Address—C. Hendricks
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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.