Light, Darkness, and the Great Decision

Good morning, everyone. Good morning. It's a very wonderful time of worship, wonderful words from Nate, truthful words, life-giving words, words of reality, not just cheap preacher talk, reality, what people, humans, deal with. Aren't you grateful for reality? Okay, now you'll get cheap preacher talk. I'm just kidding. Hopefully that's not true. So, we're in chapter 8 of Gospel of John. And I have some things I feel like the Lord would have me share with you for your own situation, but I want to establish the context first. The title of the message is Light, Darkness, and the Great Decision, and we'll get into that a little bit in a while. Three weeks ago, Pastor Ed spoke through John chapter 7, and Jesus is at the Feast of Tabernacles, and he took us through that chapter, and then last week, Josh spoke on the first part of this chapter about the woman who's caught in adultery. But, that was really an interruption to what the bigger picture is. The bigger picture is chapter 7 and chapter 8 is this debate going on between Jesus and these religious leaders. So, this is a continuation of what happened in chapter 7, really. And what we see in this portion, I'm going to call it a 17-charge indictment on the religious leaders of Israel during the time of Jesus. And I'm going to blow through these 17 charges real quick, just to establish the context here of what's happening here. My main concern is not so much historical information to pass on to you. My main concern is what does the Lord have to say to you today and to myself? That's the important thing, really. But we do want to keep things in their context. And, you know, of course, everything I'm going to say are the words that Jesus spoke, and I'm going to completely ignore and pass over the words of these Jews because they were just mouthpieces of the enemy. It's the devil's logic. And you'll find the devil's logic throughout the New Testament. And you have to get to a place of being able to discern the kind of things that you are hearing from people you know, because Scripture is making it very clear these people are not walking with God. And hopefully you learn to come into an awareness of when you're hearing that same kind of logic in our culture or in our church culture. It's important for you guys to mature spiritually, not just intellectually. Learn to discern what you are hearing. What you just heard was not the logic of the devil, was it? No. So let me just blow through these 17 charges. The first one is in verse 14. Jesus says, you do not know where I come from or where I am going. Number two, verse 15, you judge according to the flesh. Number three, verse 19, you know neither me nor my father. Indictment number four, in verse 21, you will die in your sin. Wow. How would you like the judge of the universe to make that statement about you? Make sure that you're in the right place, that that is never said to you. Terrifying words. And number five goes right along with it. I remember, yeah, number five out of the same verse, where I am going, where was he going? He was going to heaven, right? Where I am going, you cannot come. And you know, guys, I'm going to say this with nothing but love. But if something doesn't change in your life, you cannot go there. Number six, verse 23, you are from below. I am from above. Number seven, also verse 23, you are of this world. I am not of this world. Number eight, verse 37, you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. Number nine, verse 38, you also do the things which you heard from your father. Number 10, verse 40, you are seeking to kill me. Number 11, verse 41, you are doing the deeds of your father. Number 12, verse 43, you do not understand what I am saying because you cannot hear my word. Number 13, verse 44, you are of your father, the devil. Number 14, verse 44, you want to do the desires of your father. Number 15, verse 45, boy, I hope that one isn't true of you anymore, right? Guys, right? We deal in reality here. We're not in a popularity contest in this place. You can't vote me out of office. I can tell you the truth. Aren't you grateful for that? Right? That I don't have to kowtow to a bunch of people in a church. They don't like something I say one Sunday. They just vote me out of the church. You can't do that. You're stuck with me. But I love you guys. I love you. I'm not like putting myself above you. I've been there. I know what I'm talking about because I've been there in your shoes. I speak out of God's love. Number 15, verse 45, because I speak the truth, you do not believe me. Number 16, verse 47, you do not hear the words of God because you are not of God. And the last one, verse 49, you dishonor me. I would not want to have to stand before the creator and have this list read about my life. And guys, you know, just make sure you're not stuck in dead religion like these people were. You need a life in God. That is your only hope. Like Moses in his days in the wilderness, within 40 years, most of all these people would be laid to waste. Not in a wilderness, but in Roman slavery. Because they would not recognize the day of their visitation. And their house was left to them desolate. You don't want to be there. All right. As regards to us, there are three very profound statements in here in this passage that I'm going to focus on. The first is a loving invitation to join Jesus in the kingdom of light. The second is an expose of how Satan recruits people into the kingdom of darkness through deception. And the third has to do with those who are caught in between, in between those two extremes. And caught in between those two extremes, kind of like in the netherworld. The twilight area. Not light, not darkness, but in between, which is earth life, isn't it? We're in a twilight here, where we get shades of both. Now there's a sub-theme here, and Nate touched on it because he snuck in and looked at my notes. Didn't you, Nate? You did that. There's a sub-theme with the word Father, which is used 18 times in this passage. 18 times. Actually used 108 times in the book of John. 360-some times in the New Testament. Mostly, always to do with God the Father. Praise God for that. But four times in this passage, it's talking about Satan. And, you know, this is kind of a big deal because a father is a progenitor, right? And we take after our father. We tend to have the disposition and we're influenced, either genetically or, you know, socially growing up under our father or whatever. And we're heavily influenced by our father. And so we tend to end up with the same disposition of our father. So these Jews who consider themselves to be children of God were in reality children of the devil. They're wholly under the devil's influence. They were led by the same lusts that the devil is led by. They imitated the devil's vitriol towards the Messiah and were very much in the same killing spirit towards him that these Jews were in. I mean that the devil was in. So that's kind of the scenario, all right? And let's look at these three revelations here. Three profound revelations that Jesus makes in this chapter. Are you all okay with me? You're not mad at me, right? Not too much. I care only because I want you to hear the word of God and receive the word, not because I need people to like me. I got through that one long ago. The first profound revelation here is about Satan and the kingdom of darkness. And you see that in verse 44. Let's look at that. You were of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Wow! Man! I know, it just makes you throw your Bible down, doesn't it, Gabe? Gabe's very impressed. You got to understand, and I don't think most people don't really realize this, I guess, and maybe I didn't either, but Satan wasn't really understood in those days. In the Old Testament, there's only a handful of little statements about Satan, and they were pretty vague. I mean, really, the only one that showed anything, clearly, was what happened in Job. But other than that, they were just kind of a loosely vague source of thoughts. He was mentioned here and there a little bit. So there wasn't any biblical knowledge for the Jewish people to come to an understanding of who Satan was. And there's some, like, 35 descriptive names of Satan in Scripture, and I didn't do a thorough search on this. But of those 35, I only found one that was ever used by the Jews, Beelzebub. They called Jesus Beelzebub a couple of times. But they never used the words Satan, Devil, Tempter, the Evil One, all those names. They all come from godly people. And even Beelzebub, that comes from the word Baal, which was the pagan god of the region, you know, that the Jews were trying to stay separate from. So when they said Beelzebub, they weren't thinking of Satan like we would think of Satan. They were thinking of him like something to do with some pagan god or something. So they didn't understand the Devil very much at all. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. I'm going to read a little description they have of him, just to kind of establish what we're talking about. He is a created but superhuman personal evil world power, represented in Scripture as the adversary both of God and men. Moral evil is his controlling attribute. It's evident that this description could not be applied to Satan as originally created. This is an interesting little side note here. God did not create ethical evil. It is the creation of each free will for itself. We're not told in definite terms how Satan became the evil one, but certainly it could be by no other process than a fall, whereby in the mystery of free personality, an evil will takes the place of a good one. It's pretty profound, isn't it? Now, here at Pure Life Ministries, what we think of most of all when we're talking about the Devil is the tempter, right? That would be a good time to throw your Bible down again, Gabe. But, you know, the reality is all the temptations that the enemy presents to us, all the fantasies that the enemy tries to spin in our minds, they're all based on lies, aren't they? They're all based in lies, aren't they? I mean, be careful what I say around the ladies, but you all know very well, like I know very well, that fantasy is all completely a falsehood. It's never like the enemy presents it. You know, and what the enemy does is, and we're seeing this so much in our culture right now, I'll say something about that in a while, I guess, but they'll take one little thing that may be a smidgen of truth in it, and they'll exaggerate and blow on it and blow it up, and it becomes this all-encompassing great thing. We're seeing that in our culture now, aren't we? And it becomes greater by far than reality. I mean, how many trans people, you know, really? What the enemy doesn't tell us is that, yeah, you know, sexual sin can be exhilarating at first. My first number of times involved with it, it was exhilarating. There were those times that it really was. I mean, it just was. But there were some other things the enemy didn't tell me when he was leading me down that path, that after a while those experiences aren't so great anymore, that eventually those temptations become more like cruel taskmasters, that every indulgence took me further and further from God and his kingdom, that along with that lifestyle of sin came a life of misery, and all temptation to sin is crafted in deception because it takes a little smidgen of truth. I'm not even going to call it a half-truth of one percenter. But what? We like it. We want to believe it. That's really what it boils down to. You know, you're susceptible to being deceived when you want what's being offered more than you want the truth and reality. Now, the Jews weren't all wrapped up in sexual sin. They probably had their real issues, you know. But their deal was religious pride, and that's what the devil dangled in front of them to lead them down a path. Man, go down this path and you can be one day in the Sanhedrin, and people will adore you when you come into the marketplace. They'll say, oh, there is so-and-so. You know, that kind of lie. And what did that really do for those Pharisees? It didn't do anything for them. It's just a trap of the devil. J.C. Ryle says, Sin is indeed the hardest of all taskmasters. Misery and disappointment in the way. Despair and hell in the end. These are the only wages that sin pays to its servants. Anybody say amen to that in this crowd? Yeah, you guys are the experts. Satan is always telling people that good is evil and evil is good. That truth is falsehood and falsehood is truth. That the broad way is the good way, and the narrow way is the bad way. And that's what I was referring to about the trans movement that we see in our culture now. I mean, could there possibly be a greater example of calling good evil and evil good? To coach these little children into believing that they're actually the opposite sex of what they were created to be, and taking them through a process that ends up in mutilating surgery. That is a picture of the devil's heart right there. It's an outward picture of what he does to people, what he wants to do to you, what he has done to your souls, mutilated your souls. Praise God, you can be recovered. That's what this place is here for, to recover people like you and me. The devil's aim for every soul is to ruin that soul, to kill that soul, to destroy that soul. He's the prince of darkness. He's the one that brought darkness into this earth, and he maintains darkness. There's one other thing I want to mention about him, what Jesus says about him here in this verse 44. He said, you are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. Those three words I'm stressing here are important. The word of means that Satan is their progenitor. He is the one who they are connected to. They're his offspring. They are of Satan. Jesus said, I am of God. The word want in the Greek is the word thalo, which is the word will, like you have a free will and so on. That's the word thalo in the Greek. It's actually a very wonderful Bible study you can do sometime. In other words, when someone does something he wants to do, he's acting out of his will. It's our will that determines what we want. Why does this thing keep doing this to me? It's all right. It's of the devil. The third term is desires. That's the word epithumia, which is translated usually as lust, and we all know that word, don't we? So he says to these Jews, Jesus could have said this about us in the past. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. Right? I lived there. That was my life. They were agreeing with me a minute ago, not so much now. All right, the second profound revelation Jesus makes here is about himself and the kingdom of light. Verse 12, he says, I am the light of the world. Like Nate said, wow, that's either, there's no in between here. He is either the most arrogant lunatic that ever existed, or he is who he claims to be, right? I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life. Wow. I mean, I was going to make this message all just out of that one verse, and the more I studied it, I was just like, yeah, but there's so much in this place, you know, in this passage. But I'll say a few things here. I should mention, first of all, that this is the second of his seven I am statements in the book of John. Tremendous, tremendous revealing statements Jesus makes about himself in those I am statements. The Bible tells us more than once that God is light, and so for Jesus to say, I am the light of the world, what is he saying? Yeah, how could you doubt? I mean, there's probably a hundred different statements like this in the New Testament, but how could you doubt his divinity when he makes statements like that? He's either a liar or he's God, right? The light of God is the active power that dispels the darkness of falsehood. It is the light of wisdom that dispels the darkness of ignorance, and it's the light of holiness that dispels the darkness of impurity. What a difference in these two kingdoms. What a difference. Satan appeals to our lower nature, like Nate was talking about, our animalistic passions. You can see any dogs out in the field doing the kinds of things, you know, like that. But Jesus appeals to the desires that are deep within our souls for truth, to know the Lord and to understand the spiritual realm, to be a person of character and goodness, to live a godly and wholesome life. That's what Jesus is appealing to when he speaks to us. He doesn't come out with carnal trinkets and try to wow us with something that has a little sparkle to it or something. No, what he comes out with is deep and profound and powerful and real and eternal. He says, he who follows me will not walk in the darkness. You know, the person who's following Jesus knows where he is going. I know where I am going. I am going to heaven, and I'm getting closer all the time. Not too close either. Can't come soon enough, I say. My wife doesn't agree with me. The person who's following the Lord knows where he's going, and he's not stumbling and falling and all of that. The person who's in darkness stumbles and falls. He doesn't know where he's going. He lives in chaos and confusion. Now, this is a promise, and this is one of the things you should watch for with false prophets and false teachers, because every promise in Scripture has some kind of condition attached to it. Don't listen to preachers who make these big promises that aren't attached to conditions, because conditions are always attached. So the condition here is that we follow him, right? We can come into this light that is offered to anyone and everybody. Come in, Jesus says, but you have to follow me. The great follow statement that Jesus made and is recorded numerous times in the Gospels, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must what with himself? Deny the self-life, right? That thing inside of us he calls the flesh, I usually call it the self-life. That thing, you have to say, no, self, I don't want to go where you want me to go. You have to deny, turn away from, renounce that kind of a life, a carnal, worldly-minded lifestyle. You say no to that. If you want to follow the Lord, that's part of it. You can't get away from that or around it, guys. It's just the way it is. You can go find some preacher, there's plenty of them out there, who will teach you, just give you half the Gospel message, but won't tell you the conditions involved and the reality of it. Not only must you follow him, but you must come into the light. And one of the great lies that the enemy has somehow entrenched into the American church is that you can walk in the darkness and you're still going to heaven because you go to church and you call yourself a Christian. It's a lie, just in case you doubt me. The Apostle John, who was standing there when all this was said by Jesus, some 50 or 60 years later, he wrote this in his first epistle, God is light. And in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. There it is. The third profound revelation Jesus made in this chapter is about the people who are caught between these two kingdoms. The people who are still alive, still in the valley of decision, still in a place where they can go all in one way or the other. Really, the reality is we are already in, completely in the kingdom of darkness. We're born into it, we are raised in it, we're fallen creatures, we are damned to hell. That is our reality. Unless something happens that radically transforms us and takes us into the kingdom of light. So let's look at these verses here, starting with verse 30. This is going to be a little bit of a passage here. This isn't just one statement. As he spoke these things, many came to believe in him. I would believe in him. If I would have been there, wow. I would say this man is speaking the truth, not like those Pharisees who just, they don't know what they're talking about. I would be like that. Verse 31. So Jesus was saying to who? The Jews who? Believed in him. If you, now this is a conditional promise right here. This is one of those if-then statements. Conditional promise. Very clear cut, can't get around it. If you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine. Those who are a little older remember Flip Wilson, and he didn't tell this part of it. And you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. That's the part he would say. Right? Isn't that right? I can't even remember. Why would I even, just came up out of my mind, out of my memory. Wow, that's scary. They answered him. Okay, here's the devil. Here's the devil's logic. I'm going to go ahead and read it. We're Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone. Are you kidding me? What? Where are you? That's all you have ever known as a nation is slavery to one kingdom or another. We are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? Jesus, you know, just, he just cuts through all. He doesn't bother arguing with, I was going to say imbeciles, but I'm too godly to say that. So I won't say it. Jesus answered them. Truly, truly, I say to you, and this word truly is literally the word in the Hebrew, which is translated into the Greek, which was translated into English, is amen. So he says, amen, amen. I say to you, everyone who commits sin, and the NASS commits. I don't know why they did that because that is not reflecting the proper grammar of this term. The ESV says practices, and that's more correct because it's reflecting an ongoing behavior. So I'm going to read it that way. I say to you, everyone who practices sin is the slave of sin. The slave doesn't remain in the house forever. The son does remain forever. So if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed. Wow, now there's a promise. There's a promise for you guys. It's real. It's absolute fact. It's absolute truth, and there isn't one of you in here who can't appropriate that promise, take it to yourself, and live the rest of your life in that. Absolute fact. And if you don't, it's because you didn't appropriate it. But you can, and we're trying to teach you how in this place. All right, so this entire dialogue has to do with these people who claim to believe in him. Now there's two ways of looking at that, and I'm not going to get into the Arminianism versus Calvinism thing. Let me just say it this way. Well, like MacArthur would say, he's, you know, Calvinist. He would say, well, this just proves that they never really believed in him. Okay, I'm good with that. That's fine. And Arminianists would say, well, they believe something happened in their hearts, but they quickly fell away. And let me come at it from that standpoint for a second, and just in this regard, because I've experienced this so many times. People like you when you're telling them things they want to hear. When you start preaching truth, and I've been in a lot of churches in my day, and there were many churches that would have happily run me out of town. Right, Deary? Yep. They're not beating the doorstep, or beating the path to my doorstep today either. You know, everything changes when you start confronting sin. When you start putting your finger on the reality of what is going on inside people, they get furious. People do not want to be told, don't you tell me that I'm not saved. Don't you tell me I'm not a godly person. Yeah, but what if it's the truth? See, if you have a need as a preacher to be liked, then you learn to say things real diplomatically, you know. And I'm not faulting preachers. They're going to stand before the Lord and whatever. I know the hatred. I've seen it in people's faces when I've preached truth in churches. And it's a lot easier coming in to a church, you know, for one Sunday, than for a pastor who's got to be with those people week in and week out, can get voted out, has his whole family in the community. You know, they really are under a lot of pressure to be accepted by their congregation. So it's tough for pastors. Now, there's a whole gamut. There's a whole gamut between pastors. There are some who sincerely, they do preach the truth, you know. They learn to do it diplomatically, but they bring the truth. Then there's those who are afraid, you know, of that vitriol. And then there's those over here, they're just downright false teachers. You know, so there's a whole gamut out there. So, you know, whatever, the Lord's got to figure all that out. And he will, and he does. But basically what Jesus is saying here is it's not enough to make a commitment. It's continuing in his word that is the test of the genuineness of your consecration to the Lord, of your character. In other words, a tree is known by its fruit, right? You can be a pear tree and claim all day that you're an oak, but the reality is the reality. Making a commitment to follow the Lord is relatively easy, at least in America. You know how it goes. A person, like, comes to the Lord, gets excited about, you know, all the new revelations. Like, wow, man, I didn't know all this stuff. Gets excited, you know. Starts going to church week in, week out. Reading the Bible, listening to Christian radio. But when the newness of it starts to kind of wane, and especially when things start going, you know, not the way you want them to go, and you're asking God for all these blessings, and they're not falling out of the sky, and, you know, pretty soon, yeah. It's like Jesus said about the rocky soil. They believe for a while, and in time of temptation, they fall away. So here Jesus says, if you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine. Alethos methetis, genuine disciples. If you continue in his word. It doesn't matter what happens for you here, man. What matters is where are you two years from now, five years from now, 20 years from now. That's the only thing that matters. It doesn't matter if you impress your counselor, impress me, impress anyone around here. It doesn't matter how great you do in the program. The only thing that matters is what's going on five years from now. You better make sure that what happens is genuine, and real, and deep. Because here's the thing, you know, we teach you how to live this life. We live it out in front of you, in reality, with all our flaws and everything. And we invite you to join us. We even legislate it. You have to have time in the word. You have to have time in prayer. All this stuff. But what can happen to some, if your heart isn't true, is you can be kind of upheld by the overall, what's happening in this place, and think you're somewhere you're not. Never letting go of your love of the sin. Or even just your life in this world, whatever. Never letting it go. But, oh yeah, praise the Lord. Like he was saying, someone was talking about the guy who was praising God. I think it was Josh Bergstrom, right? Yeah, Josh Bergstrom. Thursday night. That really irritates me. MacArthur says, Reaching toward Christ while not letting go of your grip on carnal pleasures, comfortable relationships, self-will, is to fall short of true salvation, and it won't be long before that will become obvious. You know, and I just say, what I've been saying, beware of cheap peddling preachers. Or preachers who peddle cheap something. Promises. When you leave this place, you just make sure, I'm sure most of you come from good churches. Probably. Maybe. I don't know. Just make sure you're in a good church. Not in a church with a flattering preacher. You want to be in a church where the preacher preaches the Word of God, the whole counsel of the Word of God, tells you the truth, calls you to repentance, tells you that it's a hard life in some ways to live the Christian life, spells it out like it is. That's the kind of pastor you want to follow. And just keep in mind, he's not like me where I can, you know, I can really dish it out. But he's under, you know, constraints because there's some number of people in that church who will hate him for it. Just keep that in mind. So don't go back all critical. I'm not telling you to be that way. I'm just saying, use some discernment when you go home. Make sure you're in a good church. All right, I'm wrapping things up here. This comes from the expositor's commentary. This is referring to, what did Jesus say? Where is it? If you continue in my Word, right, yeah. And depending on your translation, NAS says continue in. I think ESV says abide in. Is that right? Maybe New King James is remain. Anyway, the term remain communicates the sense of presence, a permanent residing in a specific location. Just as the Father, quote, remains in the Son, and the Spirit, quote, remains upon Jesus, so also must believers, quote, remain in the Son and He in them. The term is depicting a co-participatory existence, an intimate relationship. It means taking personal and permanent residence in the spiritual presence of God. That sounds a lot like what I was hearing Thursday night, right? Living there, dwelling there, living in the Word and in the presence of the Lord, in that relationship. And it's a call to continue in His Word. Follow Him and continue in His Word. So the Lord makes two promises in this passage. You can come into the kingdom of light and live there forever. Praise God. And you can be set free of any besetting sin. Praise God. Those are promises made to you and to me, to these Jews. They're made to us. They're as good as the person behind them. But there's conditions attached to them, right? That you follow Him out of the darkness and into the light and that you continue in His Word. I just recently heard this little saying. It's a secular saying. Probably some of you have heard it. It is, if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. And I can say that's true of myself. I love my time with the Lord. I love the life He's given me, the lifestyle He's given me to live. It's been very hard in different ways at different times. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. I don't care what. On my worst day of it, I wouldn't trade it for what I came out of, that hell. And it's been just like that. I don't feel like I work. I think of the Jackie Pollinger thing she says. She's commenting on people saying, Oh, you... Do you remember what I'm talking about? Okay, but I'm going to say it. Maybe. Oh, Jackie, it's got to be so hard for you going into Walled City. And she's saying, No, I was created for this place. And I'm not. I was created for Pure Life Ministries. I think that's true of all the senior leaders. Maybe the whole staff. I don't know. Whatever. We have certainly been created for good works. That I can say. You have been created for good works. And you'll discover, once you get past this decision thing you're still in, maybe, being pulled back into sin, you know, it's like quitting smoking. How many of you have ever quit smoking? All right, the rest of you keep trying. You'll get there. It's like quitting smoking. You know, making the decision you're not going to smoke anymore is half the battle. Once you have made that consecration, that's half the battle. Then you've just got to get through the jitters or whatever, you know. But it's the battle of the decision And many of you are still in that battle. Do I want my life of sin? There's a big part of me that still wants it. Once you make that consecration, no, I'm done. I'm tired of paying the price. You'll find that it will become a lot easier for you to live the life in God that He has offered to you. Okay, I think I'm going to stop. I'm going to ask Nate to wrap this up. Nate, would you do that for me? Wrap this up however you feel led. Get my stuff and get out of here. Get my stuff and get out of here.