Richmond BC Conference: 1999

Table of Contents

1. Meditation on John's Gospel
2. The Abiding Presence of the Holy Spirit
3. Naomi's Restoration
4. Christ Our High Priest
5. Without the Camp

Meditation on John's Gospel

Gospel—C. Hendricks
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I turn again to John's gospel.
Chapter 4.
We began.
Last night.
With Hebrews 1313 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp.
Bearing his reproach.
And.
In order to obey that exhortation.
To go forth unto him without the camp, we have to know what the camp is. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the camp was Judaism, clearly.
And they had to quit it. Go forth unto Christ. He's outside of that now. And He's leading the Saints, those Jewish Saints that were, that were under the law of Moses. The law was given by Moses. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. We noticed that verse in the 1St chapter. Contrast between the law, the old dispensation and grace, the new order of things, grace and truth.
And Moses the head of the old one, and the Lord Jesus the head of the new order of blessing.
And we looked at how one entered into the people of God.
If he was a Jew, he was born into it naturally, and he became an Israelite by natural birth.
One becomes a Saint of God by spiritual birth, and we're born of God, not of blood. Not because your parents are in the meeting or saved. That doesn't bring you in. You have to be born again. You have to be born of God, nor of the will of the flesh. You can't will it for yourself. You can't make the decision yourself. You're going to be born again. It's a work of God's grace, a work of God in the soul as he presents.
Word to us and works in our consciences and hearts by the Spirit of God, nor of the will of man, the will of man. Someone else can't do it for you, but born of God and that brings 1 into the family. We have a new life now, a new nature and that's developed in the 3rd chapter with Nicodemus being born again.
And that's beautiful, how he taught Nicodemus who?
As a teacher came to the Lord Jesus as a teacher, and the Lord teaches him truth that he was not aware of.
It was not a requirement in Judaism that one be born again. The Saints were, but there were many that were Israelites that were not born again.
So that wasn't a requirement. But in Christianity, in order to be a member of the family of God, one needs a new life.
In the second chapter.
He told them.
You destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. And they didn't understand he was talking about his body.
They thought he was talking about Herod's temple, 46 years was this temple in building and that will raise it up in three days. But he spake of the temple of his body, so it's not an earthly temple. That's what Judaism was, a place where they could worship after the flesh, they could bring their sacrifices. There was a priesthood there that stood between the people and God.
And there was a beautiful temple ornate building.
And all the ritual that went with a religion suited to man after the flesh. And that's what Judaism was.
That's the camp.
And we see today around us in Christendom, it's not the camp as such. We don't go to a synagogue. It's not Jewish worship as such. It's called Christian worship. For instance, you'll see a sign outside of a church come and worship with us. If you go in and sit there, you will listen to a sermon.
You're listening to his sermon this afternoon, but this is not worship. This morning we were in the Lord's presence as worshippers, and it was a great privilege to worship the Father and the Son in spirit and in truth.
Not by musical instruments, not by some mechanical contrivance that has no soul, no spirit, but by the Spirit of God. That's how we worship. We worship by the Spirit of God. And Paul brings that out in and let's just look at it. We'll come back to John 4, but Philippians chapter 3, Philippians chapter 3.
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And verse Philippians 3.
And verse 3.
We are the circumcision.
Which worship God in the Spirit.
And rejoice in Christ Jesus.
And have no confidence in the flesh.
Now the Jewish religion, the camp, was a system that appealed to man after the flesh. And the reason man likes that kind of a system is because it gives to man a place of importance. He does something, he does a lot of things. In fact he brings his sacrifice and he approaches according to the prescribed order of things and he follows.
His senses in many different ways.
It's a religion of our senses, our natural senses that we can enter into. You could, you could show someone, you could say to someone, I will show you our religion. If you were a Jew and you could bring them and show them the temple and show them the sacrifices and show them the the choir that was there singing and the priesthood and the Levites and all those things associated with Judaism. You could show it to.
Now you can't do that in Christianity. You can't show them our faith because we walk by faith, not by sight. It's a faith system. It's something that we enter into by faith. None of us in this room this afternoon has seen the Lord Jesus Christ with these natural eyes. But Hebrews 2 Says we see Jesus crowned with glory and honor. How do we see Him? We see him by faith.
And without faith it is impossible to please God. He that cometh to God must believe that He is, that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. So the whole Christian order of things properly presented to us in the New Testament is a faith system. But what has man done? He has reduced it to the level where the first man, the natural man, the man after the flesh, can enter into it, and he can worship.
According to the the camp way of worshipping and that's not that's called Christianity. It's a modified form that used the name of the Lord Jesus yes, and they have hymns that speak of him and I'm not saying.
And don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that there are not true Christians in those systems.
What I'm saying is the system is not of God. The system is not patterned after the divine order given to us in the New Testament. Not saying that there are true believers that worship in the spirit in the system. Individually yes, but collectively their worship is more patterned after that of the camp.
The camp and what he's bringing out in John 4.
Is.
I'll read it from verse 23 again. The hour cometh and now is.
Talking about the hour of Christianity, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father.
In spirit and in truth, the Jews did not know God as their Father.
The Lord Jesus introduced him as such. He tells us that in the 17th chapter where he's praying to the Father.
Knows what he says. We'll come right back here to John 4, but I just read to verse 6.
In John 17, verse 6, I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world, thine they were, and thou gave us them me, and they have kept thy word, Thy name, the name of the Father again in verse 26. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love werewith Thou hast loved me may be in them.
And I in them.
It is a stupendous, wondrous truth that we can call God.
Our Father tremendous truth, that truth could only be introduced to us.
By the Son and he came. He who was always, always is, and has been and will be in the bosom of the Father, the hiding place of love. He came, the eternal Son of the Father, to reveal the Father to us. That's what the Gospel of John is all about. It's the revelation of the Father in the person of the Son He has declared.
To us that name. So the true worshippers worship the Father.
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In spirit and in truth. In spirit according to His nature.
As the Father and in truth, according to the Christian revelation.
That we have in the New Testament developed taught in the Epistles.
For the Father seeketh such.
To worship him.
He's seeking.
True worshippers, not those that worship by some mechanical contrivance, such as an organ or a flute or a whole orchestra. I was in a place once, and the one that was the master ceremonies there was boasting that they had that church had the best orchestra in the city of Chicago. Well, that was not.
Christian. That was not Christian really at all. It was patterned after.
The campish things, you know, it's far worse.
To imitate the camp after the light of Christian truth.
Has been revealed to us. It's really in principle, it's apostasy from the light. Now, I'm not saying they're apostates, they'll misunderstand me, but it's it's, it's apostasy from the light. It's a going back from the light to a former dispensation.
And that's a very serious thing. Once the light has come forth, every type of the Old Testament is now fulfilled in the person and work of Christ.
And to go back to the type.
The shadow, it's like you're sitting in a park bench and you look up and you see a shadow, a cast before you. And then you look and then you see the person, the body that has cast that shadow.
And then you say, well I prefer the shadow to the body and that would be a gross insult to the person that cast the shadow. Well, someone that goes back from Christian truth to Judaism is going back to the shadow and rejecting the substance that the shadow is just a little indicator of.
And that's what we have. The body is of Christ.
Wonderful to have him.
God is a spirit.
And they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth, and worship that is done by some mechanical instrument.
Is not worship in spirit, and it's not according to the truth of Christianity.
You don't get musical instruments.
In the New Testament, outside of the Book of Revelation, I know it speaks of harps, but that's in heaven. And again, that's symbolical.
Christian worship is by the Spirit of God. He is in us that fountain of living water, springing up to everlasting life and producing the worship that is the delight of the Father and the delight of the Son. We worship the Father. We worship the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. That's Christian worship.
And it's a far cry from the Jewish order of things, that which is according to the camp.
Now in the 5th chapter, we're just skipping our way through the Gospel of John and.
Picking out some of these distinctions and differences in the 5th chapter, we have at the pool of Bethesda this man, this impotent man.
And the angels came and troubled the water. And right after the troubling of the water, the first one that stepped down, there was a whole bunch of impotent folk that were there around that pool. They, they had to step down and get in the pool and they were healed. The problem was, it's a picture of what the law offers. The law says this do and thou shalt live. This do and you shall be healed. All they had to do, all this man had to do was get up and go into.
Pool and he would be healed. The problem was he couldn't do that.
And the problem with the law principle is there's nothing wrong with the law. The law is holy commandment, holy, just and good. But we don't have the power to carry out its command.
There is no power in us to do that.
And.
That is the problem with the law principle. It gives the importance to the first man.
And grace gives importance to the God who gave his Son and magnifies him. Well, you have this man, and the Lord comes to him. And verse 6 Jesus, when he saw him lie, he knew that he had been now a long time. In that case he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? And of course the the man, notice what he says. The impotent man answered, saying, Sir, I have no man.
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When the water is trouble to put the end of the pool.
But while I am coming, another stepeth down before me.
And he was hoping that the Lord would help him get into the pool when the water was troubled. No, Jesus sayeth unto him. Now here's the Son of God and the power that resides in his person. Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
There is a power in the very words of our Lord Jesus, who came in infinite grace to us.
To meet our every need. And immediately the man was made whole.
And he took up his bed and walked, and on the same day was the Sabbath. You have the Lord.
Healing over and over again in the Gospel of John on the Sabbath day.
And every time it produced the the the resistance and the hatred of the Jews.
Right away it says, The Jews therefore said unto him, That was cured.
It is the Sabbath day. It is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.
And then he answers, he answered them. He that made me whole, the same said to me, take up thy bed and walk. You see, the law is a rigid system of things. It doesn't know anything of grace. And if you if you obey it and do what it says, it holds out some blessing for you. But you get outside of that, you disobey it or you have no power to obey it. And another power comes along which is.
Far greater than any power that.
Could ever give or that they had under the old economy and he heals 1.
He heals one. To show how inconsistent the Jews were, they believed that if an ox or an *** went astray and fell into a pit on the Sabbath day, they could go after it and lift it up and bring it back. That was a bit of work to do that. They weren't to work on the Sabbath day, but they allowed that after all their animal fell into the pit. Or another example, the animal goes astray and they have the right to go after it and bring it back.
Another example is the Son is born and on the 8th day is the day of circumcision, and that happens to fall on the Sabbath day and they will circumcise their son on the Sabbath day. That's a bit of work. They would do all that on the Sabbath day without thinking that they broke the Sabbath. But when the Lord healed a man on the Sabbath day, they faulted him. You're not allowed to do that.
You're breaking the Sabbath. That shows you how unreasonable.
And inflexible and erring legality is.
And that's the law, the law principle, if man who puts himself under law and he does it because it gives him something to do. I remember I was talking to my college instructor who was a Roman Catholic, and I was explaining to him grace. And he said he looked at me after I explained grace, where it's all God's work, nothing for us to do, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us.
Like grace, are you saved through faith and then not of yourselves? It is the gift of God, not of works.
Lest any man should boast. And he said, I don't like that. I want to do my part.
And that's the principle of law. And we tend to revert back to that constantly without even realizing that we're doing that. We have to be something we're talking about being at the Lord's Table. How many times have you heard or, or had the thought that being at the Lord's Table?
Promotes you from.
A.
First class Christian to a second class Christian. It gives you a little promotion.
You're better now, you're a better Christian than before you took your place at the Lord's table. Now that's principle of law. That's the principle, that there's something in an ordinance that God has given to us that makes me a better Christian, more pleasing to, more acceptable to God because I do that.
That's wrong.
You cannot be more acceptable to God than you are the moment you believe. So many times when a child takes place or a young person at the Lord's table, we burden them with law. We say now you can't do this. Now you can't do that. Now you're at the table. But before they were at the table, they weren't told those things. And.
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Actually, as soon as one confesses the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and becomes a true Christian.
Then all the principles of Christianity apply to that person, and there's nothing that.
He does.
Though it's something that pleases the Lord, but nothing that he does that changes his standing before God.
That's entirely the work of Christ, not anything that we do.
Even if it's something that's right.
Is going to change my standing before God. That's completely determined by the work of Christ Himself, the work and person of Christ.
So easily we can slip from grace into law and not even realize it.
Not even realize it. Well, here you have a picture of Judaism.
In this man he was at the pool. He could not help himself.
And when the Lord comes in with an altogether new principle of grace and heals the man.
They find fault with him.
And they accuse him. In fact, they wanted to kill him.
They wanted to kill him because he healed on the Sabbath day.
Verse 16. Therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus?
And sought to slay him because he had done these things on the Sabbath day. He'd healed a man on the Sabbath day and they wanted to put him to death.
Jesus answered them. My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
Father worketh I am working. As long as there is sin here, God is working.
He's working in the way of putting it away, in the way of alleviating that and bringing him into blessing.
And what do they do with that? Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, so they thought, but said also that God was his own Father.
Making himself equal with God.
Well, he's the eternal Son, and he called God. He said my Father worketh hitherto.
And I work. And they understood his words. They understood what he was claiming.
He was claiming equality with God. He was claiming to be God.
And they said that was blasphemy. They understood his words.
There is a teaching out there in Christendom today that sonship implies inferiority. No, it doesn't. Sonship implies equality, and that's what this verse says. God was his father. That's what he claimed. He called him my father, making himself equal with God. To a Jewish ear, that was blasphemy. How dare you?
Call a man calling God by Father.
Now we're used to that in Christianity. Because of the work of Christ, we've been brought into that position where we have the inestimable privilege of addressing Him as our Father.
Tremendous. The Jews never did.
They couldn't.
They hadn't been introduced to him as such until the sun came, and it was the eternal Son, the one who was ever in his bosom, and he came to reveal him.
Well, let's go on to the 6th chapter where we have the Lord Speaking of Himself. He talks to them about Moses giving them. They say that Moses gave them that manna from heaven.
And.
They say to him in verse 31, Our fathers did eat manna in the desert.
As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.
Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father, giveth you the true bread from heaven. Notice again, my Father, Well, that's over and over again in John's Gospel.
For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
Another manner that was reigned by God down in the wilderness sustained their natural life. It did not give them natural life, but it sustained their natural life. The food that we eat every day, it sustains our natural life. It does not communicate life to us. But now here he talks about himself as the communicator of life, not only the sustainer of life, but the one that communicates it.
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Verse 33 The bread of God is he.
Not it, but he. It's a person which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. Giveth life unto the world. The Gospel of John is a series of giving. God is a giver. God is a giver. Thou knowest the gift of God, the free giving of God. Thou which devasted him, He would have given the living water here. He's the giver of eternal life.
The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life, he that cometh to me.
Never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Tremendous statements verse 38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. When you think of it, Christianity is founded upon a divine person, the eternal Son of the Father, coming down from heaven, giving life to.
Or to those that believe.
This is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing.
But should raise it up again at the last day.
This is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son.
And believeth on him may have everlasting life. And I will raise it up at the last day. What tremendous statements coming from this blessed man.
In the next chapter, they asked the officers why have you not brought him?
And they said never man speak like this man speaks, never man spake like this man.
He doesn't speak like the Pharisees.
No, he speaks with an inner power.
And inner knowledge.
We pointed out last night in John 311. I think it is. Let me make sure I got the right verse.
John 3.
11 Yes, we speak that we do know and testify that we have seen and you receive, not our witness. That's the Speaking of divine persons, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. He's one of them. The Speaking of the Godhead. When God speaks, he speaks what he knows, not something he's learned. He doesn't learn anything. He knows everything from the beginning.
He's a mission.
His Understanding 147 Psalm. His understanding is infinite.
There is no one that can communicate anything to him that he does not.
Already know?
One person can address him in prayer or a million people can address him in prayer.
Or 10 million?
All over the world and he handles each one.
As though it was a single individual prayer. Can you? Can you?
Conceive.
Of a God so great.
As to be able to do that never gets them mixed up.
Understands what you ask.
What you praise him for and.
And each one of us, and the Saints all over the world.
All praying.
And he?
He hears it all.
And he responds to it.
Omniscient. Omnipresent.
There is no place.
Where you can get away from him?
He knows you're down sitting, you're uprising, understands your thoughts afar off.
Not a word in thy mouth, which, lo, he knows it all together.
Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou hast searched me. Before you were ever born, He searched you.
He's not learning. He's not learning as Satan does. Satan observes you. He sees what you're doing.
He sees your habits and so on, and he draws certain conclusions, or his messengers do.
And they come to certain conclusions that they know us pretty well. They can read us that way. That's not our God. Our God has already searched us and he knows us through and through before we were ever here. He knows what we're going to do tomorrow and the next year and so on, if we're still here.
The day and the night are both alike to him.
What a God we have.
And that God became a man.
Remember when Peter was when the Lord was searching him out?
The end of that 139th Psalm says Search me O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my way. See if there be any wicked way in me.
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Lead me in the way everlasting.
And in the 21St of.
The Lord was searching out Peter, He had said three times with oaths and curses. I don't know the man.
I don't know the man.
And the Lord asks them, Lovers tell me.
And he answered, yes, I love you lovers. Tell me more than these.
Yes, I love you. And then he changes the word and uses Peter's word.
Do you really? Are you attached to me? Love me?
And he was grieved because he said to him the third time, Are you attached to me? He said, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee. No longer boasting of his own love for the Lord, but appealing to his knowledge of Peter's love for him.
And that is the most, that is the most wonderful truth.
That.
He knows everything about you.
He knows your thoughts.
Knows your habits, your ways. He knows what you intend to do. He knows your ugly thoughts, your sinful thoughts.
And yet he loves you.
That's so precious, that's so comforting.
There are many things that we entertain go on with.
Or do that we wouldn't share with our best friend for fear we'd lose them as a friend. They'd write us off.
No, this is one that knows us through and through.
And.
He still loves us.
With an everlasting love.
One has said you take all the bad things you've ever done, put the mall together, they're not as bad as you are.
In yourself, the fruit that's on the tree is not as bad as the tree itself, which produces that ugly fruit.
He searches us out.
Well, in the 7th chapter we come to that wonderful passage at the end.
It was the Feast of Tabernacles. That feast had eight days to it.
And in verse 37, in the last day, that's the eighth day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, if any man thirst.
Let him come unto me.
And drink.
He that believeth on me, as the Scripture had said, out of his belly shall flow rivers.
Of living water.
We saw in the 4th chapter that he talks about a fountain of water springing up.
Into eternal life Here he speaks of rivers of living water flowing out of the the belly or the inmost being of the believer and then he explains what it is verse 39. This spake he of the spirit.
Which they that believe on him should receive.
For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet.
Glorified. Here we have the the Cardinal.
One of the two cardinal truths of Christianity.
A man in the glory.
A man in the glory.
Our Lord Jesus glorified.
Until then, the Spirit was not given. So while the Lord was on earth, the Spirit was not given.
While the Old Testament Saints were on earth, the Spirit was not given. Oh yes, He came upon this one and that one for the occasion to utter prophecy or whatever. But He was not indwelling the Saints. He was not with them. He did not abide with them. That is a New Testament truth.
And that's something that in the church world, the presence, what characterizes Christianity is the presence of the Holy Spirit, a divine person on earth that characterizes this dispensation.
One of the first things that Mister Darby ever wrote.
Was entitled The notion of a Clergyman dispensationally?
The sin against the Holy Spirit.
He was pleaded with not to publish it.
And he didn't publish it.
For quite a while.
He listened to the pleads, please.
And didn't publish that, but eventually it did get published.
It did get published.
Of course, those that were in the place of clergy.
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Patterned after the camp.
Didn't want that published.
Because it sounds like he was charging every clergyman with the sin against the Holy Ghost, and that's not at all what he was doing. He was saying that.
The establishment of a clergy, a separate caste of men between the people and God.
Is to set aside the leading of the Holy Spirit. These are the men that lead the congregation.
Well, that's patterned after the camp.
And that's one of the things that we have to go forth unto him without the camp. Is there one man that superintends everything, that is overall, that directs all?
In the church.
Who should that be? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the director.
Under the headship of Christ, He directs from heaven the Holy Spirit here below.
On Earth.
A man in the glory.
Divine person on earth, but in effect.
Christians, most places know the truth of it, the fact of it, but the practical effect of it, the practical carrying it out, is not done.
And do we ever fail in that? Yes, we do.
Yes, we do. We can grieve the Holy Spirit.
We don't. We can't grieve him away, but we can grieve him.
By doing those things that are displeasing to Him, we can quench the Holy Spirit.
Suppose you're at the Lord's Table and the Spirit of God urges you.
To give out of him or to.
Stand on your feet and give thanks.
And or to read a portion of scripture.
You can resist that, or not respond to it, and you can quench him.
It's possible when there's an open meeting.
Spirit of God may prompt you to give out something and you don't do it because you're thinking more of yourself rather than being led by the Spirit of God, and that's quenching the Holy Spirit.
Grieving Him is doing things which are displeasing to God, and quenching Him is not doing what He's.
Urging you to do.
Quenching Hill.
So we shouldn't just think of those who are in system that quench the spirit or grieve the spirit, but we have to search our own hearts as to these things.
Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. There is the blessing flowing out to those around.
John 4 It leads to worship, living waters within, and here it's flowing out service and flowing out to the lost roundabouts.
There was none of this in Judaism. Judaism was an enclosure.
It was a fold where the sheep were constrained and kept separate from the nation's roundabout.
And.
It's it's an entirely different order of things. There was not liberty.
There was *******.
Well, it's 45 minutes since we started.
Maybe I should pause here.
Take a 5 or 10 minute break and then we'll resume. Some may want to use the washroom.
Or whatever.
So we'll have a little pause right now.
Just a few comments as we move on through John's Gospel.
Verse 12.
Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying.
I am the light of the world.
Ye that followeth me.
Shall not walk in darkness.
But shall have the light of life we have at the beginning of this chapter.
A beautiful illustration.
Of the grace of God.
A woman taken in adultery, caught in the very act, was brought to the Lord Jesus.
And the scribes said to him.
Master, this woman was taken in adultery in the very act.
Now Moses in the Law commanded us that such should be stoned.
But what sayest thou?
Now they were talking to the very one that gave the law in the first place.
But the principle of law would be to stone her.
But he had come in grace. The law was given by Moses.
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Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
So what does he do?
Moses in the Law commanded us.
That such should be stone. But what sayest thou?
They thought they had him on the horns of the dilemma. If he said stone her, they could have accused him of no mercy, no compassion. If he said let her go free, they could have accused him of breaking the law.
So what does he say?
This, they said, tempting him.
That they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin.
Among you to let him first cast a stone at her.
It is a terrible thing to think of a Sinner judging another Sinner.
And that's what these were, and they were starting. They were going to act judicially in judgment on this woman.
Applying the law.
As though they were.
Better than she.
And so he says.
He that is without sin among you.
Let him first cast the stone at her, and again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
That finger, finger of God had written the 10 commandments on the 2 tables of stone.
Giving them to Moses, and then he gave them to the people.
It was given twice. Moses broke the first table. They had broken the law before he came into the camp.
They had committed the sin of idolatry and worshipped another God, and so on.
And that it was given a second time, mingled with grace.
Again he stooped down.
Wrote on the ground. We don't know what he was writing. It may have been the 10 commandments.
They were guilty as well as she.
And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, Here he is, the light, the light shining into their conscience, now convicting them of sin.
Who were they the sitting judgment upon a fellow Sinner? They were sinners themselves.
Convicted by their own conscience, they went out one by one, beginning at the eldest.
Even unto the last. And Jesus was left alone.
And the woman standing in the midst.
When Jesus said.
Had lifted himself up, and saw none but the woman. He said unto her woman.
Where are those thine accusers?
Hath no man condemned thee?
And she said no man, Lord.
Jesus said unto her, Here is the man that came in grace. He said, Neither do I condemn thee, But he says, go and sin no more.
Grace is the power of holiness. The law is the strength of sin. Man thinks it the other way. Man thinks that if we put ourselves under grace, we can do whatever we please and God will forgive us. No grace gives us the power to walk a holy life.
But the forbidding of sin by the law is not the power of holiness. It's called in First Corinthians 15, the strength of sin. The strength of sin. You tell the natural man not to do something, he stiffens his back, and right away he wants to do what he's been told not to do.
Grace. Grace is the power of living a godly life.
And here was the one that came in grace and truth, the light of the world, the one who spoke in that.
Piercing word from him reached their conscience and they went out from his presence.
And she alone the Sinner.
Was left in his presence. Tremendous passage.
It's in some manuscripts of the New Testament, those verses, those first verses about the woman taken in adultery.
Are deleted. You can look at the manuscripts and you can see there was something there.
And they took it out. They thought it would be teaching immorality.
No, you see, natural man does not understand grace. Grace.
Does not teach.
That you can live as you like.
It gives us power to live pleasing to the Lord.
Pleasing to the Lord 1500 years. God tested man under law and He did not keep it. He did not live according to the law, though the law was perfect. Now He's given us grace.
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And we have the power to live according to God.
Because he's the God of all grace.
The light shined into their hearts and exposed the evil that was there. You get that same thing in the 9th chapter verse 5. He says as long as I am in the world.
I am the light of the world. Here is this man that was born blind and they ask him the question who did sin this man or his parents that he was born blind?
How could he have sinned and be born blind? Do you remember the Jews were carried captive to Babylon for 70 years?
And that was the citadel, that was the place where all these false religions that have developed into this world came from Babylon Confusion.
And the doctrine of reincarnation no doubt had been.
Taught there, and so they asked him who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind.
The only way he could have sinned would have been in a previous life.
The Lord doesn't even address that issue. But notice how what the Jews say at the end of John 9.
The man says to them.
Verse 30.
I love his answer.
The man answered and said unto them, why hearing is a marvelous thing.
That ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes.
Now we know that God heareth not sinners.
But if any man be a worshipper of God, and do with his will, him he heareth.
Since the world began, was it not heard that any man opened the eyes?
Of one that was born blind, if this man were not of God.
He could do nothing beautiful the way he rebukes their unbelief.
And knows what they say.
Verse 34 They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins.
And thus thou teach us, and they cast him.
Out.
Thoust altogether born in sins, And dost thou teach us They had the view.
And probably came from Babylon. That if one was born deformed or had some defect.
That was the result of sin. It had to be the result of sin.
Someone had to have sinned, their parents or the man himself, and that's what they have in the Hindu religion today. They believe in the doctrine of reincarnation. It is the cruelest religion on the face of the earth.
Because.
If someone is suffering, you're not allowed to help that person. You're not allowed to comfort that person. You're not allowed to.
Minister to them because they're working off the bad karma from a former life. That's their doctrine. It's a terrible doctrine. So they don't know anything about compassion. They don't know anything about real healing.
They don't know any of those things because they have a religion that is.
That is.
From Satan itself.
I just heard recently that when brother Bob Bauman was in India by mistake.
He brushed against a cow.
And the police immediately apprehended him, were going to throw him in jail.
Because he had touched one of their gods.
Darkness. Such awful darkness.
Do we really appreciate?
The light that has come in the person of Lord Jesus. I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Now we come to the 10th chapter.
And this chapter illustrates what we've been talking about very beautifully.
Spend a little time on it. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door.
Into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber.
Now the door is used in three distinct ways in this chapter. This is the door to the sheepfold. The sheepfold is Judaism, or what we've talked about is the camp.
Jewish enclosure.
Separated from the nation's roundabout and enclosure. A sheepfold.
Fenced in, they were to remain separate from the nations round about them. And he says he that entereth not by the door. When we came into the building, we entered by the door. We didn't come in through a window, some improper way of entrance. He says he that entereth not by the door. What does that mean? Well, the Old Testament scriptures, there are many Old Testament scriptures that are given in the Old Testament about the first coming of the Messiah.
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The Lord Jesus, and that's the door entering in the proper way. He had to be born.
Of David's seed, you had to be born in Bethlehem, He had to be born of a virgin. And many, many, many scriptures. In fact, there's so many scriptures that were fulfilled in the first coming of the Lord Jesus into this world that once has said that.
If all these prophetic utterances as to his first coming happened by chance and all took place in one person, the probability of that happening by chance would be so small that it's virtually an impossibility.
All of those scriptures that referred to his first coming have been literally fulfilled.
I've only mentioned a few, and all of the scriptures referring to his second coming will be literally fulfilled as well. Just hold your place here and turn back to Luke 24 for a moment.
In Luke 24 and 44.
The risen Christ says, And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you.
That all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses.
And in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me.
All things that have been written concerning me in those three portions of the Old Testament.
Must be fulfilled.
Have you ever noticed that the Book of Revelation starts out?
We're talking about the God who knows the future as well as the past or the present.
Revelation one verse 1 The revelation of Jesus Christ which God?
Gave unto him to show unto his servants things which must.
Shortly come to pass.
Only God can do that.
Only God knows what's going to happen in the future.
That's his prerogative.
Of emissions.
Back to John 10.
He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door.
Is the shepherd of the sheep. He was born of the Virgin, He was the seed of David, He was born at Bethlehem, and on and on.
He's the shepherd of the sheep. To him the Porter openeth. Spirit of God opened the door to him. He was born of the Spirit. He was announced by John the Baptist by the energy of the Spirit.
As the one who was to come.
To him the Porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice. He has his own sheep and that sheepfold, and they were Jews, Israelites, and they were his sheep. There were other sheep in that sheepfold that were not his. They were Jews, they were Israelites. They weren't born again, but he had his own there.
And it says, He calleth the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.
Now until the shepherd of the sheep came.
The Messiah, the true shepherd to enter into the sheepfold according to the prophetic scriptures of the Old Testament.
Until he came. For a Jew to abandon Judaism and leave it and follow a false Messiah would have been apostasy.
For the Jew.
But here now is the shepherd of the sheep. He enters into the sheepfold through the door.
Proper way of entrance for the Messiah to come, and he finds his sheep there and he calls them out.
And leads them out.
Notice it says in verse 7. Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.
All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.
There was some that followed these false messiahs, these false shepherds, and they they came to nothing.
But now he's the door of the sheep. That's the second use of the door. He's the way of exit from the sheepfold. The true shepherd goes in the Messiah. He finds his sheep there, calls him out to what?
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Through the blessings of Christianity.
The third use of the door is in verse 9, I am the door.
By me, if any man enter in now, this is the door of entrance into the new order of things which He was about to establish, founded upon His death and resurrection. I am the door as the door of the sheep. He was the one that enabled the sheep to exit from Judaism.
The sheepfold. The camp.
And now he's the door of entrance into the blessings of Christianity. I am the door by me, if any man enter in.
He shall be saved. That's a New Testament word.
And it refers to the salvation of the soul.
And he shall go in.
And out and find pasture this morning at the Lord's table. We went in as worshippers. We went in and we worshipped Him. That's John 4IN John 7.
It's going out. Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water for service. Blessing to others round about us. That's why He saved us. He saved us that we might be a witness to those that we meet with every day and be a source of refreshment and blessing.
By me if any man enter in.
He shall be saved. The only way you can enter into this blessedness is by Him.
He is the door, He is the way of entrance into the blessedness that God has for us in this present day of grace. By me. If any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they might have life.
And that he might have it abundantly. I've noticed I've taken the word more out and I explained that last night somewhere out here. I'll explain it again.
The Old Testament Saints did not have abundant life, and we just have it more abundantly. The thought is the Old Testament Saints have life. They were born again, they had divine life, the nature of Christ, but we have the abundant life.
In Christ we have life in the power and energy of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God has been given to us.
It wasn't given to them. They had the life, but now we have it in the fullness of the blessings that come to us.
Through his death and resurrection. His death has put all that stood against us away. His resurrection has brought us into a new creation.
And he's the head of that new creation. That's the abundant life that he talks about.
I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giveth his life.
For the sheep.
In the 11TH chapter.
We have the Lord. A beautiful passage.
Lazarus has died.
Verse 20.
Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him.
But Mary sat still in the house.
Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
But I know that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.
Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Now according to the teaching in Judaism, they were looking for a general resurrection at the end, when there be a separation between the lost and the saved.
And I think this was Martha's thought.
Martha saith unto him.
I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. It's that general idea, and there's many in Christendom today. That's all they know about the resurrection. There's going to be a grand resurrection at the end. They don't know the Christian doctrine of resurrection from among the dead. The resurrection of the dead is that vague general doctrine that they held in Judaism. But we know something more precious than that.
The resurrection from among the dead Lazarus is a picture of that. He was dead. He had died 4 days dead.
And he was with all the others that were dead there in that cemetery.
And the Lord calls him forth. So when he rose, he rose from among the dead. I know he came back as his natural life. But it's a picture, a beautiful picture of resurrection from among the dead.
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Martha says to him, verse 24 I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
Jesus said unto her, I am.
The Resurrection.
And the life these I am statements by the blessed Lord in the Gospel of John are absolutely tremendous.
Tremendous how anyone can read John's Gospel and not.
Come to a sense in his soul that he's dealing with this glorious person who is the I am the Jehovah God of the Old Testament now in the New Testament as a man.
Tremendous truth, he says. I am the resurrection.
And the life.
He that believeth in me, though he were dead, though he hath died. And there is.
Thousands of Saints that have died in this present day of grace, and they're dead. What does he say of them? Yet shall he live?
They're going to rise. He will raise them from among the dead and whosoever liveth.
And believeth in me if the Lord would come right now, everyone of us were still living here.
He would change us in an instant, and then we would rise to meet the Saints that have been resurrected from.
The grave, and together we would rise to meet in the air. And I believe that's the second class. Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
Believe it's thou this.
That is, there's going to be those. It might be this company I'm talking to this afternoon. The Lord would come right now. You'd never go through death, never go through death. You'd be changed in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye and rise.
With the dead Saints, who would be resurrected first?
And then we the living, would be changed and caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. He is in His own person, the resurrection and the life.
He has that power in himself to call into being Romans one. Look at Romans one for a moment so important. Romans 1 brings this this out, proving that he is indeed the Son of God. Romans 1.
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.
Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. That's his humanity.
And declared to be the Son of God. That's his deity.
Power declared to be the Son of God, with power according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
He said in this very Gospel of John, we saw it in chapter 2. Destroy this temple.
And in three days I will raise it up. He is the resurrection and the life. Not only did He raise himself, but He raised others. All testimony to the truth that He is the resurrection and the life, barely the Son of God.
In the 12TH chapter.
We're just touching.
These chapters giving an outline in the 12TH chapter.
Verse 23.
Jesus answered them, saying the hour has come, that the Son of Man.
Should be glorified.
Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. It abideth alone.
But if it die.
It bringeth forth much fruit.
At the Lord Jesus gone back to heaven, and he could have without dying.
He wouldn't have been able to take us with him.
It would have remained alone.
He had to.
Die and rise again, and now he can associate us with himself, because in his death he's put our sins away. He's answered to God for all that stood against us. He's removed it.
Had he just lived a perfect life, it would have just condemned us all the more, and he could not have us with him. So accept the corn of wheat, fall into the ground and die. It abideth alone.
But if it died, bringeth forth much fruit. There's a doctrine in Christendom that the Lord in incarnation united himself with humanity. That is incorrect.
Union with Christ is after he rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God.
And sent down the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God unites us to the man in the glory.
The man in the glory. Remember that verse in John 7? The Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus.
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Was not yet glorified.
Even when he was a risen man on Earth.
The Spirit of God hadn't been given as a person dwelling in them until he ascended to heaven.
And then he received the Holy Spirit the second time. The first time was at the River Jordan for himself.
And the second time was as a glorified man in heaven, and then he sent down the Holy Spirit.
To unite into one body all the disciples that believed in Him.
That was the beginning of Christianity.
In fact.
On Earth.
The first chapter.
They went to the Mount of Olives, and they saw him ascend to heaven.
With his hands uplifted, blessing them.
And the angels appeared and said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven the same Jesus?
Which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go to heaven.
Now that won't be the Rapture, that will be his coming back to earth. His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, the very place from which he ascended to heaven. And we're looking for the Lord to come for us first before that event takes place.
He who is the resurrection and the life.
Come up, hit her.
He calleth his own sheep by name.
I wonder. I like the thought.
That each of us will hear him call our name.
And will rise.
To meet him.
He knows us personally.
He knows you personally.
Understands you perfectly.
Wonderful.
To have such a person that knows us that well.
Love us.
Nothing that we ever do or think.
However bad it might be can turn his love away from us.
Because he knew it all before He set his love upon us, if I can speak that way.
We're Speaking of things that happened in a past eternity, and there is no time. There's no before, there's no after. It's.
It's just a wonderful person.
That we're dealing with.
In the 13th chapter.
After he announces, well, let me read that verse in the 12TH chapter.
Verse 32.
I should read that now is the judgment of this world.
Now shall the Prince of this world, that Satan be cast out?
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die. Who is being lifted up from the earth was the cross.
Between heaven and earth he was lifted up. He died.
Crucified.
He predicted it. He knew exactly.
What would happen to him? He knows everything, the end from the beginning.
Now is the judgment of this world, the moral history of this world, closed at the cross.
Man was tested up to then in every possible way, and finally the presence of the Son of God himself.
In their midst. And what did they do to him? They crucified Him. They killed Him.
They maligned him, blasphemed him.
And set away with this man. We will not have him to reign over us. We're going through a judged world. Young people, remember that this world has already been judged.
In the death of Christ.
And it is ripe for judgment.
He saves us out of it.
He says in the 17th of the chapter and also in the 15th chapter, they are not of the world.
Even as I am not of the world.
It takes you out of it to make you a people for his name.
If you're of the world, you're lost.
Because it's judged.
Already.
Now in the 13th chapter.
He's about to depart.
Verse one now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come.
That He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world.
He loved them unto the end. Suppers ended.
He girds himself with a towel, assumes the posture of a servant, pours water into a basin.
Gets at the feet of the disciples and washes their feet.
He comes to Peter. Peter said. Thou shalt never wash my feet, Lord, He felt that.
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The Lord should not be at his feet. He should be washing the Lord's feet.
And Peter says in verse 8, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, if I washed thee not.
Thou hast no part with me.
Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
Saith to him, He that is washed, bathed, washed all over. It's a different word than the other word for washed. He that is bathed needeth not saved but to wash his feet, and is clean. Every witch ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him. There was a traitor in their midst. He was not clean, the others were.
Washing all over being bathed is the new birth.
That takes place once.
And then there's the washing of the feet. Just like there was the labor with the priest. They washed their hands. They washed their feet. There's nothing mentioned about washing the hands here. Why? Because the work was accomplished by the Lord on the cross.
The work is done, but we do pick up the defilements of this world as we walk through it.
And so we have to have it removed in order that we might have parked with him, we might have fellowship with the Blessed 1 He wants your fellowship.
He saved you that you might be a vessel of blessing to those roundabouts.
But he wants our fellowship. Very precious truth he wants to enjoy.
Your communion. And so he washes our feet.
He washes our feet so that the things of this world which would hinder that might be removed.
If I, then your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash.
One another's feet.
It's a great privilege to go to 1. You might see that tendency of their hearts.
Is to be going after something of this world that will rob them of the fellowship with the blessed Lord and go and wash their feet with the word of God. That's this is the vessel. This is the means. Use the word of God to wash one anothers feet. He says in this chapter what I do thou knowest not now.
But thou shalt know hereafter that is what He was doing. This this washing of their feet was a picture of what He's doing today for the last 2000 years. He's washing the feet of the Saints from the glory.
From the glory, from the heavenly position that he's entered into, he's washing.
The feet of the Saints that we might have parked with him.
In the next chapter.
14th chapter, he tells us.
Let not your heart be troubled. He had just told them that he was going away. They were sorrowing as they thought of that, their hearts were troubled. And he says let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. None of us have seen the Lord Jesus. We've never seen God. And so it requires faith, faith in him. So he says, you believe in God, you have faith in God, have faith in me.
In my father's house or many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told you he hadn't told them because he was going to be with them. But now he's about to take his leave of them. So now he tells them what they need to know in his absence. He was going on high. He was going to the father's house. His entrance there would prepare the place to for him to come back and take us to be with himself.
He says in my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you 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, there ye may be also.
And whether I go, ye know.
And the way ye know.
Isn't it wonderful?
That he has told us ahead of time that he's gone on high and he's prepared us a place to be with him there.
In John Two, he said when he saw the money changers at the temple.
He overturned them and he said make not my father's house and House of merchandise, but here his father's house is entirely different.
It's that that scene on high, many abodes on high, that he's prepared for his heavenly people and he's coming back for us to take us to be there.
See, these truths that we have, we're going over now in the Gospel of John. They're all anticipatory.
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Of what would come to pass after he died and rose again from the dead and sent down the Holy Spirit after there was a man in the glory and a divine person on earth. All of these wonderful truths that we're looking at in the Gospel of John, they're given to us before they became a fact in time, but they're unfolded to us by the blessed Lord in view of his returning to the Father and sending down the.
Spirit, you'll never understand John's gospel properly until you realize that these.
These chapters that we're looking at, especially from 13 through 16.
Are ministry given by him dependent upon His being in the glory as a glorified man and the Spirit of God sent down on earth to characterize the Christian testimony? Everything is now to be done in the energy and power of the Holy Spirit, whether it's viewed individually or collectively. All to be done.
By the Spirit of God. And when man has the audacity to set up man in the place of the Holy Spirit, that is a serious sin. And that has happened in Christian circles. How important to give the Spirit of God His place of supremacy, as He is here to glorify the Son, to glorify Christ.
And not man, not the first man, but that blessed man.
Who has entered heaven and sent down the Holy Spirit?
Verse 15 he says John 14 if you love me.
Keep my commandments.
The proof of love.
Is obedience.
We really love him. We will obey him.
And I will pray the Father.
And he shall give you.
Another comforter.
That he may abide with you forever.
He was about to take his leave of them. He had only been in their company for 3 1/2 years, 33 years altogether. Man on earth.
It's about to leave now He says I'm going to replace. I've been your comforter. I've been the one that's cared for every need and I'm leaving going to the Father. But I'm not going to leave you as orphans going to give you another comforter and he's going to take care of you and bring you all the way through. I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter. We have the whole Trinity in verse 16, the Son praying to the Father to send the Holy Spirit as the other comforter that he may abide.
With you forever. The Old Testament Saints didn't have this.
That didn't even come close.
To what we have.
In Christianity, do we value it? Do we appreciate it? Do we really understand it, what he's brought us into?
Wonder of it all, we can call God our Father. We know the Son is our Savior. Holy Spirit indwells us, making these bodies the temple of the Holy Ghost, which we have of God. We're not our own. We're bought with the price. We belong to Him doubly. He created us now He's redeemed us. He's reconciled us to Himself.
By the death of His Son, remove all that stood against us. Set everything right according to God.
And now it says you have he reconciled?
Dead and sins and so on.
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The Abiding Presence of the Holy Spirit

Naomi's Restoration

Christ Our High Priest

Without the Camp

Address—C. Hendricks
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Read one verse in Hebrews 13.
To begin tonight.
Hebrews, chapter 13.
And verse 13.
Let us go forth therefore.
Unto him.
Without the camp.
Bearing his reproach.
For here have we no continuing city?
But we seek one to come.
By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually.
That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.
But to do good and to communicate, forget not.
For with such sacrifices, God is well pleased.
I've read several of the verses. I'm especially thinking of verse 13. Let us go forth, therefore unto Him, without the camp.
Now in order to obey this exhortation that we have in this Epistle to the Hebrews, which was written for the the benefit of the Jews.
The Israelites who professed faith in Christ as their Messiah.
Danger always being that some of them may.
Go back. They were professing.
Christians that some of them may go back and return to Judaism, and that would be an apostate.
And there's numbers of warnings in this epistle warning against apostasy unbelief.
Turning away from the true and living God.
The camp, what is it? How can we go forth to him?
Without the camp if we don't know what the camp is.
Well, in the setting that it's found here in Hebrews, the camp was Judaism.
It was the religion of the Jews that was the camp.
And that's what it speaks of.
Well, we can say. What application does that have to us Christians? None of us goes into the synagogue. None of us worships with.
Sacrifices and things that characterize the camp.
Well, that's what I want to do tonight. I want to look at the Gospel of John especially.
And go through some of its chapters to show the contrast between Judaism or the camp and Christianity.
And we will find as we.
Do this, that there are many things in Christendom, the sphere where the name of Christ is professed.
That answers not to true Christianity, but rather to the camp of Judaism.
And now that the truth of Christianity is out.
To go back and.
Imitate the things of the camp, which is what much of Christendom has done is really far more serious than the camp itself. Actually God. God instituted the camp, He instituted Judaism, He gave them the law, and so on. That was God ordained, and it was not until the true shepherd of the sheep came, who led his sheep out of the camp, out of the sheepfold to himself.
Into the blessedness of Christian truth.
And now the Christian truth is out, and it's given to us in the New Testament to go back to campish things. And that's what Christendom has done in large measure. And we will see that as we look at what is characteristic of the old order of things, the camp and the new order of things, Christianity.
That's a little introduction. Now let's turn to John, Chapter 1.
John's Gospel chapter 1 read a very well known verse to begin with.
And verse 17.
Where you see the two things in contrast.
For the law was given by Moses.
But grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Here you have the law.
In contrast with grace and truth, and you have Moses.
The head of that system, he was the lawgiver in contrast with.
The Lord Jesus Christ himself, by whom came grace and truth.
The law was given by Moses.
The law is a set of rules, perfect in itself.
No flaw in the law.
The law is holy and just and good.
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There's nothing in the law that is not acceptable to God. It's the perfect expression.
Of what man should do, how he should live before God.
In fact, the Lord Jesus summarized summed up the law in two succinct statements.
The first is thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength.
And then he added the second part of the the law. And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. So he summarized the 10 commandments as our responsibility towards God, to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our responsibility towards our fellow men.
To love our neighbors ourselves. Now if we would keep those two laws.
Keep those two summaries. That's the summary of the 10 commandments.
We would, according to the old economy, we would live.
This do, God said, and thou shalt live.
Well, we know there's three reasons. We absolutely know that no one kept the law outside of the Lord Jesus Himself.
First of all, in John 7 the Lord Jesus said, did not Moses give you the law?
And none of you keepeth the law.
And Stephen, preaching by the Holy Spirit, a spirit filled man, said, Who have received the law.
By the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
So we have two divine persons, the Lord Himself and the Spirit of God, speaking through Stephen.
Bringing this indictment upon the Jews, they had the law 1500 years under it, and no one kept it. And the third?
Fact is that they all died.
Had anyone of them kept it, he would not have died because the law said this Due and thou shalt live held out the promise of life to the law keeper, but none kept it. They said when they heard it all that the Lord has spoken we will do and obey. But they didn't and we know they didn't. They broke it right at the beginning and all the way through.
It is not in man.
To keep that holy just in good law, because man has a nature which is set against obedience to God and rather set for a pleasing oneself.
So the law is a system of things that characterize Judaism, giving man something to do in order to gain acceptance with God. That's the principle of law. There's nothing wrong with the law, but it's the principle of law that is so deadly. The law is perfect. The problem is in me, the problem is in you. The problem is in the nature that we have as born of Adam.
It is against God's law and will not subject itself to it.
The law was given by Moses. It's called a ministry of death.
The Ministry of Condemnation and a curse.
Curse it is everyone that continueth, not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
Christianity is righteousness.
And blessing.
And.
The relationship established by Grace.
That can never be changed because it doesn't depend on us.
It doesn't depend on anything we have done or are doing. It's all of grace. God bringing us into blessing by grace. That's what came by Jesus Christ. Every one of the epistles begins with grace. Be unto you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. You can't have peace, settle peace as long as you're under the law. If you see someone that doubts his eternal security, that says I'm not sure I could.
Saved today but I could lose it if I do something that's wrong. He is basing his peace upon himself and he is the standard by which his acceptance with God he judges to be the case. If that's the case, he doesn't have peace because.
That's not the way peace is achieved. It's not by trusting in ourselves in any way.
In fact, when we do that, we are not trusting in the grace of God.
What is grace? It's God bestowing blessing on man altogether, apart from any desserts or anything that man deserves in any way.
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God says I'm going to bless him in spite of what he is, and that's the most important thing, what he is and what he has done.
But you could take all the evil that you've done in your life, for I've done in my life, and put it all together.
I'll tell you something that's worse than that, and that is what we are.
In the flesh.
In courage of the evil incorrigibly bad.
And until we see that.
And abandoned any self effort to improve ourselves or to gain God's acceptance by the principle of law.
We will never, never have peace and we will never be able to worship God.
And we will see that.
As we go through this wonderful gospel.
In the Old Testament, the question as to whether 1 was.
Born of God.
Was not raised.
As long as you were born an Israelite, you were a member of the people of God.
And you could worship God according to the way they worship God. You could bring your sacrifices.
And bring it to the priests offered on the altar, and go through all the ritual of Judaism.
And the question that?
You were born and got born of God or not, and it was not raised.
You didn't have to be born again to be one of the people of God in the Old Testament, but that's not true today.
Look back at verse 10 of our chapter 1. He was in the world. That's the Lord Jesus, and the world was made by him.
And the world knew him not.
Striking statement Here the world was made by him. Here the very creator of this very world came into the world, and the world did not know him.
Young people, the world didn't know him then. The world doesn't know him.
Now it has not changed. It does not know him. It is very important that you realize that you are going through a world that does not know him.
That does not want him.
That put him across.
And set away with this man.
We will not have him to reign over us.
Written in Hebrew, the religious world. Greek, the cultural world. Latin, the political world.
The whole world represented in the rejection of Christ, and it has not changed. It is incorrigibly bad.
Just as we are by nature, incorrigibly bad.
He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
Now there's another statement. He came unto his own, came unto his own nation.
Israel that had all the outward blessings and favors of Judaism.
A perfect law to live by. A priesthood sacrifices.
A Tabernacle in the wilderness, a temple in the land, and all the.
Associated.
Blessings of Jewish worship, something the Gentiles knew nothing of. They were outside of all this.
So favored and blessed was Israel, certainly, if there was any good in man.
The Judaistic system, God's, all the provisions that he had made to bring out that goodness in man, If there was anything there, he would have brought it out.
But it wasn't there. It was not there.
He came to his own in his own, received him. Now that's an action of the will.
Not knowing him is ignorance of God.
When we were ignorant of God.
And that's the world. It's ignorant of God. It does not know the true God.
You cannot find him out by the intellect. You cannot find him out by going to school. You cannot find him out by.
Education He has to reveal himself to you. Remember what the Lord asked the disciples. He said, Who do men say that? I.
The son of Manna.
And they said some say no Baptist, others Elias or Jeremiah. So one of the prophets.
But whom say ye that I am?
And Peter said, Thou art the Christ.
The Son of the living God.
And those next words of the blessed Lord, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona.
Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven. Peter didn't know the truth as to who Jesus really was.
Christ, the Son of the living God, by any rational intellectual reasoning that he had in his own mind, it was revealed to him from the Father.
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And if you know who Jesus is, you know it by that same means.
God reveals the truth of His person to you. The world does not know Him.
And can never find him out by any of its efforts or its intellect in fact.
Our institutions of highest learning.
The universities, colleges and universities are the citadels of infidelity. That's where you'll find the greatest opposition to this book. The ridicule that's placed upon it and the the sneering and all that they did to the Lord when He was here, they do to this book today.
These men who are trusting in their own intellectual powers, trusting in themselves the religion of humanism, that's what replaced Christianity in the 20th century.
Religion of humanism, which is self, is everything. You have it in yourself. You can do anything. Look what man has achieved.
And he looks upon all his achievements in the scientific world, in the technological world, and he has done marvelous things in the medical world, for instance, tremendous things, but every step upwards technologically.
In the education area seems to end up a step downwards morally.
And spiritually, man becomes more proud of himself. He does not give God the credit.
I remember when I was in Kennedy Space Center and we were in the IMAX theater.
First time I was ever in one and it's quite an experience. You could see the launches and all this and I got in talking to a man that was sitting next to me and when we started out to go out, I said just think of what the God is like who gave man that ability.
And he said yes.
Yes.
What hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received it, why glorious thou, as though thou hast not deceived it? Man takes the credit to himself.
And he ought to give the credit to God who created him.
I've often wondered, how tall will God allow this 20th century Tower of Babel to get?
Before he brings it down.
But he will bring it down.
The loftiness of man shall be brought low.
Greatness of man.
Shall be brought lower the Lord alone alone.
Shall be exalted in that day we long for that day the world knew him not his own received him not, but verse 12 as many as received him.
To them gave he power or the authority or the right to become children of God. John always talks about children of God. It's unfortunate our translators rendered it the sons. It's a little different thought. Children of God are those who are born into the family.
And sons, those who are adopted into it. But here it's children of God.
Even to them that believe on his name.
Faith in His name.
All men have not faith.
And we read that without faith.
It is impossible to please God, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is.
And that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. The most God honoring thing that a Sinner can do.
Is to acknowledge God.
And to believe him.
When God speaks.
To bow to his word, to receive it.
To submit to it.
And a marvelous thing happens when that happens.
Which were born.
Not of blood.
No, you can't get into this new birth. You can't receive this new life, this new nature, because your parents are saved.
Now that won't do it for you, Not of blood.
Not a blood relationship.
They can't bring you into this. They can tell you about the truth of God.
But they can't impart a new life to your soul, nor of the will of the flesh. You can't will it for yourself. Sometimes I see this bumper sticker. I've seen it more than once. I don't like it.
It says try Jesus.
Well, if you're a Methodist, you can try the Baptist Church. You can try the Presbyterian Church or the Episcopal Church or the Catholic Church. You can try different churches, different religions. You can't try Jesus.
Now it's not in you to try him to see if he is.
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What he says he is the only way you can get into.
That place of blessedness is to believe Him, to receive Him. That's why he says as many as received him. How do you receive Him? By faith.
Faith by faith, and then there's a new life.
You can't.
Believe without a new life.
And there can't be a new life without faith.
The two come together.
You say I don't understand that.
You don't have to understand it. That's the word of God.
Where there's life, there's faith. Where there's faith.
There's life.
Being born again, Peter tells us not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.
Spirit of God using the Word of God to bring about this new birth.
Have you ever noticed that wherever the new birth is spoken of as here?
It's and we'll see, and this is more general in this chapter, but in the next one we look at.
I'll reserve that saying for the next one.
Which were born out of blood.
Not because your parents are in the family of God, nor of the will of the flesh. You can't bring yourself into it by some an act of your own will, nor of the will of man. Someone else can't bring you into it. A pastor of a church, another work fellow that works with you, presents Christ to you. They can't affect the new birth.
But born of God, of God. It's a sovereign act of God to impart a new life.
To a Sinner.
But the two come together in life.
And faith.
Now let's go to the next chapter.
Now in the Old Testament before I leave that first chapter in the Old Testament.
That was not a requirement. Now you can't be in the blessings of the family of God today.
Without this new birth, without this new life being born of God.
You need a new life.
The old life is not adequate, and the Jews had to learn that especially.
Because they were trusting in their first birth, and we'll see that in chapter 3. But before we do, I want to touch upon a couple verses in chapter 2.
Verse 18.
Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, What signs showest thou unto us, seeing thou doest these things?
Jesus answered and said unto them.
Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.
Then said they'd use 46 years was this temple in building in wilt thou reared up in three days?
But he spake of the temple of his body.
When therefore He was risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this unto them, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said. I don't know of a more powerful verse in all of Scripture that proves the deity of Christ that He is very God as well as very man as this passage. He says to them, You, you kill me, you destroy this temple. He's talking about His body. You put this body to death.
I will raise it up.
The Father raised Him, He raised Himself, the Spirit raised Him. All three persons of the Blessed Trinity were engaged, as they are in everything that God does, in raising the Blessed Lord from the dead.
Destroy this temple.
Well, the Romans did destroy that temple. They thought he meant Herage temple.
And they wouldn't bow to who he was.
They didn't come into the blessings of Christianity founded upon His death and His resurrection. A new order of things was introduced when He rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples. And in the power of that resurrection life, He breathed on them and said, Receive ye Holy Spirit. And they were brought now in the power of the Spirit into a new life, resurrection life. Do you get that in the 20th chapter?
Of this the Gospel.
And so we have a replacing the old temple of worship.
And he now becomes the.
The one through whom we present our worship to God. I read that verse in Hebrews 13 by him therefore.
Let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the Tabernacle. They had this altar upon which sacrifices were placed. In that we have a different altar, even our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
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He is the great anti type of the altar. He is the great anti type of the sacrifices. He is the great anti type of the temple. He is the great anti type of all that was typical in the Old Testament. It all pointed forward to him and to the work that he would accomplish. And that's the difference between Judaism, which was a which was a religion suited to man after the flesh, something that man could do, something that man could feel, he made his.
In in offering those sacrifices and so on. In Christianity, it's all for the glory of God.
It all comes from God as a wonderful gift.
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, if thou knewest the gift of God.
Though it's the vast of him, and he would have given thee living water, the Holy Spirit.
God is a giver, and he says to that woman in John 4 going ahead a bit, he says.
If thou knewest the gift of God, thou wast devasted of him.
And he would have given the living water.
Asked of him, God is a giver. In the Old Testament God was requiring of man.
Obedience. And he could not produce the obedience which the law required. Consequently it killed him, It condemned him.
It cursed him.
The law which was ordained to life became, Paul says unto me, unto death.
Unto death.
Verse 12, he says in chapter 3, No, I hadn't started chapter 3 yet. We'll start with verse one. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus.
A ruler of the Jews.
The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher, come from God.
For no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.
We have a children's hymn that says a ruler once came to Jesus by night to ask him the way of salvation and light.
Those of you who really love that hate to tell you, but that's not scriptural.
Nicodemus came to the Lord as a teacher to a teacher. He wasn't asking him the way of salvation and light. Rather, he was coming to him as a teacher to be taught, and the Lord taught him.
And what did he teach him?
Jesus.
Answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, verse 3 Except a man be born again.
We cannot see the Kingdom of God, that college professor.
With all his learning and with all his intellect and his way with words and how convincing he can be.
If he is not born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God can't see it.
It's a realm of blessing over which Christ is Lord.
And king that he can't see and he doesn't acknowledge it.
He is sufficient unto himself.
Except a man be born again. Except he has a new life.
A new nature altogether he cannot see.
The Kingdom of God.
Nicodemus didn't understand. With all his intellect and all his teaching, the Lord was speaking words that were beyond his understanding.
How can a man be born when he is old?
Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? See he was relating everything to to what his senses could detect and understand.
The Lord was speaking about a spiritual realm.
And he was talking about the natural realm, completely unaware of the real force of the Lord's words.
And he was a teacher. He was one that knew the law but knew the Old Testament. And yet these words were strange to him.
What does he mean?
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water.
And of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.
Water here has nothing to do with baptism. Nothing. It has to do with the Word of God.
Which is a cleansing agency, The Word of God, born of water, born of the Word wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed, according to thy word. When the priests were initiated into the priestly office, they were washed all over, washed with water, symbolical of the new birth.
A symbolically was the impartation of a new life. The Lord said this to Peter when he was watching the disciples feet.
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Peter said Thou shalt never wash my feet. He said, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Makes a statement, a wonderful statement. He said, either it is washed all over. Bathed is the word. He does not save but to wash his feet, and is clean every whip.
So we're not born again and again and again. We don't have to be born again, but once, just once, and have a new life. And then we're morally clean.
That new life is a life according to God. It's a very life of Christ himself.
That's communicated to us by the Spirit of God. We're born of water. That's the Word and the Spirit. The Spirit, He is the active agent in imparting divine life to the soul.
Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter.
The Kingdom of God.
Now this is not something that your parents can do for you. We saw that in chapter 1 That you can will for yourself or someone else will it for you. No, it's it's the birth of God.
Being born of God, Being born again.
Every time he talks about the new birth.
I shouldn't say every time, but usually, especially when he singles it out as being born again, he's talking to Jews. Here he was talking to Nicodemus, a representative ruler and leader of the Jews.
And.
He unfolds new birth to them. He never uses the word new birth of born again. I should say to the Gentiles, except in the epistle of John, he speaks of being born of God, which his course applies to all. I don't want to be misunderstood that we can never say to a Gentile you must be born again. But it's specifically addressed to a Jew because because he was trusting in his first birth, he could say we have Abraham for our father. The Gentile couldn't say that they had no one to trust.
As the head of their nation or of their religious system that you had and they were trusting in that. And the Lord says that birth will not do.
You need a new birth.
So let's read on.
Verse 5 Again Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit.
He cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh.
No matter what you do to it, no matter how much you train it, no matter how many advantages you give to it.
And how many years at school you send one that is born of the flesh? He's still flesh.
He still partakes of the nature of the Source. You cannot sublimate flesh into spirit.
No matter what you do to it, it's still flesh. That which is born of the flesh is flesh.
And that which is born of the spirit, that's the new nature that we receive, is spirit.
It's a nature that is according to God.
The nature of Christ Himself.
Then verse 7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Now this is important.
With our King James Bible, we we get a distinction between the second person pronoun singular and the first person pronoun plural.
All the I've said this before, probably here, but I'll say it again.
Every second person pronoun singular in the King James Bible starts with AT thou, thee, thy, thine. Those are all singular. Every second person pronoun plural starts with a, Y, you, you, your, yours.
So that's how you can always tell if it starts with a Y, it's plural. It starts with a T, it's singular. Now that's not true in our modern translations. They use you for everything, and you lose the distinction between the singular and the plural. And here it's important. Notice it in verse 7. Marvel not that I said unto thee. Now he's speaking specifically to Nicodemus the singular.
Ye plural must be born again. Now if you just read that in in the modern English, it would say.
Marvel not that I said unto you, You must be born again. And we would think he was just meaning Nicodemus. What he's meaning by the ye is you Jews.
Need a new birth?
He must be born again, all of you.
Being born of Abraham, saying we have Abraham for our father will not. Do You need a new beginning, a new life?
Well, he says in verse.
I don't want to pass verse 11 over because it is, it was, it is the most profound verse, I think, in the New Testament.
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Verse 11 Verily, verily, I say unto thee.
We speak.
That we do know.
And testify that we have seen.
And you receive not our witness. Notice the plural in that verse. The next verse he goes back to the singular first part of verse 11. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that singular. And then he switches to the.
And then he goes back in verse 12. If I have told you earthly things. And so I back to the singular, what is meant by the we in verse 11?
The Trinity.
The three persons of the Godhead.
The Lord Jesus speaking as a divine person. When the Spirit of God speaks, when the Father speaks, that's the Trinity, the Godhead speaking.
We speak that we do know you and I can't say that. We can't say that we absolutely know something. Only God can say that He knows. He knows. He does not think. He does not come to a conclusion by a process of thinking. He knows. We speak that we do know and testify that we have seen the things that He was witnessing to. He's speaking here as a divine person. We have seen it. And when He sends the Holy Spirit, he too has.
Seen it and he says that he is in the Father and the Father in me the Father as well. Wonderful, tremendous verse that we have in that 11TH verse. And what does it say at the end? All three persons, all of that there is in God himself speaking and you receive not.
Our witness, isn't that a solemn indictment upon man?
And especially upon the Jews.
And it's addressed to them.
So Judaism is a religion adapted and suited to man after the flesh, and it produced nothing for God, Nothing for God. They did not receive the testimony rendered by the Godhead.
So the we of verse 11 is the Godhead.
The Godhead.
Then he goes back in verse 12, he says, if I told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things?
Well-being born again was an earthly truth that applied to anyone that is to enter into the Kingdom.
In fact, it's a it's a truth that is dispensation less. That is, it's not limited to a particular dispensation or a particular point in time. It's always true that if we're going to be brought into favor and blessing with God and relationship to God, we have to be born again. He spoke those earthly things, but now he's going to speak.
Something more than just earthly.
He says.
If I have told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? Here you have the contrast between Judaism and Christianity. Judaism is earthly things, Christianity is heavenly things.
Hebrews 3 starts out.
Her poor brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling.
Consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.
The one who was sent of God, the Apostle, the one who represents us before God, our high priest, Consider him.
What we're partakers of the heavenly calling.
And so now he's going to unfold some heavenly truth.
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, verse 14. I can't go through every verse here.
Even so, must the Son of Man be lifted up?
Lifted up between heaven and earth.
So that he could make propitiation.
For all those who are on earth and all those who are in heaven. And that is the work that he did.
Embraces all of mankind.
And all can come.
Some will come.
But not.
All will come.
Some would do come and not all will come.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life. And someone has said what's the difference between born again where you receive divine life and eternal life?
Well, it's the same light.
But.
Its eternal life is an expression that's developed in the Gospel of John particularly.
The Synoptic Gospels. It carries more of a dispensational character to it.
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Life on earth forever, but here it's the Christian thought of eternal life. In fact, the Gospel of John is an unfolding before it became a fact in time of Christian blessing.
Christian blessings.
And what does he say?
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting or eternal life.
In John 10.
You might just turn to it for a moment so you have it before you.
To illustrate the difference between life and eternal life.
Or being born again in eternal life.
In verse.
10 of John 10 The Lord says the thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they might have life.
And that they might have it.
Abundantly. Now I've taken the word more out.
To it's not, it doesn't really belong there. It's not that the Old Testament Saints had abundant life and we just have it more abundantly. You know, that's not the thought. The thought is that they have life by birth, by new birth, but we have the abundant life.
Eternal life.
And what is eternal life?
This.
John 17 The Lord defines it for us. This is life eternal. He's addressing the Father.
This is life eternal, that they might know thee who the Father.
The only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
Eternal life consists in the knowledge of the Father and the Son.
Of course, by the power.
And instruction of the Holy Spirit.
Now the Old Testament Saints didn't know the Father. They couldn't address him as Father.
They knew God as Jehovah, self existent one as the Almighty God, the Most High and everlasting God, and so on. But it took the Son.
The eternal Son, who was ever in the bosom of the Father, to declare Him.
To declare him. He came to make the Father known to us.
Tremendous, tremendous Christian privilege. Tremendous advance over Judaism.
You know, there are some groups in Christendom today that have gone back.
To actually offering sacrifices.
The Messianic Jew movement.
Is. I don't know a lot about it.
Mostly by what I've heard, but.
It's basically going back in principle to Judaism.
I'm not saying they're not saved. I'm not saying they don't believe in the Lord Jesus as the Messiah. They do. But they do not see the distinctive character of Christian truth and of Christian blessing going back to the old. And I was told by one, I've never verified this, and if it's not correct, please correct me that some of them have gone back to animal sacrifices. You know what that is? That's blasphemy.
That's saying that the work of Christ is not complete.
For the salvation of the lost, that's what the sacrifice of the mass Roman Catholic Church, they've been doing it for hundreds of years, is blasphemy because it says that the once for all, never to be repeated work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross is not sufficient that He has to offer Himself over and over and over and over again.
That's a denial of the eternal efficacy of Christ's work. Anything of that character that is found in Christendom is of the camp.
And is to be gone away from. Let us go forth therefore unto him outside the camp. If you have a mixed multitude, that's what Israel was, was made of those who were not born again and those who were born again. If you have a church group that has those who are saved and lost and they're mixed together and their names are on the church role of that group, that's the camp in principle.
It's a mixture of light with darkness of light.
With death of light.
And darkness, yes.
And we're going to go outside of that kind of thing.
Any anything? Well, I'm getting ahead of myself but I just wanted to read this.
I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it abundantly. We have the abundant life, life in the power and energy of the Holy Spirit who has given to us. John 20 verse 22. He breathed on them the breath of his resurrection life and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.
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So eternal life is brought before us some of the heavenly blessings that we have now.
In Christ. Now let's turn to the 4th chapter.
I'm not getting very far tonight.
But that isn't really my purpose is to go through the Gospel of John quickly, but to bring out these precious truths that we find in this gospel. We know John 4 quite well. The woman at the well, the Lord Jesus dealing with this Samaritan woman, He asked her for a drink. In verse 7, Jesus saith to her, give me to drink.
Jesus was surprised, this Samaritan woman, she says. How dost thou, being a Jew, ask this drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?
So the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. And then that wonderful answer Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God.
And who it is that saith to thee? Give me to drink which have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. Now the water in John 3 was Stillwater. The Stillwater speaks of the word of God by which we're born again. But here it's living water, Speaking of the Holy Spirit, that flowing water.
If thou knowest the gift of God, all. If you only knew God as a giver.
That's Christianity. God was requiring obedience with a perfect law. No fault in the law.
Well, that's important to establish the laws. Holy, just, and good. There's no defect in the Law of Moses.
It was given of God. Man should have kept it.
If he had, he would have lived.
If the law had been given, Paul says to the Galatians, that could have given light, Verily, righteousness would have been by the law.
But man being what he is.
The perfect law only brought out.
The wretched, sinful heart of man.
He did not keep it.
He could not keep it. He would not keep it.
Because he was.
Too self-centered.
So God now comes out as a giver.
And he says to this he had asked her to bring this out. He says give me to drink.
And she's surprised that he would ask that favor of her because he was a Jew and she was a Samaritan.
And then he says he unfolds this.
Past truth To Nicodemus, it was the most basic, fundamental truth. You must be born again. You Jews need a new life, a new beginning. But now to this Samaritan woman. Why? If we had written John's gospel, we would have put the this truth with Nicodemus. And Nicodemus is truth with the Samaritan woman. But that's not the way the Spirit of God did it.
We would have been wrong, wouldn't we?
Spirit of God has given it to us in perfect order. There was a woman that was seeking satisfaction.
Enjoyment. Pleasure from earthly things.
And she hadn't found them.
Comes to the well at a time when she thought she'd be alone.
And she finds this.
Stranger there, this heavenly stranger.
That offers to her living water.
Ah, thou which devastated him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with. The well is deep. Whom Whence then hast thou that living water?
Our thought greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself and his children, and his cattle.
Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. He doesn't tell her who he is.
Not yet.
But he discovers himself to her.
By what he said to her, first of all he draws out her heart.
So that she wants that living water that only he can give.
Are you greater than our Father Jacob? Greater. Infinitely greater?
But she hadn't learned that yet.
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, ever thirst forever.
But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well or a fountain of water springing up.
Into everlasting life. He's talking about the gift of the Holy Spirit, The Old Testament Saints, the Jews, Israel. They did not have the Holy Spirit.
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Now Christ comes as the giver.
Of this living water.
The giver, not the taker, not a law that could only condemn those that broke it.
The law is inflexibly holy.
It holds out a perfect measure for a man to live by. If he keeps it, he will live.
But if he breaks it.
If he breaks, it condemns him.
It kills him. It curses him. The blessing is missed and gone.
The law is inflexible.
There's no mercy with it.
Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. What a difference between.
The camp.
Are those things that characterize the camp?
Much of Christendom has imbibed those things, and what is called Christianity Today is not really Christianity. Much of it, much of it is not. It's a mixture.
It's a mixture and the principle we have to go by if thou will take forth the precious.
From the vial that shall be as my mouth. There's so much mixed up, the precious and the vile mixed up today.
It's a mixture.
It's very similar today to what it was in the early church, The early church, you ever noticed the the book of Acts? They, they went to Peter and John went into the temple to pray. There was the mixture. They hadn't separated from Judaism yet.
And the many passages there, it says a great company of the priests believed. Evidently they were still going on.
In some way with their sacrifices and so on. In the 21St chapter of Acts, James says to Paul, I'll see his brother.
How many thousands of Jews there are which believe, and they're all zealous of the law?
That's why Hebrews was written to tell these Jews so. Let's go forth unto him outside the camp.
Leave that, leave that whole system of things and come to Him, Jesus. It's all fulfilled in His person and in His work. It's all there.
And having here we have everything, have you ever noticed the only two externals in Christianity are baptism and the Lords Supper? They're the only two, and they both speak of his death. Baptism is done once we're introduced to his death, and we come among the Christian company, being baptized unto his death, buried with him in baptism.
And risen with him risen.
In in him, in newness of life.
But the Lord's Supper, an ongoing thing. We'll do it in the morning. We'll remember the Lord in his death.
That death is the very foundation truth of all blessing.
There's a lot of things that the Jews did and that Christians do that are similar. The Jews have the feast of the Passover once a year. The Jews, the Christians have the Lord's Supper that feast.
Every first day of the week.
That speaks of our deliverance and the foundation of all our blessing.
It's not only our blessing that is figured in the Lord's death.
It's his death for the salvation of all the Saints and every day and age.
That's a universal truth.
The death of Christ and his resurrection.
Well, we started a little late, so I'm going to keep going for a bit.
She wants this water.
She says to him, Sir, verse 15, Give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hit her to draw. And then he says to her, Go call thy husband, then come hit it.
And she says I have no husband. And he says yes, you said right.
You've had five. The man you're living with is not your husband. In that sense, thou truly here He he lets her know that he knew all about her and she was in the presence of omissions.
There is nothing you do or think or have done or will do that he doesn't know perfectly.
The darkness and the light are both alike to him. He knows the end from the beginning.
Your whole life was known by him before you were ever born.
God is efficient.
This person is God.
The one who could say we speak that we do know and testify that we have seen and you receive, not our witness.
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Solemn thing.
Not to receive.
Testimony of God.
He said, Sir, I perceive thou art a prophet.
Our fathers worshipped in this mountain. Verse 20 And ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me.
The hour cometh when you shall neither in this mountain Samaria, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
They didn't worship the Father.
They never had that kind of worship.
This was something new.
This is the new order of blessing. This is Christian worship.
Worshiping the Father.
You worship, you know not what He lets her know that God never owned the Samaritan worship.
We know he speaks as a Jew here. We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews.
Came through the Messiah came from them, and God owned the worship.
That he had set up at Jerusalem, the place of his appointment.
But verse 23, the hour cometh and now hears.
When the true worshippers.
Shall worship the Father.
In spirit and in truth, not with a sacrifice of an animal.
Not with musical instruments, not with symbols and harps and vials.
And all the entrapments and all the machinations and all that man has brought in, that's the camp.
That's the camp after Christian worship has been so beautifully set forth here and in Philippians. 3YE are the circumcision, which worship God by the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. We don't use an instrument. That instrument has no soul, it has no spirit. It cannot worship. And the person that's playing the instrument may not even know the Lord, may not even be born again.
But they can play well.
You can get a natural man that can play beautiful music on these instruments as.
With God's looking for.
He's seeking the Father, seeketh worshippers, true worshippers.
Are you a true worshiper? You know if you don't know your sins are gone forever, that you have eternal life, that you're sealed by the Spirit of God if you don't know that?
Founded upon the work of Christ, you can't be a true worshiper.
If you think that you can do something that will lose it all, maybe at the very last moment of your life.
Always in that uncertainty got to hold on until the very end. And if I fail to make a misstep at the very end, I've lost it all.
You're under law and you have no peace and you can't be a true worshipper.
The true worshiper is one who knows.
That Christ has done it all, that he has eternal life, that he's sealed by the Spirit of God.
And this.
Living water, The Spirit of God is in him.
A fountain of water springing up, producing.
Spiritual worship.
That is acceptable to the Father.
The hour cometh, and now is when the true worshippers.
Are you a true worshiper?
Shall worship the Father in spirit, according to what He is His nature.
In spirit and in truth, according to the revelation that we have of Christian truth in the New Testament.
For the Father seeketh such to worship him doesn't say he's seeking worship.
Says he's seeking worshippers.
Are you a worshipper?
Have you ever I'm speaking now to the brothers. Sisters are not allowed to.
Audibly, visibly speak up. They can sing praise.
Thank the Lord, be a great blessing to an assembly and I'm speaking especially to the brothers that know the Lord have eternal life, have that fountain of water springing up.
Are you a worshipper?
Sometimes I've been in meetings and it's like a hymn saying I'm talking about Lord's Day morning.
Him, after him, after him.
But he says to us, Let me hear thy voice.
He wants to hear you. Thank you.
You don't have to be eloquent.
You don't have to be advanced.
Just simple.
For Jesus, thank you.
Forgiving thy life, Father, thank thee.
For sending him.
Just simple. It doesn't have to be deep, profound, eloquent. No, it's not a question of gift. It's exercising your priesthood. And we're all priests.
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Thank you, praise him.
For what he's done for us.
We're not the 10 cleansed, we're the 9, the Lord said. There are not returned.
What this stranger? This is American to give thanks.
I know giving thanks is the lowest form, but.
He wants to hear that.
You may just offer a pigeon.
Tomorrow, but maybe it won't be too long and you'll be offering.
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