the world wouldn't put it that way.
But when we have life.
The life of Christ.
We have in us the love of God.
We are attracted to the Lord Jesus.
We do respond to His love.
It grips us.
It's put to a test, a really pretty serious, hard test, really.
What does the Lord say? How do we manifest that we have that life in US?
Because we love each other.
That's a big test sometimes.
But the.
The Lord's test of the activity of the life of Christ in US is love for each other.
Active expressions of that love.
Sometimes that's a very humbling test.
We'd like to make a few exceptions.
We love our brethren.
Accept.
Turn with me to.
First, John.
Chapter 3.
First John chapter 3 and verse one. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us.
That we should be called the sons of God.
Therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not.
Beloved now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be.
But we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him.
As he is, and every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
Come follow me.
There's three things that I'd like to give emphasis to to the followers here of the Lord Jesus.
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Those three things repeated many times. We're just going to look at him right here, but you'll think of others if you care to think about it.
Faith, hope and love.
Those three things characterize an active follower of the Lord Jesus.
It takes faith to say yes, Lord.
And follow him.
Because you're going to follow what's unseen, in contrast to the world, which is the scene.
It takes the eye of faith to look at a world that cannot be seen.
With the natural eye.
I know whom I have believed.
I'm going to quote this the way Chuck Hendricks used to. I'll call it a paraphrase of the verse.
Very helpful to me many years ago. Galatians 2 and 20.
I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live.
Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
I live by that faith.
Which has Christ as its object.
Who loved me and gave himself for me.
Follow me. He becomes the object.
And I walk in his steps.
My faith.
I don't have to know all the insurance and outs of life. There is a simplicity.
To a life of faith.
You know, one of the greatest men of faith was Abraham, and one of the greatest testimonies to simplicity as to living a life was Abraham, and one of the greatest examples of how life gets real complex real quick.
Is to leave the path of faith and go down into Egypt.
The world.
Your life will be ever more complicated in any measure in which you try to mix the world and your faith.
A double minded man is unstable in all his ways, James says. What's he connected with?
Faith you go look it up in the first chapter. What makes a man unstable? Unbelief.
I live by the faith of the Son of God.
That is, which has him as the object.
The focus of life.
It says here.
Every man that hath this hope in himself.
Every man has his hopes.
The Wanderer even has his hopes.
The last man has his hopes. The one who lives the lie has his hopes.
But they have them in a different world.
The lost man's hopes never go outside the scope of this world.
And the poor man in Luke 18 wouldn't give up.
The world, its possessions, so that it can have something outside of it.
Eternal life.
If there's something I won't give up, I can guarantee you it has to do with this world.
It has to do with this world.
He that hath this hope.
That hope, What is it?
I'm gonna be like him. I'm a child of God.
When I get to heaven, you'll see me morally just like the Lord Jesus.
I won't be him. He's the Son of God. He's unique, He's special, He's perfect and his attributes. But I'll be perfect. At least say that.
That's my hope.
To be like him.
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Faith, hope, love says in First Corinthians 13. Follow after love.
The greatest greater than faith and hope, It's the one that endures.
God wants to see that grow in us now.
Love your brother.
You want to grow.
When express your life, we like to see a life.
Grow. We like to see a child's life mature and grow.
Let's see your love for each other and me love me.
Row.
It's the expression.
Of the life as the Lord wants it to be seen in US.
Don't have time to follow it. It's characterized in first John by two things. Righteousness, because righteousness is the character that this world will have when Jesus comes to reign. And when it's truth connected with the Kingdom of God, it's just a little side truth connected with the Kingdom of God. It's always connected with righteousness.
And so that character of life should be seen in us so that it won't be this way. But if God were to give us part in the earthly Kingdom instead of the heavenly Kingdom, our lifestyle would remain the same if the Kingdom came in power and glory. And we would be seen in the same character of life of righteousness that will govern the world when he comes and reigns.
The lost man, the lying world doesn't know what righteousness can't live it.
Righteousness suffers today.
But here is just to wrap up. It says every man that.
We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
What a wonderful thought.
When God's done with us.
He looked at us and said, I'm satisfied. You're just like my son.
Pretty good end, isn't it?
The way.
That's the good way, the right way, the only way, really.
He that himself responds, Come follow me. Where is it in?
We like to know when we follow somebody. If someone came in the room and said to us, follow me, we probably stop and say where are you going? Where are we going?
What's the end of the story?
God's going to look at you and say.
He chose a good way.
Now you're just like my son.
I'm satisfied.
I can guarantee you we will be too.
So let's get on it.
Wholeheartedly.