I call your attention this morning to one verse in the 14th chapter of John, verse 6. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. This is a very simple statement. This is a very clear statement. It's a statement that's very easily understood. And it's a very intolerant statement. In this day when tolerance is looked upon as such a virtue, Our Lord Jesus, if he were again on earth, would be regarded as a very intolerant man. The Lord is always intolerant about truth. He never believes that truth can be compromised or that you can mix error with truth and still have truth. He's very intolerant about salvation. He's intolerant in this verse, no man cometh unto the Father but by me. I don't know how anything can be much more intolerant than that. A simple declaration that salvation's in me and it's nowhere else. The Lord's very intolerant about his claims for himself. A man came to him once and said, good master. He said, why do you call me good? There's none good but God. In other words, I have claimed to be God. You don't recognize that claim. You think I'm just a teacher. If I'm not God, I'm not good. If he isn't God, he's a liar. He's a fraud. He's an imposter. For over and over and over again, he claimed to be God. Nothing is much more foolish than the remarks of some people these days. I believe Jesus is a good man, but I do not believe he's God. My friend, if he's not God, he's a liar. And no liar's a good man, though there are good many liars in the world today who have a good deal of respect from people which they don't deserve. Our Lord Jesus said, I and the Father are one. He that has seen me has seen the Father. The Lord Jesus was intolerant about the law of God. He dealt with those who added to the law of God, who made their religious prejudices and their religious rites and ceremonies a part of God's law. He dealt with them very harshly. It's strange, isn't it, how the gentle Jesus, the one who loved the world enough to give himself to die on a cross, could sometimes speak out in such harsh language But I'm French, you know, sometimes love demands harshness. A father has to be harsh with a child. Never brutal, but sometimes harsh. I'm often harsh in announcements I make to you students here in chapel. I made one this morning that was rather harsh. I told you I was speaking not as a grandfather, but as a father. Because grandfathers are supposed to be sentimental, but some of you needed a good fatherly rebuke. You cannot always be soft. You cannot always be gentle and be faithful to the truth of the word of God. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the way. You know, some people speak of him as the way sure. I believe Mary Baker Eddy refers to him that way in Science and Health and Key to the Scripture. He's not the way sure. Jesus Christ doesn't show you how to go to heaven. He provides the means whereby you can go to heaven. It's one thing to say, this is the way, walk in it. It's another thing to say, I am the way. Now, how is Jesus Christ a man? A man that's God, a man who comes as God in the flesh, who declares himself to be God, who says, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. Who's standing before the high priest, ask the question of him, Art thou the Son of God? Answers, as thou sayest, I am. How can this man, not this mere man, but this divine man, this God-man, this Jesus Christ, the virgin-born Son of God, how can he be the way? He is the way because he himself has broken down the wall of petition that stands between sinful men and a holy God. You see, man's sin has brought him to death. No man has to do anything to go to hell. All a man must do to go to hell is just stay like he is. For we are born in sin and conceived in iniquity. Now God does not send us to hell because of the sin of Adam. But because of the sin of Adam, we have inherited a sinful nature. We are prone to sin as sparks fly upward. I cannot go to heaven except in one way, and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. You see, my sin separating me from God has destroyed me as far as any spiritual life is concerned, for I'm dead in trespass and in sin. Now, if a man is dead, he cannot do anything. A dead man cannot do works of righteousness if he's dead to righteousness. Nobody ever expects a corpse to get up and go out and do a day's work in the field. The corpse is dead. Now, spiritually, all men are dead until they are made alive through Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ himself on the cross bore our sins in his own body. What a wonderful picture that is. Here's the sinless body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he takes into that body and upon that body the sins of all the world and he goes to a cross and Suffers the judgment of sin and the penalty of sin and death by sin on a cross The eternal Son of God who says no man takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself but on a cross God dies Now wait a minute God's eternal God lives forevermore But here is God in the flesh dying for sinful man. God's spirit continues to live. Jesus Christ, who is alive forevermore, in that moment did not cease to be God. But the body of flesh into which he had come, that body of flesh died, paying the price of sinful flesh of all mankind. I don't expect people to understand that. I've been a Christian for some 60 years and I still don't understand that. I think it was John Knox, one of the great reformers at least, who said, the great obstacle to getting people to become Christians is the simplicity of the gospel. The very simplicity of the gospel makes the gospel complex. because men like to find something difficult, something they can do, something they can accomplish, in order to feel a sort of satisfaction, to feel that they deserve salvation because of their efforts. But my friend, I can't deserve salvation. If I'm dead in sin, I cannot earn salvation, because being dead unto righteousness, I cannot do a work of righteousness. And being dead unto God, there's nothing I can do to please God. But when I turned to Jesus Christ, he has done everything necessary and there's nothing for me to do. He became sin for us. He took upon himself our sin and paid the price that all souls could pay in hell forever. I don't know how you can explain that. I don't know how you can understand that. But when he cried, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He's echoing the cry of all the damned of all the ages in the flames of hell. So he suffered not only the sins of our flesh in his body, but he knew the soul torment that we can know. And therefore, he's made it possible for us through him to come to Jesus Christ. He's not only the way, he's the door. For we enter into God through Jesus Christ. We come to God by him. And no man comes to God except by the Father. No man comes to the Father except by me. You don't come to God by trying to do good. You don't come to God by trying to dress nice. You don't come to God by trying to practice a so-called social gospel. You don't come to God by going to church, by singing songs, by giving charity. You don't come to God by your good works, for all your righteousness is filthy rags, and you're a dead soul. And a dead man cannot do works of righteousness. God has no respect for the works of our righteousness, because they're the righteousness of the flesh, and that flesh is dead flesh. And dead flesh is a very ugly thing, a corrupt thing, a worm-ridden thing. And that's the way God sees man's righteousness, like filthy rags like the wrappings of a corrupt corpse. But when I come to Jesus Christ, I find in him life. He's way, he's also the life. And life is found in him. You find in the first chapter of John, in the early verses, and John's a remarkable writer. He uses certain words that are hardly found elsewhere in the Bible. I do not mean they are not some places elsewhere. but they're not ever so concentrated or so often repeated and frequently used as they are in John's Gospel. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. Here we have the Word, Word, that capital letter, the Word, the living Word. This Bible is the written Word of God. And the Lord Jesus said, these are they, these writers in this book, which testify of me. But he is the word of God incarnate. His life in him was the light of men. And this life and this light are Jesus Christ. It's wonderful how John combines these words together. The word, the truth, the life, the light. And the Lord Jesus Christ is all of these. He's the light that shineth in darkness. The darkness comprehends it, not that is the darkness cannot understand light. Do you know sometimes if you've been in great darkness and the bright light comes on, you not only cannot comprehend the light, you can't tell where it's coming from. For your eyes accustomed to the darkness are startled and by the bright light blinded. So you cannot see the source of the light. You just know suddenly you're surrounded. You tend to close your eyes and go back to darkness. Do you know that's what many men do when they hear the truth of God's word? They've been in darkness so long they shut their eyes, lest the light of the glorious gospel should shine in. That's one of the devices of Satan, to blind the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of this glorious gospel should come in. He's life. He's the giver of life. He breathed into men's nostrils the breath of life. In his hand is the life of all flesh. And this God who gives life, who made man, who made light, who made heaven, who made earth, this God who's the creator of all things, for by Him were all things made, and without Him was not anything made that was made, this God who's the God of the atom, for we are told that by Him all things consist, that is, He holds all things together, He clasps them in His hand and binds them into a unity. One day when in judgment the end of time has come, He speaks and this earth is consumed with fervent heat and the heavens roll back and pass away. That's an atomic destruction as the hand of God that holds all things together is taken off and all things blast apart like a great atomic blast. But now he holds them together. You know, I read sometimes where men are so afraid the world's going to blow up, that we're going to be destroyed by an atomic blast. Well, the world's going to be destroyed by an atomic blast one day after the Lord has come back and reigned in righteousness on the earth and men have rebelled finally against the righteousness and the perfect reign of Jesus Christ. There's a great judgment, the judgment of the ungodly dead. And then God's going to speak. And a great angel stands with one foot upon the sea and one upon the land and swears time shall be no more. And then comes the explosion. It's going to all go apart. God's gonna rebuild it into a new heaven and a new earth where the redeemed shall dwell with him forever These are wonderful passages in the Word of God, but he's life. He gives life He's the very life of our breath and we move in him physically But when we know him as Savior and trust in his work for us on the cross We begin to partake of his divine life. It's an instantaneous thing. You were born suddenly Suddenly you came into the world. Nobody's born gradually. You develop gradually within the body of the mother. But when the body is fully developed and the child is ready for birth, he comes quickly into the world. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ, when he gives us a new birth, gives us an instantaneous and sudden thing. As we are born of flesh, so then we are born again of the spirit. This is the second birth, the new birth. My, how that term has been perverted these days. Talk about being born again and men don't even know what it means. To be born again means to be born to God, to be born of God's Spirit, this Spirit that moves where it desires to go. No man can look and say it came from this direction and it goes in that direction. This Spirit of God, not of the will of man, not of the will of flesh, but of God, This blessed spirit of God himself moves upon men when men in simple faith turn to Jesus Christ. It's easy to be saved. It's easy to have eternal life. It doesn't cost you a thing except your sins and your unhappiness and your misery and all the wretched past. The Lord takes all those things away when you come to him. But he gives you new life and new birth. It's a gift, the gift of God's eternal life. And this life's in the Son. Nowhere else. My friend, if you get to heaven, you go this way, there's no other way. And if you have eternal life, you have the Christ life. You have it from him and of him as you're born of his spirit. And until you come to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and for salvation, you'll never know salvation. You don't find it in the church. You don't find it in the sacraments. You don't find it in some rite of ceremony. You don't find it in being good. For no man is good until he's made a new creature in Christ Jesus. And then suddenly, as you trust him and believe in him, you are suddenly given this life. Oh, you don't feel different, but you know you're different, and you rejoice because you know your sins are passed away. I am the way, I am the life, and I am the truth. Now let's look at that in closing. The truth. Truth is a strange word. You remember when Pilate had Jesus before him on trial? He said to him, what is truth? And our Lord didn't answer Pilate directly in that matter. You can't say to a man in one moment what is truth unless you say truth is God's word, the written word and the incarnate word. You know, friends, in this blessed book is all truth necessary for man's life, for man's safety, for man's happiness, and for man's knowledge. I do not mean by that that there's no truth outside this word. And Jesus Christ, who is the incarnate word, embodies truth. And he did nothing contrary to this written word, which is truth. The writer says, thy word is truth. And Jesus Christ says, I am the truth. What truth? not the truth that two and two are four. But he made that truth. He made the law that makes that true. You know, there are two kinds of truth. There's truth which men can discover. You can go into a laboratory, for example, and find out that H2O is water. You can find out the components of air. You can find out what content there is in certain substances. Men can discover many truths for themselves. But those truths are material truths that have in them no value for salvation or for a change of life. Much that man thinks is true is purely false. I hear sometimes on television programs that are supposed to be educational, where men discuss evolution as if evolution were a fact. They talk about so many million years ago, some 60 million years ago, this began to develop. Now those men think themselves wise. But the Bible says, thinking themselves wise, they've become fools. A man's always a fool when he leaves God out. And any thought you have that's contrary to this blessed book is falsehood. If it doesn't conform to this word, it cannot be true. And Jesus Christ himself, who is the God who made all things and the author of all truth, himself is complete truth. He said, who convicts me of sin? No man could point a finger and say, I do. In all his life, his words were truth. He never uttered one falsehood. He will not deceive men. When he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me. He's delivering the great truth of salvation. For it's all in him. And without him, there can be no salvation. How marvelous this is. Who else could dare to make a statement like that? No man comes to God, to the Father, but by me. I'm the way. I'm the way by which you come into God's presence. I am the life, the eternal life, which brings you before God, where you shall live in his presence forever. And I'm the truth. You better believe me. There's no other way. There's no other door. There's no other means. Jesus Christ is all and in all, God in the flesh, God in atonement, God risen and alive forevermore, God atoning for our sins and rising again for our justification. And truth is all found in Him who never uttered a false word. He made all. He is all. He sustains all. and he's eternal love. He doesn't talk about love here, but the whole thing exemplifies his love. It's because he loved us, he gave himself for us. And he went to the cross because he is the God who is the way, the truth, and the life. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for the wonder of the Lord Jesus. It's beyond our comprehension, but thank God it's not beyond our faith. And faith is stronger than all the bonds of men, and all the contracts of business, and all the treaties of nations. For faith rests upon the sure promise of God. Contracts can be broken, and treaties become scraps of paper. But the word of God is forever. Help us to trust him completely and fully. We pray it in his name. Amen.