John chapter number eight, please if you'll turn with me tonight John chapter number eight And we're gonna look at the subject of Jesus teaches in the temple part three All right And we've already seen part one in part two in chapter seven and it continues on here. We're just with a slight break and Jesus was as much man as he was God and as much God as he was man, and so he had to rest just like we do and And so he left the temple, went up to the Mount of Olives, got some rest and came back. And that's where we pick up here in John chapter number 8. And let's look here at verse number 1. The first thing we see here is forgiveness. In chapter 8 and verse 1 the Bible says Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple. And all the people came unto him, and he sat down and taught them." Notice here that Jesus was human and he had character. I'll tell you what, he didn't have the human flaw that a lot of people have of being lazy. Notice it says early in the morning he came back to the temple. He didn't lay around until 9, 10, 11, 12 o'clock and do nothing. No. He got up early and got stuff done. The Bible says another place that he rose up a great while before day and went into a solitary place and there prayed. Nobody made him do that. He was God. Who's going to tell him what to do? He could do anything he wanted. He made his own schedule. But he got up early in the morning and got at it and did what God wanted him to do. And I want to encourage you. to get up early in the morning. If Jesus realized that he needed to get up early and spend time with the Father, boy, we need to get up early and spend time with God ourselves. And I'll tell you what, I'll go to my grave saying this, the best time to meet with God is in the morning, first thing in the morning. You say, I'm too tired. Not as tired as you're gonna be after a whole day at work and your eyes are closing at night and crossing and all that and you're too exhausted to understand what you're doing. I mean, yeah, we ought to spend time with God in the morning and at night. God's Word ought to be the first thing on our mind in the day and the last thing on our mind in the day. And you say, I can't sleep well at night. Well, if you turn your phone off and stop scrolling through all the bad news for 30 minutes on Facebook, you probably have a better time. And you can say amen if you want to or not, but it's just true. And if the last thing you read is the book of Psalms instead of looking at Fox News or looking at your phone, I guarantee you'll get a better night's sleep. I promise you that. And then let's get up in the morning, meet with God. Early in the morning, Jesus went to the temple. Then look at verse number three. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery in the very act. So boy, this is quite a scene. I mean, this wasn't just somebody they had heard through the grapevine, hey, we heard this woman's committing adultery and we heard she's got something going on with this guy. No, she had been discovered in the very act of adultery and they grabbed her and brought her to Jesus. I assume they let her put something on, I hope they did, but they brought her to Jesus and here Jesus is teaching in the temple and the humiliation here and the disruption here of them dragging this woman, no doubt she was disheveled, I mean, to say the least, and humiliated, they came dragging her in and threw her down. no doubt just threw her down roughly right in front of Jesus and in front of all these people here. Notice what they said in verse number five. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned, but what sayest thou? I want you to notice something here real closely. These scribes and Pharisees were not concerned about the Mosaic law. They had something else totally in mind. They were not trying to be all zealous for the law and saying, oh, we've got to make sure the law is kept. Here, let's bring her to Jesus and he'll make sure the law is kept. If they really cared about the law, they would have done something that they didn't do. Because I want to read to you what the Mosaic Law actually says regarding this. In Leviticus chapter 20 and verse number 10 the Bible says, Then it says in Deuteronomy 22 verse 22, If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman and the woman. So shalt thou put away evil from Israel. They said we caught her in the very act. If that's true, then there had to be a man there involved too. Why didn't they bring the man too? If they were really worried about the law being fulfilled, if they were really worried about making sure the law was fulfilled in every letter, why did they only bring the woman? You see, they weren't as concerned about the law as they were trying to use this as an opportunity to trip Jesus up. It was a trap for Jesus. They were trying their best to put him in a spot between a rock and a hard place because if he says, no, don't do anything to her, they say, oh, so you don't care about the law. If he says, yes, stone her, then people are saying, oh, man, well, he just immediately went right at it there. So they were trying to put him in a tough spot here. But you can't trip Jesus up. He's always going to have the right answer and always going to be at the right time. So notice verse six, this they said, and here the Bible plainly says why they were doing it. This they said, tempting him that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground as though he heard them not. That's an interesting picture, isn't it? This woman here is, no doubt, she's panicking. She's terrified and humiliated. And everybody's coming up here to get a look at her. And man, they don't even think she's worth spitting on. And they're saying, Jesus, what do you think we should do? Hey, Moses said we ought to stone her. And so do you agree with Moses? Are you going to keep the law or not? Jesus acts like he doesn't even hear what they're saying, just bends down and starts writing on the ground. That's an interesting thing to do, isn't it? Really even more than just interesting that Jesus here was writing. Of course Jesus is God. Here he is writing. Jesus never wrote a book. There's been more books written about him than any other human, any other person that's ever lived throughout time. There's been more articles and blogs and different things written about him than anybody and yet he never wrote a book. But right here we find where he bends down and he starts writing. But you know there's a couple other times in the Bible where we find that God wrote. The Bible says whenever Moses was up on Mount Sinai, God gave him two tablets of stone, two tables of stone written with the finger of God. And so God used his finger to actually laser etch into those two tables of stone the Ten Commandments. Then we find in the book of Daniel where that wicked king Belshazzar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, We find where he was mocking God and taking those very vessels that were taken from the holy temple of God that we preached about last Sunday. He was taking those vessels and drinking alcohol in them and praising the gods of gold and just making an absolute mockery and blasphemy of the things of God. And all of a sudden he looked up and the Bible says his knees started knocking. His knees smote one against another. I mean, man, that's where we get our term today, no doubt. Man, his knees were knocking. He was terrified as he looked up. Without anybody attached to it. There was the fingers of a man's hand writing on the wall If you remember when God wrote the Ten Commandments, he was writing. Here's what you better do and when God wrote on the wall He was writing you did not do what I told you to do and now you're in trouble for it And so Jesus here bends down and he begins to write on the ground. Think about this when thinking about Jesus, God, writing on the ground. In Jeremiah 17 and verse number 13, the Bible says this, Oh Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed. And they that depart from me shall be written in the earth. because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters. You talk about it. These people that were bringing this woman, yes, this woman had broken the law, but these religious zealots, I mean, these people that they didn't care about the law at all. They were just concerned about trying to trip Jesus up. They were just as wicked and rotten down inside as that woman taking an adultery was, if not more. And so they had departed from God. And it's interesting, Jeremiah says, they'll be written in the earth. Now, what do you suppose he wrote? In Psalm 90, in verse number 8, the Bible says, Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins, in the light of thy countenance. Think about this here. In John 8, verse number 8, it says, or verse number 7, Jesus, in verse 6, had been writing on the ground just like he didn't even hear him. In verse 7, so when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. Now is Jesus justifying sin? Absolutely not. We're going to see that in just a minute. What he was saying is the only person that's here in this group that has a right to cast a stone at her that is innocent themselves is me. None of you have that right. Then verse number eight, and again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst." I love how particular and specific the Bible is. It says that they started at the eldest and went out even unto the last. In their culture, the first ones that got to cast a stone when they would stone somebody was the oldest ones. And so the oldest ones all the way down to the youngest ones realized we don't have a right to cast a stone. Probably because of what Jesus said as well as what he was writing on the ground. I like what one Bible commentator said. He said, in his mind, in his imagination, he said, you know, all Jesus had to do, of course, Jesus knew everything. He knew everything that every one of those scribes and Pharisees had ever done. And the hypocrisy of them already bringing the woman without the man trying to condemn her and let the man go free shows that they didn't care a lick about adultery. They were just trying to trap Jesus and trip him up. And so one of these Pharisees may have had his own little adulterous affair going on somewhere else. And all Jesus had to do when that man thought it was covered up was bend down and write the name of that woman that that man was having something going on with. And that man walks up, what's he writing? He looks down, his face probably turns pale, and he starts beads of sweat popping out. He thinks, oh my, I didn't know anybody knew about that. And he takes off. And Jesus knows something else about somebody else, and he writes that in the sand too. I don't know what Jesus wrote. All I know is that the one that knows everything that we do, that all-seeing eye that sees what goes on in the dark behind closed doors, you can't hide anything from God. Jesus Christ knew it all. All he had to do was just write a couple of names down there, and every one of them would be convicted and say, oh man, I better get out of here. Now look at verse number 10. When Jesus had lifted up himself and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee. Did you know that some people say that, now they're wrong, but they say that some of the best manuscripts don't even include this story because it justifies adultery. Now they're wrong for one thing, because we have the best manuscripts here. What they're referring to are corrupt manuscripts. But the truth of the matter is here, this does not at all justify adultery. In John chapter 3, remember the most famous story in all the Bible, John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The very next verse says, for God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. The Bible says, he that believeth not is condemned already. Jesus doesn't have to condemn somebody. The very fact they've broken God's law, they've condemned themselves. They're already condemned. So Jesus shows up to say, hey, you're already condemned because of sin, but I've showed up so that I can save you from that sin. But lest somebody should think that he's trying to justify adultery here and make light of it and saying, hey, I don't condemn you either. Notice the last sentence in this verse that most people today, most modern Christians would just as soon throw out and just ignore. Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. In modern-day Christianity, they just soon cut that verse out. Well, they want the first part of verse 11. Hey, don't ever condemn anybody. Nobody needs to be condemned. Nobody needs to be judged. Anything goes. It doesn't matter what you do. Hey, listen, even if you want to go out and get drunk or do drugs or commit adultery, hey, it's your life. You have freedom to live however you want. Not trying to re-preach Sunday night's message, but I'm just saying this. Hey, they say you should be able to do anything you want. But Jesus said, I don't condemn you. I came to save you, but. There needs to be a change go and sin no more when we trust Christ as our Savior There's ought to be some things changing brother I mean I'm telling you when I'm not preaching Lordship salvation tonight that if everything doesn't change immediately the moment you get saved you never got it if you ever do anything ever say a bad word again or smoke something again, then you never really got say that is not true that totally does away with growing in grace People have to have a chance to grow in grace and draw closer to the Lord what I am saying though is when somebody trusts Christ as their Savior there's gonna be some differences made There's gonna be some changes. And he said, go and sin no more. Well, that's an important thing to remember. Thank God there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit, Romans tells us. Thank God that that condemnation is not upon us, because Jesus Christ suffered that condemnation on the cross. Hey, but he still has a message for us today. Go and sin no more. That doesn't mean be sinless. We can never possibly be totally sinless. But I tell you, we ought to do our best. We ought to do our very best to not, the things I, that old song, the things I used to do, I don't do them anymore. The places I used to go, I don't go there anymore. The things I used to say, I don't say them anymore. Why? There's been a great change since I've been born again. Go and sin no more. Now look at verse number 12 here, and we see here faith. We've seen forgiveness here, but look at faith here in verse number 12. Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. I love how Jesus was a master at teaching, because he would take something like an incident that just happened here, And he could have just left it as it was and take off walking away. But he said, hey, this is a teachable moment. This is something I need to show you here. And he used it to his advantage to tell them something. They had just seen something they were not expecting to see. And so Jesus here pivots and he says, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. This is one of the great I am's in the Bible. You know, remember back in the Old Testament, whenever God came to Moses and he said, I want you to bring my people out of Egypt. And Moses said, well, Lord, they're not going to believe me. What am I supposed to tell them? Who do I tell them sent me? What is your name? God said, you just tell them I am that I am. has sent you. In other words, whatever you're not, I am. And oh my, we come over here into the New Testament, we find where all these different names of Jesus are in the Bible. At one point, he said, I am the good shepherd. At another point, he said, I am the door. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the true bread from heaven. And here in this place, he says, I am the light of the world. Did you know the best defense people will tell you this security experts will tell you this the best defense obviously besides a gun that you have but I'm talking about just the best repellent to keep stuff from ever happening somebody breaking into your house or whatever the best defense is just a bunch of light. They say, hey, if you want to keep somebody from breaking into your house to begin with, yeah, once they come in, if you want to blow a hole through them that size, you can find the right kind of gun. But if you want to keep them from ever wanting to come in to begin with, you put a whole bunch of lights around there. Because crime hates light. You ever hear that saying, the best disinfectant is light? Mean when he's turned a light on all the roaches have to go all the rats go all the bats go all the things that don't Want to be exposed to the light they get out of there You know what Jesus did here in this place Jesus turned the light on they already knew the woman had sinned But they thought they had their own sin covered Because they've done their own sin in the dark and the light of the world showed up turn the light switch on exposed every one of them Jesus is the light of the world. He knows it all already. Remember now, this is the same feast here of Tabernacles we've been talking about, that not only would they pour the water out, but they had a parade of torches down there in the middle of the courtyard there. And so what they're representing there was that pillar of fire that they followed. They followed that pillar of fire when they came out of Egypt. And that pillar of fire represented the presence and the power of God. And so he said here, I'm the light of the world. You can talk about these torches all you want. You can talk about the pillar of fire in the wilderness all you want. I am the physical embodiment of the light of the world. You just better follow me. And just like they followed that pillar of fire and everywhere that pillar of fire went, they went, they were right in the will of God. He said, if you want to be in the will of God, if you want things to work out, just follow me. Follow me. I thank God for that light. Thank God for the light of the world. I read a little thing about an Indian Christian, this lady in India, and she told a friend of hers, she said, well, I guess she was a Christian. Anyway, she said, I was going home, and she said, this panther got after me, a black leopard. And she said it was following me all the way home. But she said I had a lantern, and I had a circle of light all the way around me. She said I walked inside of that light, and it left me alone. You know what, I've read that before, when a lion is about to attack somebody or something, whenever they're afraid of it, they build a fire up huge, because that lion doesn't want to get close to the fire. The truth of the matter is, we have an enemy tonight. The Bible says, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, is a roaring lion walking about seeking whom he may devour. You know who is easy for him to devour? People that are living in the darkness. But whenever we walk in the light as he is in the light, first John says we have fellowship on with another in the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin. You say, well, what is the light? How do I walk in the light? Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. We have the light right here. if we'll just get in it every single day. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. Now look with me, if you will, verse 13. The Pharisees therefore said unto him, thou barest record of thyself. Thy record is not true. Jesus answered and said unto them, though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true. For I know whence I came and whither I go, but ye cannot tell whence I came and whither I go. Jesus was sure aren't you glad God is a God of certainties. He's a God of assurances He didn't leave him in the dark here and he didn't stutter and stammer and say well I don't know for sure where I came from don't know for sure where I'm going, but I hope everything turns out Okay, no, he said I know where I came from and I know where I'm going Aren't you glad the night if you're saved you can say the exact same thing They say that the three greatest questions of life, the three biggest questions that every single person wants to answer is, where did I come from, why am I here, and where am I going when I die? You know, the Bible answers all three of those questions. Evolutionists, they try to say, well, yeah, I know where you came from. Billions of years ago, everything got into a little bitty space the size of a period at the end of a sentence. They don't know where the period came from. But they said, all of a sudden, it just exploded. And man, all this matter just came to be. And over millions of years, it rained. They don't know where the rain came from. And it rained on the rocks. They don't know where the rocks came from. But over millions of years, it turned into this primordial soup. And then all of a sudden a tadpole popped out and then it sprouted legs and then it turned, then it began to get bigger and bigger. The tail fell off and it walked upright. And really what they're saying is once I was a tadpole long and thin, then I was a bullfrog with my tail tucked in. Then I was a monkey swinging from a tree. Now I'm a professor with a PhD. And that's what they try to say. And they say, hey, that's where we came from. My friend, that's foolishness. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. The best thing you could ever do, especially those of you if you have to go to a public school or a public college or something like that, hey, listen, just memorize it frontwards and backwards. Genesis 1.1, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. God made you. He made you just like he wanted you to be. You didn't come from a monkey. You may look like one, but you didn't come from one. I'm just kidding. The truth of the matter is that we are made in the image of God. We came from God. He created us. We're here to bring glory to God and aren't you glad we can know where we're going when we die. Most people, most people in the world today, if you ask them, do you know for sure where you're going when you die? Well, I hope so. I think so. I hope I'm going to go to heaven. I'm 90% sure. And the reason they're 90% sure is they think they've been 90% good. But all righteousnesses are as filthy rags. The only way to know where we're going when we die is if you know who lives inside your heart. If you've been to Jesus as a sinner, and you've been to the foot of the cross, and realized Jesus died to pay for every one of your sins that you couldn't pay for on your own, and he was buried, and on the third day he rose again. Hey, listen, if you will call upon him and open your heart to him, let him come in your heart and save you, then you can know, and only then you can know where you're going. Jesus knew where he came from and he knew where he was going and we can have the same thing. Praise God for it. Look at verse 15. Jesus said, You judge after the flesh. I judge no man. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true. For I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. You know, Jesus was able to look at things from a different point of view. Down here, we only see things in a certain way. We see things in, people talk about three-dimensional, 3D, or even 4D, or whatever. You ever been to one of those, I remember going years ago to a big IMAX, and they were playing some kind of a thing, I'm trying to remember, it was about wildlife or something. They gave us these 3D glasses to put on. And it was amazing that all those dimensions, you could see it coming in there, it's like you could reach out and just grab those fish, or sharks, or whatever's there swimming up. It was an amazing thing, really. But did you know, as human beings, there's only so many dimensions we can see here. But we've got somebody bigger than us whenever the problems come and we can't see through them. We got somebody that's got a whole different perspective and he can look down and he sees from a totally different dimension. He has a totally different point of view. Hey, listen, and really what matters in our life is not what we think about something. What matters is not how we look at it. What matters. You ever hear somebody say it's all in how you look at it. That's true. It is all in how you look at it, but we don't need to look at it the way we look at it. We need to look at it the way God looks at it. How does God look at sin? How does God look at suffering? How does God look at trials? We look on things as an awful disaster. We look on things and say, why? If there's a perfect God, he must have lost control for a minute. He never would have let this happen. No, God never loses control. God is always in charge. He's always on the throne and he sees things from a totally different point of view than we do. Look at verse 17. It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me. Now here he's talking about Deuteronomy 17 and verse 6. I'll just read it to you real quick here. Sorry, I meant to keep it marked. But Deuteronomy 17 and verse number 6, back in this Mosaic law, he gave them this statute that not one person, one person couldn't testify on their own. They had to have more than one witness. And so in Deuteronomy 17 and verse 18, it says, Let's see here. Oh, I'm sorry Deuteronomy 17 verse 6 Sorry about that Deuteronomy 17 6 at the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses shall he that is worthy of death be put to death but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death why is that because God is a just God and You can get one person mad at somebody else and that one person's willing to show up and tell a lie about him but there had to be two or more witnesses and And so Jesus is referring to that here where he said, it's written in your law, the testimony of two men is true. The testimony of two people's reliable. So he said, I bear witness of myself and that should have been enough because of the miracles they'd seen him do. But he said, there's somebody else that bears witness of me too. The father bears witness of me. You know, if you go into a court of law, the whole case can hinge and it can succeed or fail based on the power of a witness. I tell you what, if you've got Jehovah God as your witness, as your star witness, you're going to be okay. I tell you, he had God the Father as his witness. I'm talking about the one that came, the one that the one that worked the miracles and the one that even these people, these Pharisees and scribes, the Israelites that they would go back to and study the law. Hey, listen, all those miracles that were worked, that's the one that was witnessing of Jesus. The one that parted the Red Sea, the one that had brought the plagues, the one that brought manna in the wilderness. We can go on and on and on of all the miracles that he worked in the Old Testament and still was working then. That was the witness. And he said, I don't just witness of myself. The father is witnessing of me too. Verse 19. Then said they unto him, where is thy father? Jesus answered, you neither know me nor my father. If you had known me, you should have known my father also. Here's another interesting aspect about this. This woman taken in adultery, Jesus was familiar with the fact that there had been a cloud surrounding him the whole time he had been born. Remember, since he had been born. One of the things that they accused him of in another place was they said, you've been born of fornication. Because they never, obviously they never believed that Mary was a virgin when she had Jesus. And so they either believed that Joseph was his father or some of them believed that she had been unfaithful and had a relation with somebody else and so that person was Jesus' father. And so they had constantly been accusing Jesus of being an illegitimate child and Mary had had some relationship. Aren't you glad we don't have to get into that nonsense? Do you know there are even some so-called preachers that say that now? I've heard it. I've heard it. I heard with my own ears a preacher in another state that said, suppose that we were to find out that Jesus actually, that his dad was actually a blonde-haired man named something or other. Folks, I don't think that guy's even saved, let alone a real preacher. That's blasphemy. If you don't believe that Jesus Christ is the virgin-born Son of God, you are lost and on your way to hell. There's no other way around it. Because if he had an earthly father his blood was just as sinful as your blood and my blood He had to have been born of a virgin. Otherwise, he had to have God's blood in his veins Otherwise, he could not be our Savior because he was just as sinful as we are So Jesus Christ, but they asked here, they asked this question, where is your father? He said, you don't know me or my father. If you had known me, you should have known my father also. Some of the modern perversions of the Bible say that God gave his one and only son. The true Bible says God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Because there are other sons of God. I'm a son of God tonight. Now, I'm a son of Steve Epley physically, but spiritually, I've been born again. I've been adopted. I'm a son of God. And I'm not being blasphemous, because the Bible itself said, now are ye the sons of God. If you've been saved tonight, you're a son of God. You're a daughter of God, but not in the same way that Jesus is. He's the only begotten son of God, but you and I are sons of God by the new birth, by being born again, when we trust Christ as our Savior. And Jesus said, look, you had that same opportunity. You could have been a son of God. You could have been a child of God. He could have been your father. but they chose not to. Quickly, look at verse 20 with me, if you will. These words spake Jesus in the treasury as he taught in the temple, and no man laid hands on him again, for his hour was not yet come. We said that a couple weeks ago. He was invincible until his time was come, and we are too. Verse 21, then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me and shall die in your sins. Whither I go, ye cannot come. Then said the Jews, will he kill himself? Because he saith, whither I go ye cannot come. There's a line in verse number 21 that is so tragic. He said, you're going to seek me, but you're going to die in your sins. Did you know the Bible says that every one of us were born sinners? All the way back to Adam and Eve, because of what they did, the moment we enter this world, we're already sinners. We have the sentence of death already. We are already under God's condemnation because we are sinners by birth. But then we choose to sin. Now, of course, I know there's a time whenever we're born that There's a time that a child has to get up to what's called the age of accountability where they realize they're a sinner. They're able to be convicted of that sin and be saved. So when a child dies before that, then they obviously go to heaven. But the truth is we are born sinners, but we have also chosen to sin. And so he says here, you're going to die in your sins because you're not believing in me. Folks, you know there are people that may be sitting in this room right now, but certainly there's people all over this town tonight, within a stone's throw. I guarantee you could take a rock and hit houses all over the place that there's somebody in there that if they were to die tonight, they would die in their sins. Boy, if somebody dies in their sins, there's only one thing that's gonna happen, they're gonna go to hell forever. People don't wanna talk about that, they don't wanna think about that. I heard a preacher say a lady come up to him and she said, I've gone to my church for five years and I've never heard my preacher mention the word hell one time. She needs to go to a different church. Because Jesus preached more on hell than he did on heaven. Hell is just as real as that pew you're sitting on tonight. Hell is real. It's an awful place where there's weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. And that's the punishment if we die in our sins. But aren't you glad Jesus didn't want that to happen? Aren't you glad that's why in verse 22, they didn't get it. They said, why does he say we're not going to be able to find him? Is he going to kill himself? No, but he is going to allow himself to be killed. He said, nobody takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself. I'm going to allow myself to be killed, to die a brutal death of crucifixion in your place. Boy, there's a song years ago, somebody sang, his life for mine. Sometimes in the morning, I just thank God, I get on my knees by my bed, and I just say, Lord, thank you for giving your life for mine. I don't understand it, I can't fathom why he would do that, but all I can say is I sure am glad he did. Hey, thank God that Jesus gave up his life for mine. Verse number 23, and he said unto them, ye are from beneath, I am from above. Ye are of this world, I am not of this world. Again, there's another dimension that can't be understood by the natural man. That's what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 2.14, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. It didn't make sense to them. There was another dimension that they weren't prepared for. Verse 24, I said therefore unto you that you shall die in your sins. And folks, this next clause here, this next phrase, is the crux of the entire Bible. For if you believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. The very first book of the Bible talks about man becoming a sinner because he disobeyed God. The Bible says sin is the transgression of the law. People want to define sin different ways. They say, oh man, somebody that would go up and be a mass murderer and shoot up a crowd of people, somebody would drive a vehicle into a crowd of people, that's a sinner. Somebody that would violate a child, boy, that's a sinner. No, the Bible just says sin is the transgression of the law. Sin is anything we do that violates God's law, that breaks God's law. And starting right up here, all the way around here, every single one of us are underneath that umbrella. Every one of us have chosen to violate God's law at some point or another. And here's the whole thing. In Genesis, the Bible says that man became a sinner. The last chapter of Revelation says, whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. Why does somebody need it unless they have sins that need to be washed away? So from Genesis to Revelation, the entire theme of the whole Bible is the fact that man is a sinner, including you, including me. And if we don't believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we will die in those sins and go to hell. But thank God, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. If you've never done that tonight, I want to encourage him. Let tonight be the night that you call upon the Lord and get saved. Quickly, verse 25. We're going to go about five or six more verses, and we'll be done. Then said they unto him, who art thou? Notice all the questions they're asking. Where's your father? You're going to kill yourself? Who are you? They just don't get it. And verse 25, Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning. Aren't you glad we have a consistent Savior? He didn't change His message. Does anybody besides me get weary of politicians always changing what they're saying? It's hard to keep up. It's like, man, OK, they voted for this, but now it's two days later and now they're voting against it. And then they like this person, but now all of a sudden this person said something not nice about him, so now they hate this person. I mean, it's hard to keep up. It's like, man, what side of the corner are they going to fall on today? Aren't you glad our Savior said, I'm the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. He never changes. He said, I am the Lord. I change not. You don't have to wake up one day and wonder what kind of mood he's going to be in. You don't have to wake up one day and say, well, I wonder if he's going to say the same thing today he said yesterday. I wonder if he's going to feel the same way today he did yesterday. I got good news for you tonight. He feels the same way. And he says the same thing today that he did thousands of years ago. And he'll still feel the same way thousands of years from now. cause he never changes. We have a consistent God. And in a day when, when times are changing and situations are changing and people are changing all around us, I'm glad that we have a God that never changes. He's a solid rock. I took a picture this morning. Somebody I know very well, it's going through a very, very, very rough time right now. And I took a picture of my Bible. It happened to me in my personal Bible reading just this morning. And, uh, it was a message or that verse that says when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. I took a picture and I texted it to him. They texted right back and said, and he never crumbles no matter how hard the storm is raging. Boy, aren't you glad for that? On Christ the solid rock I stand. We may shake, but the rock never will. Praise God, he's always consistent. Verse 26, I have many things to say and to judge of you, but he that sent me is true, and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him. That's real preaching. That's the definition of real preaching right there. A lot of the stuff that passes as preaching today is not real preaching. It's just somebody getting up, and in the name of God, in the name of Jesus, they get up and just give a big speech that they want people to think stuff about them. Real preaching is telling people what God said. That's what Jesus did. That's exactly what Jesus did. I would encourage you, if you're ever listening to somebody online or you go somewhere or something and the preacher never, he said, well, I don't even think we're going to get into this tonight. I got some things I want to say to you. What you ought to do probably is get up and walk out because what he's getting ready to say is not even worth hearing if it's not based on this. Real preaching is not telling people what we think, it's telling people what God said. And that's what Jesus did then verse number 27. They understood not that he spake to them of the father They just still didn't get it verse 28 then said Jesus unto them when you have lifted up the Son of Man See he knew how he was gonna die When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself, but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things." Interestingly, according to the book of Acts, some of these very priests and stuff that did not believe on Him before He went to the cross, after He died, was buried and rose again, they did believe on Him. So He knew that was going to happen. Verse 29, and He that sent me is with me. The Father hath not left me alone, for I do always those things that please Him. Two things in verse number 29. There's one thing in this verse that we can all say tonight that are saved. When Jesus said, the Father hath not left me alone, well, what a comforting thought that you and I can say the same thing tonight. Whatever you're going through, the heartache of losing a loved one, the fear of the doctors, what the doctor may have said to you, the prognosis the doctor gave you doesn't look good. the financial uncertainty of wondering how in the world am I going to pay the bills, let alone get this fixed and that fixed and this fixed and that fixed? What's going to happen with this child that's gone away? And what's going to happen in my marriage? All the uncertainties and all the things of life that we go through, there's one thing you can bank on. He said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. He'll always be with us. We'll never walk alone. So there's one thing we can say. And then the last sentence, can we say this? For I do always those things that please him. Now, honestly, only Jesus can truthfully say that because There's no person alive that can say, I've always done everything God wanted me to do. But boy, that ought to be our goal. That ought to be our goal. Every time we're tempted to do something, we ought to think, is this something God wants me to do? And if it's not, we ought to just not do it. Then lastly, verse 30, we're done with this. As he spake these words, many believed on him. That's a great verse, because that made all the difference between them going to heaven or going to hell for all of eternity. I ask you tonight, every single person, every man, woman, teenager, boy and girl, Have you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ? 1 John 5, 13 says, these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that's Jesus Christ, that you may know that you have eternal life. And then he goes on to say, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God. Have you believed on him for salvation? If you have, you're on your way to heaven. If not, we're gonna have an invitation in just a little bit. I wanna beg you to come forward, get on this altar and say, Lord, I'm a sinner, please save my soul. He'll come in your heart and save you tonight. But if you have been saved, let's believe on him for everything else that we need. We have some big needs tonight. Every single person in this room, just about, with maybe the exception of a small child that has all their needs met by their parents, but every single person in here, we have needs, don't we? We've got things that only God can do. Problems that are way bigger than us. That's where faith comes in. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on God for everything else that we need. We have a God that said, with me, nothing is impossible. we can trust in tonight.