Turn with me to John in the 5th chapter, and this evening we'll begin with verse 39. John in chapter 5, Christ has been confronting the Jews who had been very upset with his healing of the man by the pool of Bethesda, even more upset by his instruction that he should carry the bed, and then thoroughly enraged that he declared himself to be the son of God. So in the verses leading up to this, Christ has been setting forth that God the Father has attested to his own deity. It's shown by his working with the Father, it's shown in God's approval, and even the prophets and the works he's done are actually God's witness to him. And so in verse 39, Jesus goes to refute one further witness, one who they think defends them. John 5, beginning at verse 39. This is God's Word. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me. Yet you refuse to come to me that you might have life. I do not receive glory from people, but I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words thus far in the reading of God's word? Father, we thank You for Your grace to us. We thank You that You have recorded for us these words which our Savior spoke. We thank You for the instruction here, not only to correct those opposed to Him, but that we, Your children, might rightly understand Your Word. Give now grace to us that these words might be fruitful in us, that by Your Spirit we might know and honor You. as we ask it in Christ's name and to His glory. Amen. The Jews would set out to defend themselves against the claims of Christ. They would cite, for example, Father Abraham. We are Abraham's children, never been in bondage to anyone. Making that claim showed how they could carefully and selectively read history so they could ignore Egypt and the slavery there. They could ignore Babylon, the captivity there. They could ignore Rome sitting there in Jerusalem at the same time. So they could twist the Old Testament as they wished. When it comes to teaching about God, they would say, well, listen, we have Moses. And Christ, in some sense, has commenced them for that. He said, when they sit in Moses' seat, listen to them. When they're telling you what God revealed through Moses, listen to them. But, here Moses is being, as it were, brought forth as someone opposing Christ's claim. They don't articulate it. They don't need to. They do in other places and other times. And here it's clear that they're going to bring Moses forth. Moses who, by God's mercy, revealed one God. We used for a call to worship this morning. The Lord, our God, the Lord is one. He's a unique individual being. And now you're saying you are divine and His Son. Obviously, you're in conflict with Moses. You're talking about how our laws are empty, our worship is empty. Obviously you are rejecting Moses and Moses stands against you. Well, Christ is going to patiently refute them. He's going to wait and they will not be ultimately refuted until the resurrection. They won't acknowledge it even then. But that patience didn't keep him from correcting them. from declaring to them his real relationship with Moses. You see, they thought Moses would be their refuge from Christ. You have, he said, placed your hope in Moses. You have set your hope on him. Well, obviously Moses was a great leader and Moses interceded for the people of God. When God would speak, He would call Moses to His presence. Moses would come in. God would tell him His message. Moses would go out. And then He would speak to the people the words of God. Then put a veil over His face so they wouldn't see the fading of the glory. When they came to the mountain and God spoke from the mountain, they said, oh, it's too much for us to hear your voice. We're shaking. We're trembling. Let Moses come. You talk with Him. And then on the other side, when they would sin, who was it that pled for them? When Moses on the mountain has the word of God, and Joshua says, I hear a noise, it's a celebration. He said, no, they've gone astray already. And went down, and they had milked the golden calf. It was Moses who pled with God. He said, Lord, don't destroy this people. Lord, take me. But let me have a lot of your people, and God said to Moses, you're not suited to be an intercessor. You need an intercessor yourself. Well, the problem is, they had so misconstrued it. You see, Moses was on one hand their intercessor. On the other hand, they figured Moses had set out the things God had said to do and provided a religion of salvation. You do these things and you were saved. Now, they didn't see the inherent contradiction. That Moses would say, here is what God says for you to do. Now, you do these things and you're okay, but at the same time, you need an intercessor. That you must depend on God's grace and the blood offering of the death of another to ever stand before God. that inherent conflict never came to them. Now, they were Biblical. They were sincere. They were religious. They went back to the pages of Scripture to claim their views. They said they based them on Scripture. They claimed to be worshippers of Jehovah, the people of God. They were entirely sincere in their beliefs. They were utterly convicted of it. You look back at the history of the Jews, and they would face death rather than violate the least of their precepts. But Jesus condemned them as not knowing the Word of God. They knew the wording of the Scriptures, but they had no real comprehension of it. The Word of God did not abide in them. See, He condemned them, not for the sincerity. but for the inaccuracy of that in which they were sincere. I still recall the day many years ago when I went to the door one morning and there were two young men standing out there with their white shirts on, their skinny little ties, carrying their satchels. We are here, we are from the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints. And they began to talk and said, well, listen, shall we accept the Scripture? And I began to say no, and I disagreed. Probably one of them closed their books and said, let me tell you what we believe. We really believe this. And I said, well, I'm glad you really have sincere beliefs, but let me tell you something. There's a fellow down the road at the mental asylum that goes around with his hand tucked in his shirt, and he really thinks he's Napoleon Bonaparte. He's utterly sincere, but that doesn't make him right. And because you're sincere, it doesn't make you right. Oh, well, thank you, sir. Have a nice day. Being sincere isn't enough. An accurate faith is also required, a resting in the Savior God has sent, not a salvation that somehow finds its proof-texting from God's Word, that twists these things into a religion of works. You run to Moses as your refuge? You've so twisted Moses that you've missed the whole point of the things I revealed through Moses. What was it Moses said? What is the substance of what Moses wrote about? Well, Jesus said, he wrote about me. Verse 46, for if you believe Moses, you'd believe me because he wrote about me. In other words, what I'm teaching you is what Moses was saying. We're not saying really different things in substance. He talked about deliverance, it was going to be me. He talked about the same salvation. He wrote of Christ. He wrote of how they would be saved. He talked about how the Spirit of Christ would be there. And men through the ages are saved in the same way, by the same Gospel. You read over in 1 Peter, the first chapter, about men who spake of the Holy Spirit, but not by private interpretation. They spoke of the Christ to come. They were puzzled as to what some parts meant. Read over in Hebrews, the first chapter is that God has spoken in many ways in his past and now has spoken by his Son. Reciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus opened their minds and began to speak to them of the Old Testament, of all the things that pointed to himself. See, the whole Old Testament was testimony to salvation in Christ. Now that's blatantly obvious in so many different places. So many places where you just can't turn your eyes and say, that's not Christ. You read Isaiah 53 and you think, well, anybody who was an eyewitness at the Calvary when Christ was crucified could have written that. And you say, wait a minute, that was written long before Calvary. And it sounds like an eyewitness description of the crucifixion. You read in Genesis 3, crushing the head of the serpent, he will injure his foot. Obviously, it jumps immediately to Christ and thoughts of him. You have Abram offering up his son on the altar and being spared by the God who will provide, the Lord will provide for himself the sacrifice. There's so many instances where you just cannot help but see it. In reality, there are going to be a couple of surprises waiting for us in heaven. One of them is, some of the things that we think are so abundantly obvious that God is going to clear our minds, we're going to say, oh, probably not. But there are going to be other things we miss, and just go right on by. Prophecy is never noted and really understood until after the fact. So much is not known of Christ until after He came and was made clear in that way. And that's what's happening here. They had misread Moses. They had twisted it. And yet, Moses had written in the law, not simply recording history as history. He didn't simply say, here is what took place, like you read in the U.S. history, and there's no point to be made, point to a particular goal or end. The history recorded there is redemptive history. And that's why, as we've mentioned in the Sunday School classes, he goes back and picks up the generations, and these are the generations of, to elaborate on particular points that are leading up to the promised Messiah. So he's pointing to Christ in every direction. The law speaks there in the penitentiary of creating a people out of nothing, by his own hand, by his own grace, and shaping that people. Even the genealogies are there, that really, shall we say, unexciting reading part of God's Word. to show how carefully God kept track of when the Christ would come and the deliverance that would come there. And then you finish the pages of the Old Testament, and you realize there's coming a new life here. There's going to be the day of purification. There's more to come. This is not the end of the story. We haven't come to the end of God's redemption, so here we are. We've got the law and the temple and that's all we need. There's the whole thrust. If you're waiting and expecting, even the people of Israel were waiting and expecting, looking for the Messiah, looking for the seed of David, looking for the Son of Man, looking for, and not necessarily linking them all as being the same person, but they knew some more was going to come. The whole of the law was pointing that Christ was going to come. The typologies are there. Moses even said, I serve as your mediator in some measure, I'm not qualified in full, God wouldn't receive me, but there'll come one like unto Moses, who will give to you the word of God. Typologies of the lambs being offered, who can even think about the temple sacrifices without realizing the typology of Christ. Passover, all those things. The whole was pointing to it. Salvation of God. It's also not only speaking of the Christ who is to come, but talking about our own standing and need before God. And in the real sense of the word, it's psychological. It's the analysis of the soul, not Freudian in that we don't use psychology now. But it talks about who we are, how the soul is. And Moses leaves you clear. You're guilty. Word of God revealed through Moses makes it abundantly clear. You deserve death. You are corrupt. You are guilty. You are accountable before a holy God. You are utterly helpless. You cannot keep His law. You are unable to do it. And He is an awesome God who will require it of you. The Lord, the Lord God, gracious and merciful, long-suffering, plenteous in mercy, but who will by no means clear the guilty. Once you're left with that realization, I am a guilty sinner before God. Thus, the sacrifices are needed. And the people of Israel tie us in looking to the coming One who would deliver them. Brought the sacrifices. Not, OK, I can kill these animals and I'm clear. But looking, there's not enough. Lord, I am guilty. I need Your mercies there. He's an awesome God. And the Law continually pointed to that. In fact, one of the, in a sense, surprising Hooks, as it were, in that law, you'll find the end of the longest psalm, Psalm 119. It has 176 verses, and each section deals with the Word of God as law, as testament, all that. Talking about the law and desire to keep the law, but you know how it ends. The very last verse, I've gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant. Do not forget your commands. Lord, I've gone astray. I'm a lost sheep. You have to find me. After such a long discourse on the law. They weren't going to keep it. They were in rebellion. Final words of Moses to the people of Israel that he spoke to is take the law in Deuteronomy 31. Put it there beside the Ark of the Covenant. It's going to be a witness against you. He said, I know your rebellion and your stubbornness. I know you are. Behold, while I'm still alive with you, you've been rebellious against the Lord. How much more after my death? I know after my death, you will act corruptly and turn away from all I've commanded you. And evil will befall you in the latter days, for you will do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking them to anger with the work of your hands. You are not going to be able to keep the law, and you're not going to. You are going to be facing the wrath of God and needful of His mercies. That's Deuteronomy 31. In Deuteronomy 32, you have the song of Moses. And a part of that song, as you get toward the end of it, says, For the Lord will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants. When he sees their power is gone, there's none remaining bond or free. He goes on to say, see now that I, even I, am he and there is no God beside me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. There's none that can deliver out of my hand. I'm a God who brings life from the dead. And you have to have life from the dead. You're a wicked people and you're going to break my law. You have to have my mercy. deliverance by someone else coming, and Christ said, He's talking about me. He pointed out the coming Christ. He declared when He would come, how He would come. And again, you start with Genesis, you're going to hardly get past the fall of man to sin, the beginnings of sin. You have the promised deliverance there. He even recorded prophecies of God's enemies that spoke of the coming Christ. Balaam called on to put a curse on the people of God, instead pronounced blessings and said, I see them spread out over the whole land. They're going to triumph. There's going to be the staff of Judah will not rest until it comes to the feet of the one it belongs to. God will send to that mercy. God delivers. That's what Moses kept saying. Christ said, that's what I'm saying too. I am the one he spoke of. I am the one of whom he prophesied. And you haven't listened because you have the same problem with Moses that you have with me. If you had believed Moses, you would believe me. What's the problem? You do not have the love of God in you. You will receive glory from others. You will seek glory from others. But I know, verse 42, you do not have the love of God within you." Well, where did that come from? That came from Moses. Hero Israel. What is the Shema? Deuteronomy 6, 5. Every son of God recites the beginning as a call to worship. From the temple it was sounded forth every day repeatedly. Hero Israel, the Lord our God is one and you shall Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, mind and strength. That's what we used for a call to worship this morning. All the other commandments flowed from that. So when Christ said the two great commandments, the first commandment is love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, and the second hinges on it, that you then will love your neighbor as yourself. He was only repeating Moses. It's the same message. You come to me and you cite Moses as though he's my adversary. It's because you don't understand Moses. I'm saying what he said. You're called to love the Lord your God. And actually, rather than receiving Moses, they were rejecting him. They were misusing the law and turning it 180 degrees. Or as an image, one fellow I remember used one time, he said they picked up a shotgun by the wrong end. Not a very safe procedure. They picked up the law by the wrong end. They were reading the Bible, as it were, upside down and backwards, as though the law from Moses was, this is how you do it. Jesus had grace and love and repentance and a Savior, and so on. No, it's not the opposite at all. You don't have the love of God within you. And every day in your synagogue, you call out, oh Israel, love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind. You don't. Because if you love God, you love Christ. Calvin says, though they were the greatest despisers of the law, yet they boasted of Moses in lofty terms, so they didn't hesitate to make use of him as a shield in opposing Christ. But he takes their shield and turns it against them. They, as it were, summoned up in the image of Moses to defend them, and suddenly Moses, rather than being their defender, is the one accusing them. He stands there announcing the words of Christ. Of course, Moses isn't there personally. His accusations are there in written form. He said, I don't have to judge you. I don't have to judge you in the last day. Judgment has already been declared. You already have it before you. It's not going to wait until then to be announced. You have no grounds to hope in the last days you stand before God. Moses will stand up to defend you against what I'm telling you. No, Moses is there to condemn you already. And notice, as we're almost in passing, not only the unity of the message of God through Moses and through Christ, but also their harmony and their mutual authority. You're condemned, and Moses said so. Christ takes the Word of the Old Testament as equally authoritative. Not necessarily printed in red ink, But it's still God's Word, just as much as the words Christ is articulating. God spoke it. God said it. And it stands there still as God's Word. It's not the old Bible that we can discard. That's what tells us of Christ and explains who He is. J.C. Ryle of England said a couple hundred years ago, let's beware of handling the Old Testament irreverently. and allowing our minds to doubt the truth of any part that causes alleged difficulties. The simple fact that the writers of the New Testament continually refer to the Old Testament and even speak of it as the most miraculous event is undoubtedly true should silence our doubts. Is it at all likely, probable, or creditable that we of the 19th century are better informed about Moses than Jesus and his apostles? God forbid we should think so. Jesus knew more about Moses than we'll ever figure. And he said, Moses agrees with me. So what's the point? Where does that leave him? Well, he's telling them the same thing the law tells us. If you truly read and understand the law, you find yourself condemned. When you truly see all that God required, you know there's no way you have done it And if God were somehow to have a total amnesia and all records of your sins up until this moment erased, if you live another day, you still would not keep that law. When you read all the sin catalog and all the sacrifices required, there are not enough animals in the world to be sacrificed to meet all this. It's overwhelming. You should be perfect, even as I am perfect, said the Lord. Well, that's so unreasonable, is it? That's how God made us. The fact that it is impossible to us simply speaks of our own sinfulness. And when we read the law, we think, well, I can keep that, I can do that, and we haven't really understood what He said. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Do you really think you are capable of doing that? Several years ago, we had a young lady in our church who became a professional in faith. Wanted to join the church, but she had a problem with those vows. Because one of those vows said, you promise to serve the Lord with all that is within you. She said, I know I'm not going to do it. She said, I know I can't serve Him with all that is within me. I want to, but I know I'm going to sin. I said, ok, it says these vows are very similar, so for the sake of her conscience, When she said that, I said, do you promise to seek to serve the Lord with all that is in you? And she could wholeheartedly affirm that. She immediately looked at it. She's not able to do it. If we don't read the law and find ourselves condemned, then we've not understood the law. The other side of that is, if we read the law and don't see that salvation is in full Fully provided by the Mediator, by the Christless promise, we haven't understood it either. There's always that forward pointing of the One who would come and deliver, by God's grace the One who would come and bring salvation to God's people. The call of God to continue to humble ourselves before Him and to seek Him. We haven't really understood the Old Testament. until we understand truly that salvation is by grace in Christ Jesus. We also need to remember you can't argue with what Moses said unless you want to argue with Jesus too. Because Jesus said he and Moses agreed. So when we read the Old Testament, we read it as God's Word. We read it with fear, but we read it with joy. Because we see how much our sins deserve, how entirely condemned we are, and yet, a God who saves us, who sends his Son, even to a people so befuddled, so twisting of his Word, Christ stands there and says, My Father has sent me, and here's what it's about. Again and again declared that Word of salvation to him. A patient God, a gracious God. That's right. Father, we thank You that You do speak to us so plainly. And yet, by Your grace, You must give us understanding. So we look to You. We do confess the perversions of our minds and our hearts. We, Lord, do stand before You condemned by Moses. And yet we come, Father, in the hope of the Promised One that Moses spoke of, the Savior whom You have sent, Jesus Christ our Lord. We come entirely dependent upon Him, overwhelmed with the knowledge of our guilt and our rightful judgment, yet rejoicing that in Him you have put blessing upon us. So we come, O Lord, with thanksgiving that You are the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, and of Moses, the Lord Jesus Christ. We bless Your name. We come in the name of Christ Jesus. Amen.