Gospel—Stephen Rule
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Evening welcome.
Someone could start for us number six. I would appreciate that.
It contains the message that's on my heart to share with you this evening, number six.
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Word used multiple times between last night and throughout the day today, and it's the one that was kind of on my heart and meditating on these things that I want to share with you tonight. That was the word personal.
I'm going to speak to you this evening from God's word, the Bible, but I want to present to you my Savior, the Lord Jesus. I want to present to you the Son of God, and I'm going to present him to you from his Word and.
You're not responsible for what I say, but you are accountable for what God says to you. And His Spirit is present tonight to take His word and to bring it to your heart to present Himself. I don't have a message tonight to make you feel bad. I don't have a message tonight to cause you pain or anxiety. I have a message tonight from God.
To present to you his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
For your belief and faith, I want to turn some of the verses we'll touch on have already been touched on have been on my heart for the week. Apparently God wants to bring them home to each of us. So if you turn to 1St John chapter one.
It's going to introduce the subject of coming to know the Lord Jesus personally. We need to know Him as the God of light and the God of love. So first John chapter one and verse 3.
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. The Apostle John is writing. Apostle John had spent 3 1/2 years in the presence of this person and he wanted to express it to everyone in this letter as guided by the Spirit of God, so that every single one of us that are seated here tonight are in the room tonight or listening to this message.
Would come No, the one that John loved.
And that's the desire of the heart of every single person in this room that knows the Lord Jesus because they know him and to bow before him, to know Him as your Savior is to love that one. To know his character, to know who he is, to know Him as lights and to know Him as love is to want to share that message. And then Joe John wanted to share the message.
They declare we unto you, he and all the other apostles, that ye also may have fellowship with us.
And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things right we unto you, that your joy.
May be full and then this.
This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
There's not the slightest shade of darkness in his presence. There's not a slightest shade of darkness in him. He knows absolutely everything, down to the motive and the thought of every single person in this room. He knows far more about me than I know about me.
There are many here in this room that know something about me. There's nobody here that knows everything about me except God, and there's nobody that loves me more than my Savior. There's nobody that loves me despite knowing me more than Him. And I want you to know Him tonight. I want you to know the One who wants to have everything out in the lights where it's completely clear between you and Him.
And loves you anyway. And brought his son to bring that message to you.
So the message starts with light second part of the message.
We'll just we'll come back here, Lord willing at the end, but just to read the expression in first John chapter 4, the end of verse eight. He that loveth not knoweth not God.
For God is love. God is love. I want to present to you those two.
As they come together, and we'll come to it later where we'll discuss the light, we'll discuss the love, and we'll look at the two as they come together. But that's our God. That's the one who has His heart toward you. This evening has brought you the message in His Word. One more thing by way of introduction and Psalm 85.
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Psalm 85.
Lord Jesus, God is speaking to his earthly people and he's bringing them back. They've been separated from Him. In fact, the people that have these thoughts and feelings were separated from them their whole lives, and he's bringing them back to himself. And they're coming and they're realizing something that they've never seen before. You know, I had the privilege.
Teaching high school for 14 years.
Eight in the United States and six in Ecuador. In those fourteen years I had many students who were Jewish students. The district where I taught in the United States was better than 40% Jewish and almost half many of my students served. Significant minority in Ecuador were also Jewish.
Think of them. When I read these verses, I spoke to quite a number of them over the years. I don't know a single one of them that knows Christ as their Savior. But I look at the heart of love toward them. I see it here in this song, and I know it's that same heart of love toward you that would wait in patience for thousands of years.
And wait. Impatience. And then.
They wake up, they're drawn back, they're wakened up, they're drawn back. In verse 10, it says mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
The desire of my heart that you wouldn't be able to step out of this room this evening without knowing how righteousness and peace have kissed each other at the cross.
But more than that, that you wouldn't be able to step out of this room knowing that it was for you and that it was from God and His fountain of love for you.
I want to turn to John, if you'll turn with me, to John's Gospel Chapter 8.
Going to look at a God of light.
John chapter 8 verse one. Jesus went on to the Mount of Olives.
Outside the city of Jerusalem, and early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him. And he sat down and taught them. That's beautiful. Sat down and taught them. It was there in their presence.
You know, I'm standing here. Perhaps makes a little easier to see and focus. But he was seated with them. I was in a more intimate setting. And he sat down and He's here as a teacher. And what does he teach? Verse 2, Verse three. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery.
When they had set her in the midst they send him master, this woman was taken in adultery in the very act. Now Moses and the law commanded us that they should that such should be stoned. But what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him.
There were ones that knew God's word. They were, in the presence of God, become man and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And they brought someone to him with the purpose of.
Shaming the woman.
She'd already been shamed. They brought this person to him. They brought their question to him in order to catch him.
Now just burden on my heart, perhaps because it was has been my heart.
To address perhaps someone here tonight, and you've grown up in the presence of God's Word, you've heard it spoken, it's been read to you at the breakfast table or read in the evening at the dinner table. You have a Bible in your room and you've been in gospel meetings like this before and.
Being in the presence of God, you say, What about them?
The scribes and the Pharisees came into the presence of God, and they said, what about her?
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They didn't bring the hymn of the situation. The only brought the herb, the situation, but more importantly, they didn't bring themselves. They didn't realize that they brought themselves to be in the presence of God. And it may be that you've looked on your parents for many years.
And you see them open up the word of God, and they read it to you, and they speak to you from this book. And you say, ah, but your life, I don't know.
I want you to understand before we exit this chapter that God's person and God's word, if you have His word, you're held the council accountable for His person. And we'll look at the verse before we leave this chapter. You know, I sat as a teenager and I knew the Lord is my Savior, but I had this attitude. I sat in the assembly reading meetings.
I looked out across the room and I thought a bunch of sheep.
But I can influence them.
And so for several weeks, I looked out at the audience around me and at the right moment, when I thought the moment was ripe, I would yawn. And I would count the number of people that would yawn in the next minute. And you could get a lot of them.
The attitude of my heart was, ha, I'm better than you. In fact, you're my puppet. Look at that. Ha, got your mouth open. And maybe that's all that's happened to you in the presence of the Word of God up to this point. And you've been in the presence of the Word of God and you think another set of voices, another set of words, another set of hypocrites.
These scribes and Pharisees had had their arguments. You can read about their attitude that the when people heard the Lord Jesus speak, they said.
No man ever spake like this man.
I'll apologize now only once if I misquote. You'll have to correct it for me or ask me to look it up for you later. But no man has ever spoken like this one. Why? Because the others, they just argued back and forth. They had discussions. They had discussions about the law and these laws and scribes and Pharisees. Had it been the word of God in their presence, had it been His word reaching down into the conscience, it would have opened up their eyes to who they were and who God was. But you know the kinds.
Discussions These people, these scribes and Pharisees had said, oh, you're not supposed to reap on the Saturday. OK, what does it mean to reap on the Saturday? Well, that means to break off something that's living from its stock. So what does that mean? Well, that means.
Well, let's not climb a tree. If you climb a tree and you put your foot out and you catch that little branch and it snaps, you're breaking a living thing off the stock and you're reaping. And so if we don't climb that tree, we're good.
Sounds kind of funny, right? Because we don't worry about keeping the Sabbath.
But if you looked on your parents or your brothers and sisters and you've applied that same standard, and the standard is just looking out at man irrespective of God, not in the presence of God, and said, well, they do that, but they told me not to do it. So the whole thing's out the window. And that was really the attitude of these scribes and Pharisees. We're going to catch this person and we've got the law of Moses to do it.
And what does the answer?
But Jesus stooped down. He was seated right. So he Stoops down from where he's seated. He goes down even lower in their presence.
And with his finger rode on the ground.
I'll stop there with his finger rode on the ground. I'm not going to speculate what he wrote on the ground, but I'm going to tell you what that finger that they were looking at did.
In Psalm chapter 8. Let's read it. So I'll misquote it. So let's read it.
Psalm 8.
Verse 3.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, that finger that wrote on the ground in the presence of the woman, taking an adultery in the presence of the scribes and Pharisees, that finger made the heavens.
And you can point your finger at your parents tonight, and you can point your finger at me when I'm done. You can point your finger at me now. But there's a finger that you're accountable to. And it made the heavens.
The heavens are the work of his fingers. That finger wrote on the ground. You can argue with me and you could probably win. You could discuss evolution with me. You could probably win. You're not going to win arguing with that finger that made the heavens. And that finger that made the heavens took tables of stone, and the finger that made the heavens wrote on those tables of stone. That same finger wrote Thou shalt.
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Commit adultery and that's what they brought to him. But that very same finger wrote, thou shalt not covet. And after a list of it, finish the list with or anything that is thy neighbors. And if you want to take your finger tonight in the presence of a holy God and point it at your parents or point it at your friends, it's going to come.
You're going to see the finger of God.
To you, thou shalt not covet anything.
What will you say to that finger? God is light. He's light, and it's important to know Him as light. It's important to come out into the light, completely into the light, into His presence because you're already known. It's important to recognize that and to be known because God wants fellowship with you. He doesn't want to bring you out into the light to condemn you. He wants to bring you out in the light so you can see that He's made provision for everything that He knows.
That's there in your heart. But if you're busy pointing your finger at your friends, at your parents, you're not looking at the finger writing on the ground that made the heavens and that wrote his unalterable standard on those tables of stone, that same finger wrote.
On the wall of Belshazzar's palace, that same finger wrote to Belshazzar. And Belshazzar had everything. Perhaps he has everything that you want. He had wealth. He had, despite the siege of his city. He had plenty to eat and plenty to drink, and he was showing it off before his nobleman. He had power. And as he showed it off, the finger.
Wrote on the wall. Meany meanie tickle your person.
You're weighed in the balances and you're found wanting that same finger that made you, that same finger that established the holiness of God as expressed in the law. That same finger wrote the judgment for Belshazzar. And if you ignore it, writing on the ground of your heart, writing right there in front of you and don't allow it to touch your heart, you're going to face that person.
There's more to those fingers. They're connected to hands that were nailed to a cross, and we're going to come there. But I want you to see that you have to deal with a God of light who knows absolutely everything about you.
There were no more words for a moment. He wrote on the ground and it says verse 7. So when they continued asking him how long did he remain silent, I have no idea.
And perhaps you've brought to him the contradictions of this person and that person and the other person, but you've never been in his personal presence.
You can look at everybody else, but you've never been personally in his presence. And you say he's never spoken to me. His finger is written in your presence, a testimony in his creation. His finger has written for you the testimony of his character in this book that you have in your hands. He sent his Son to be in this world, to be that perfect expression of who God is, and to do the work to bring you into his family. And you say, I don't see.
I don't hear, I don't believe, and so there's silence. But what's the purpose of the silence?
The purpose of the silence is to cause you to hear the voice that's already spoken and so.
He does that a little bit more.
Verse 7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
And again he stooped and rode on the ground. Again he's silent. And that question echoed in the conscience of those people. And one by one, from the oldest to the youngest, they go out. They went out of his presence. That wasn't the ultimate desire of his heart. We're going to look at more than that. We're going to look at where he called to come.
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But here where it's just the light presented.
Stand in the presence not of a man with a Halo showing, not of a man seated on a throne, but of the perfect Son of God. Become man in their presence, shining with the beauty of what that holiness was to God. And it was too much for them. They had to go out one by one until there's one left and it's the woman. And he says to her.
Verse 10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her woman.
Where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more.
This isn't the fullness of the gospel message. Don't get from this message that.
God is going to just.
Pass by your sin and do nothing about it. Well, you've been exposed. Go and sin no more and that's the end of the story. It's not the end of the story. It is not the end of what God had for this woman.
I trust she learned so much more, Batista says in verse 12. Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world.
Let me just pause there. There's so much more, but I am the light of the world.
I'm going to turn to adverse a little further down in this chapter.
It's very precious. I'm going to read the verse before verse 24. Verse 25 is the one on my heart.
I said, verse 24 I said therefore unto you, the Lord Jesus, speaking to that same crowd of Pharisees, that ye shall die in your sins, for if you believe not that I am, you shall die in your sins. Then said they unto him, Who art thou?
And Jesus saith unto them.
Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning.
Going to read that to you in a different translation, slightly clearer. Who art thou? Jesus said to them altogether. That which I also say to you, Who are you?
I'm what I've said, if you go through this book and if you want the proof of it, it was mentioned this afternoon. Some store things in their minds and some store them on paper. Mines stored on paper. I'd have to come to me afterwards and I'll give it to you. I'll send it to you. I'll print it for you. I have a list of going through this book and highlighting in one color who the person is.
And what he said, and how the two come perfectly in agreement. This is the person that we begin the book with.
That speaks of himself as the word.
And here he says I am.
Everything that I say to you, everything that I say to you, that's who I am. You have in your hands, you have in front of you. You could gain access to it if you didn't have it. You have the word of God, You have the word of God. You have the perfect testimony that's going to be given to you of God's Son. He is everything that he says in this book. There is nothing that he says He is that he isn't.
And there's nothing more that you would gain if he were to walk into this room this evening.
Than you already have in this book because his spirit is here this evening to take this book and to speak to your heart with it. You have everything you need to respond and have belief in this one. Don't say, well, I can argue with this, that or the other.
There's a finger that's written and there's a finger, there's fingers whose hands were nailed to a cross for you. And the record of it is here in this book. And I want to turn then to that aspect of it. But there's light in everything that that light reveals.
Is dealt with.
I just want to illustrate a point. It's going to come up in the story we're going to go through.
Some of you know me better than others.
I'm not entirely sure there's a single person in this room that knows me well enough to tell me the address, street address down to the house number where I lived when I was nine years old.
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You know the street number of my house, Jonathan.
I'm not sure if my wife does, so I'm not going to put her on the spot.
397 Arden Rd. So who cares?
When I was 9:00-ish years old, in fact might have been 8-8 or nine, I was waiting for the carpool and I was waiting for that carpool so that it could be picked up. The neighbor ladies along with my mom, and it wasn't her day. They traded off and drove us to school in the morning and we walked home and was waiting and.
My friend across the street now nobody knows this name, so you don't know much about me.
I've forgotten more than there is the no, and I never did know some of it, but God knows absolutely everything to the thought, to the motive, to the action, to exactly what happened. And it's recorded before I tell you what I did.
I want to tell you that within, well in the late 1800s, there was a discovery made in Egypt and about central Egypt and the place called perhaps here, some of you are familiar with it. They began to dig up and they dug into the early 1900s about 500,000 documents, papyrus documents. There are documents that were thrown away, tossed on a rubbish heap.
And they were dug up. And in fact, in November of last year they published another volume of them. They have to piece them back together, then they have to transcribe them, then they have to translate them, then they have to check them.
And the process apparently so far has taken around 125 years and it's still ongoing. And they finished about 1 to 2% of that record from the trash heap.
But one of those documents had a record, and that record was of two wrestlers and they're making a contract with one another. They were in a championship, and in that championship they made this contract where one of them agreed to lose to the other one. I guess there was only first prize.
And there was number, second, third, there was number. Honorable mention or thanks for trying. There was one prize. And so they made a contract, and I don't know what all the details were. Their contract of their illegal action went into a trash heap. And now you can read that on the Internet. You can go read the contracts. And it's kind of funny, right? Demetrius agreed that he was going to lose 2. And I can't remember the other guy's name, Antonius or something.
Demetrius agrees. He's going to lose to Antonius. That's kind of funny.
Except it's not. When it's in the presence of a holy God. It might be amusing to us and just in the story sense of it, but the fact is everything's recorded. And on that particular day, you didn't know it. But I went down waiting for the mom to come out and take us in her car, and I decided we should have a snowball fight. So my friend Mickey, he didn't want to have a snowball fight, but I thought he should have a snowball fight. So I started it anyway.
And Mickey didn't throw any snowballs back, so I figured, well, I would aggressively go after the enemy and I did. And I watched his face in the snow.
And Mickey wasn't very happy about it. He went across the street to his house, which was across the street and.
Mickey didn't come to school that day. And I got home. My mother told me Mickey, Mickey's mom called and she described to me what she knew about the incident. And Mickey threw up when he got home, and that's why he couldn't go to school. And we're having hobby class in the basement this week, and you just did in the neighborhood. I don't think she used those words.
But I got the message.
I had to go down to the door and I had to knock on the door and I had to say I'm here to apologize to Mickey and I had to apologize to Mickey.
I remember that because of the consequences, but I've forgotten an awful lot.
There's a person who didn't forget a single thing, and I want to come to the record of that person and he knew everything. And it's in John Chapter 4. And we're going to look a little later in John chapter 19, but in John Chapter 4, I just want to touch a few highlights of this story.
Of the woman with the Lord Jesus men.
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Remember He's both light and He's love. So he comes verse 4, John 4, verse 4, you must needs go through Samaria and he cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. He's tired. He sits on the edge of the well. The woman comes out in verse 7, the end of the verse. Jesus saith unto her.
Give me.
To drink, give me to drink.
He asked for a drink from her.
What did he get from her?
To get a string. You know the story speaking. The one on my heart this evening is one who has heard these words before. She left her water pot behind. She left it. He never got his drink from her, but he had something to give to her. And you know what she said? He said, give me the drink. She got his message. She and I might not. But Samaritans, and we're told here so we don't have to be left guessing. Samaritans didn't have dealings with Jews.
Jews didn't have dealings with Samaritans, I should say. They didn't have respect for the Samaritan. And the mere fact that he would speak to her was a message. Isn't that an amazing thing? The mere fact that God loved you so much that he would send a son, that he would give you his word, that he would perhaps give to you parents or friends?
Or someone that would speak to you his word.
The mere fact that he would acknowledge your presence is an amazing thing in itself. It was an amazing thing to her, and so she says.
In verse.
Nine then saith the woman of Sumerian, Them How is it then? How is it that thou being a Jew, ask us, Drink of me, which I'm a woman of Samaria, for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knowest. And I want you to notice two things, and they're precious.
So I want to speak to you now of a God of love, a God that came not to take from you, not to shine his light on you because he wanted to expose you for shame. He wants to shine his light because everything that the light shines on, he wants to take away and give to you a new heart, a new life, a new home, a new relationship, new desires. He wants to give everything. And so here he is. And he says, if thou knewest notice.
Things the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, Give me the drink. Who and what he's come with a gift and it's a person. If you knew this person, not if you just heard about him, if you know this person, you know that he came to give.
We know people by their actions, we know them by how they act. And here he is. And he said, if you only knew, I'm here to give. And the woman says to him, verse 11, Sir, it was nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From whence then hast thou that living water? She doesn't understand what she wants to know. She asks a question.
And if in your thoughts, if you've grown up and you don't come to this person with questions.
You come to this person with conclusions, you come to the Lord, and you say I've judged you through the other, everyone else, but you don't know Him personally, you haven't been in His presence. In that sense He would take you by His Spirit tonight and say, I'm here, ask me the question. And this woman asked the question, From whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our Father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank there of himself?
And his children and his cattle pause there.
A man in the flesh with only the power.
Of that son of God would have said, Well greater than our Father Jacob.
I made him.
Greater than the well, I created the universe. But he wasn't there to bring before her those answers. He was there to collect a worshiper for his father. And so he doesn't say. I made Jacob, he doesn't say.
I was long before there ever was a will. The fact that there's water is because I created it. He could have said all kinds of things.
But He had a single minded focus and that focus was to bring worshippers for the Father. And He has a single minded focus tonight, if I can put it that way, if I can put those words in His mouth, because I am the Lord, I change not He wants you in His presence forever worshiping together.
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Him and to worship the Father.
So when he answers, what does he answer? Verse.
So 13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him. A well of water springing up in everlasting life. At approximately, maybe just a little later than this last night you heard that same verse, and now you're hearing it again.
God wants to give to you.
The spirit and the spirit that's a figure of a spirit that's springing well that will bring what it says springing up into everlasting life. He wants to bring to you life. He wants to give it to you. The woman says to him, verse 15. The woman saith on them, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not neither come hit her to draw.
The light and the love are so beautifully blended in this gospel. So Jesus says verse 16, Go call thy husband and come hit her. Go call thy husband and come hit her.
If a moment ago I had said.
To Jonathan.
Do you know my street address? And he said to me, oh, yes, you lived at 397 Arden Rd. There's a little bit of stone on the front. There's paneling just above that. You walk in the front door just to your left up those stairs. There's a small landing up the next set of stairs. You'll come to the upper floor, turn right and enter the bedroom That's in the right that looks out over the front door. In that bedroom, you'll find a closet. And in that closet, you'll find access to the attic.
That would have been incredibly shocked.
I would have said, what is this person? Who, who? And the woman, the Lord says go call thy husband. She doesn't, he doesn't. She doesn't know yet who this person is. So she's going to answer to paper over. She doesn't know who she's standing in front of, so she's going to paper over it and keep it, you know, keep it comfortable.
And so she papers over and she keeps it comfortable.
And she says the end of verse 17, I have no husband. I'm sorry. A verse started verse 17. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband.
For thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband, and that sets thou truly.
I don't mean to be flip on what I'm about to say, I want you to really consider what this means.
This woman was in the presence of the Lord Jesus. She didn't stop and think, well did I put that on my blog?
Because she knew in her heart, intuitively knew that here's a man that knows me. She didn't sit and argue, and she didn't say, now wait a minute, did you? Were you here before? Did you talk to the neighbors? She didn't start to ask those kinds of questions.
Could she have? Sure. She could have said, I saw your disciples go into the city. Did one of them come back out? I don't know what all she could have said. She could have reasoned is my point. She didn't.
There was. She does, she reasons part way. But I mean, she didn't go back and question the facts she recognized. Now I am in the presence of a person who knows me to the core. And so she responds and that to that person.
She says, Sir, verse 19, I perceive that thou art a prophet. She does make it religious. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain. She seated on site cars. Well, she's between Mount Ebel and Mount Gerizim. On Mount Gerizim there's the Samaritan Temple. That's where the Jews were to pronounce blessings when they entered into the land. She had no access to those blessings. She was a Sinner. She had no access. But she brings it up at least.
In his presence, now that she knows that she's with one who knows her, and I can almost see her seated on the well. I don't know if she did it figured literally, but I believe she doesn't. Figuratively at least. It's as though she points to that Mount Gerizim and says, well, there, there, there. There's the temporal our fathers worshiped there, and that's my place of blessing. No, it wasn't.
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He was seated in front of her. Don't turn to anything but this person because he's the one that loves you. Don't turn to any religion. Don't turn to anything else that you can look at. There's a person present this evening by a spirit in his words, speaking to your heart. He's seated next to you, He's speaking to you. He knows everything down to the core. Don't get in an argument. Well, how could he know?
She says.
Speaking just a little further, verse 21 Jesus saith unto a woman, Believe me, the hour cometh.
When you shall neither in this mountain nor yet a Jerusalem worship the Father, you worship. Ye know not what we know, what we worship for salvation as of the Jews. But the hour cometh now He is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
You notice this. The same pattern is followed in the third chapter when her questions get a little in the third chapter. Nicodemus. The less he says, the more the Lord says.
This is the opposite really in this chapter, the more her questions get a little bit more real, the more the Lord says Nicodemus already knew the law, he was a Jew, the less he said the better because that let God speak to him. Here's a woman who's a Samaritan. She didn't know as much, so she converses with him. She interacted. He interacts with her to bring out his heart to her, his heart of love to her, and as he speaks to her, she.
He he opens up, and he gives to her so much more. The woman said unto him, verse 25 I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ. When he has come, He will tell us all things. Jesus saith under eye that speak unto the AM.
I am that one. She leaves, she goes into the city and she says come see a man who told me all things that ever I did. She said come see a man. Where's their light driving her away? The light brought everything out. He knew everything about her. And what does she want? She wants everybody to be with this man.
That's because he's not just light, he's love, and the two are perfect in his person.
If you hide behind the failure of others, you're cutting yourself off from this heart of love. Let's turn to John 19.
John 19.
I'll just ask you to read for yourself. Well, I'll read it.
John 19. I'm going to read from verse.
23.
And the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts to every soldier apart, and also his coach. Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said, Therefore, among themselves, let us not rend it, the cast lots for it whose it shall be, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. This is Psalm 22 That's fulfilled, which saith.
Do they pardon Mike raiment among them? And for my vesture they did cast lots these things, therefore the soldiers did.
And then another beautiful detail is given, and from verse 25 to verse 27, the Lord commends his mother to John, who had spent 3 1/2 years preparing for this job. Fulfill Psalm 22 presents his mother.
To.
Presents his mother to John the disciple that he prepared for this job, and so he passes her on. Then after this verse 28, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith the Scripture Psalm 69 needed to be fulfilled. Part of it saith Thy thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar, and they filled a sponge with vinegar and put it upon hyssop, and put it on his mouth and put it up to his mouth.
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said it is finished.
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He bowed his head and gave up the ghost. You know I've learned something from my son.
And that is you watch people, you can learn a lot about them.
It's funny that I had to learn it from him after all those years, but he showed me how when a person reads a menu, you can learn all kinds of things about him. The way a person walks through a room, you can learn all kinds of things about him. The way a person talks and interacts with others, you can learn a lot of things about him. I knew that one. I didn't know a lot of the other ones.
I want you to notice we've just read 3 details.
This man fulfilled Psalm 22. This man took care of his mother. This man fulfilled Psalm 69. And then he says after the three hours of darkness that aren't here in this gospel, it is finished.
Back to central Egypt, in that trash heap in central Egypt, there are all kinds of administrative documents, the kind of papers you throw out. You have to save your, your IRS documents for whatever it is five years or something. And after those five, they just accumulate. And that's why I don't know, because they don't vanish when they should, but after your five years, they can go in the trash heap, right? And into that trash sheep. There were all kinds of tax documents, There were all kinds of paid bills.
Somebody cleaned out their metaphorical filing cabinet. They dumped it in the trash heap. And on those documents, those tax documents and those paid bills, one after the other, on those papyri that have been recovered, are written this word to tell us thy one after another of them has that word written in it. In that same trash dump there are fragments of this word of God.
One of those fragments is John chapter 18.
And 19 and it's written in the Greek and in this verse 30 it says he said, he said to tell us thy that same word. It's finished. It has been finished. The goal has been reached. The job is done. Who wrote, who said those words? It's the one whose love who just finished in the three hours of darkness, paying the full debt to take away.
Everything that is light revealed for me, the full depth of everything that is.
Light revealed for so many more in this room and I just I just love it. It's beautiful because right here. What does he do right before he writes these words in this gospel. He shows you, if I can put it this way without being flipped. He's a detailed person. He takes care of every last thing he sees every last thing he knows every last motive and when that son of God.
Become man went into that darkness.
I want to show you that personal thing from that darkness.
In Psalm 22.
In Psalm 22 you could.
My electronic Bible. You can click on any word and I'll highlight that same word across the page so you can see it easily. If you can do that, try it. Try the word me in this song. Try the word my in the song. This is a deeply personal moment.
If you look, there are four my gods, verse one, Psalm 21, verse one, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night season, and I'm not silent.
In verse 10 he says, I always cast upon thee from the womb.
God, from my mother's belly, here's that perfect dependent man. And throughout those hours of darkness, when he had laid on him and when he took away sin, when he had laid on him my sins, and when He made propitiation and finished there in a moment, throughout that time, at the end of the time, what does he say? Does he throw any finger? Does He point to anyone else?
He speaks and he doesn't say anything but my.
He says, my God, in those hours of darkness, if I can put it this way.
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It's as though.
A God, that's love.
On the light until both were satisfied.
The love and the light were met together there until both were satisfied. God's love can now be satisfied in proclaiming pardon to you, and a debt paid, a work that's finished. And the light was satisfied because nothing was missed, nothing was left behind, nothing was forgotten. Let's finish in first John chapter 4 again.
First John, chapter 4.
Verse 10.
I'll read verse 9 read from verse nine and this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him here in his love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Appreciation means.
God satisfied with what he's done.
And he can look out toward you in satisfaction and say.
Believe on my son and I'll receive you all. My Holiness has been satisfied at that cross.
The work was done by my son so my heart can be expressed to you and I can hold out to you and again quote the words from right at the end last night.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Simple. It's not difficult.
It's not for argument.
The finger that wrote the law is unchanged, but since it's written the law, the hands that were on it have been nailed to a cross, so that God could express to you both his love and his light, and He calls on you to believe the testimony of His Son.
Perhaps it was marred, an expression of your parents, perhaps it was marred and an expression of mine this evening. But the Spirit of God takes His word and presents it with power to you. And if you say no to God's Son, God has nothing better to give you. Say yes to Him.
And simply receive the Son as your Savior.