Please turn with me in your Bibles to the Gospel according to John, chapter 2. The Gospel according to John, chapter 2, reading from verse 23 to 25, right at the end of chapter 2, verses 23 to 25. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover in the feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. And our subject this evening is divine discernment, divine discernment. Well, we continue in our series through the gospel according to John. And just to recap on what we considered last week, we looked at the zeal, the zeal of the Lord Jesus Christ as he saw the temple in Jerusalem, being used in the wrong way, being used as a marketplace. And not just a marketplace, a marketplace of extortion. They were extorting people. And it was a place where money was being worshipped and profit was being worshipped. And this was not right, of course, in the temple. This was not right at all. This was greatly dishonoring to the Lord. And so we see the zeal of the Lord, the strong and fierce zeal of the Lord. He drove out all the money changers, all out of the temple, and the sheep and the oxen poured out the changers' money over through the tables. This was the zeal of the Lord, zeal for the purity of the temple, zeal for pure religion, sincere religion. And this is, of course, a zeal that we ought to imitate in our lives for the church, of course, for the things of God, not for worldly things, not for the things of this world. So often we see unbelievers in the world and they show incredible zeal. for their worldly pursuits and their worldly schemes, for things that don't matter at all, how much energy and effort they will expend for those temporal things that ultimately do not matter, how much more we ought to have zeal for things that do matter. and that have eternal significance, the things of God. And this is our zeal. Our zeal is for spiritual things, to keep the church pure, to keep worldly things out of the church, and to keep ourselves pure. Well, that was something we mentioned, to keep ourselves pure. Christ purified the temple in Jerusalem, we too, We are a temple of the Holy Ghost, each and every believer, a temple of the Holy Spirit. We must have a zeal to keep ourselves pure and to purify ourselves, a real zeal, fighting against sin, not half-hearted, weak efforts, but a fiery zeal, like unto the Lord. to keep ourselves holy. And of course, we must therefore pray that the Lord gives us that zeal. This is a great prayer for us, that the Lord will give us the zeal of Christ. Place that zeal in us in every sense. And that was just what we looked at last week, just to recap. But this evening, We will look at the very end of chapter 2. Now of course the temptation was to perhaps not even look in any great depth at these verses. It would have been very easy to just move on to chapter 3 or just acknowledge these verses very briefly at the end of chapter 2. But there is actually quite a lot for us to ponder and to meditate upon in these verses much to apply from these verses that are helpful and challenging and important for us to remember as Christians and as a church because these words They remind us why we do the things that we do and why we approach certain matters in the way that we do. There is scriptural warrant here. There is an example here for us to follow. This example that I have called this evening of divine discernment. I will read these three verses just to begin with, and then we can begin to consider them together this evening and to apply them. So from verse 23, now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover in the feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did, but Jesus did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men. And need it not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. So that is the passage here, right at the very end of chapter two. And what is being presented to us, just to mention the context, that the Lord is in Jerusalem, of course, at the Passover, that feast day, remembering the Exodus from Egypt. And during his time in Jerusalem, and perhaps even on the feast day itself, the Lord has been performing miracles. This is what we read. Many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did. And we assume that these consisted mostly of acts of healing, healing miracles in Jerusalem during the Passover. And therefore many believed in his name when they saw the miracles that he did. Now that all sounds very good. The Lord is working miracles. Many are believing in his name. Sounds very good and promising until we read the next part. Until we read the next verse. And we read of the response of the Lord Jesus to these people. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them. Because he knew all men and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. And this is how the Lord responded to those who we read believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did. That's how he responded. This is perhaps surprising when we read this. This is surprising when we read that Jesus did not commit himself unto them. And those words really, what do they mean? Jesus did not commit himself unto them. In other words, he did not trust himself with these people. He did not embrace or acknowledge them as true believers. He did not add any of these people to his own group of disciples. He did not entrust himself to them in that way. He did not receive them into close intimacy with him. That's what it means. Jesus did not commit himself unto them. And well, the question is, why not? Why not? Why did Jesus not commit himself unto them? Well, we have the answer, because he knew all men. That's the answer that is given. He did not commit himself to them because he knew all men. And well, of course, this is something that we all know about God, and let us just start thinking about it in this way, very basic and simple. This is the most basic thing we know about God is that he knows us. He knows everything about us. He knows everything we do. He knows our movements, all that we do in a day, all that we do in public, all that we do in private. He knows us. He knows our thoughts. We read that earlier in the gospel according to Mark. We read how the Jews were They were reasoning in their hearts. They were saying, who can forgive sins but God only? And they weren't saying this out loud. This was in their hearts. These were their thoughts, but God could see them. The Lord could see these things. He knew their thoughts. He knows the thoughts of every one of us. He knows our dreams. He knows our ambitions. He knows our secrets. The Lord knew all men. And this is, of course, a very simple teaching about the Lord. But he knows these things, of course, without us having to tell him anything. If we want to know something about somebody, well, we have to ask them and they need to tell us. They need to give us information about them. But the Lord, of course, doesn't need us to give us information to give him information about us. We read in verse 25, he needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. He doesn't need to rely on our testimony, on our giving him information about us, so then he can know about us. He already knows. He doesn't need a testimony from man. Of course, we know, don't we, that when we come to the Lord in prayer, he knows the things that we are about to ask before we even ask them. He doesn't even need that testimony. Yes, we must pray, of course, but the point is he knows these things. He knows what is in man. He knows who we are, what our identity is. We even saw this at the very end of chapter one when the Lord saw Nathanael. He already knew who Nathanael was. He said in verse 47 of chapter one, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? How do you know these things about me? I haven't met you before. I haven't given you any information about myself. How do you know this? Well, of course, the Lord, he doesn't need our testimony. He doesn't need man to inform God. He knows these things. He knows everything about us. And this is, well, this is what is being presented here. The Lord knows all men, and need it not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. So this is very basic right at the start. The Lord knows us. Whether we know him or not, it doesn't matter. He knows us and he knows, of course, our true state and standing spiritually. He knows whether we have true faith or not. And it seems to be the case here with these in Jerusalem. They do not have true faith. They do not have true faith. This is why the Lord does not commit himself unto them because they don't have true faith. Now, it does, of course, say that they believed in his name. So we can conclude that, well, these people, they highly esteemed the Lord, and they may well have been willing to see Jesus as the Messiah, to hail him as the Messiah, to declare him as such. But the Lord could see that this belief, this was something weak. This was something light or trivial. This was something superficial. It wasn't true. It wasn't sincere. And we will, of course, we see later in this gospel that there were many following the Lord who then left the Lord. Many who professed to be his disciples, but then they left him. We have John chapter six and verse 66. From that time, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. those who were his disciples so-called, those who no doubt esteemed him, those who followed him. When the Lord Jesus Christ began saying hard sayings, difficult sayings, then they stopped following him. Many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. This is the type of people who were in Jerusalem, They were willing to follow the Lord to some extent. They were willing to believe in Him to some extent, but ultimately their belief was not sincere. It was light. It was trivial. It was not true. We know at the end of the Lord's earthly ministry, we read in the gospels, don't we? How the crowds, as the Lord entered Jerusalem, they were singing praises to the Lord. They were singing Hosanna to the son of David, Hosanna in the highest. And you might say to yourself, these were all believers, these crowds of people in Jerusalem. But of course, those same crowds would later declare, crucify him, crucify him. So their belief one day has turned into unbelief. They are not true, they are not sincere. And so this is perhaps increasing our understanding of why the Lord did not commit himself unto them, because they were not true believers. They were not sincere. And we note, well, why did they believe, in inverted commas, why did they believe in his name? Well, when they saw the miracles which he did. Perhaps this was why their faith was not true, was not sincere, because the only reason they believed was because of the miracles, the miracles. Miracles are not enough for somebody to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Miracles, again, many churches perhaps are misguided in this. They believe that if you want people to come to Christ, if you want people to be converted, you have to show miracles. Well, is that true? Well, we look at passages like this, and we see that the Lord did miracles. And well, people got very excited, but they weren't sincere, they weren't true. People cannot be converted by miracles. That will only lead to a light, superficial kind of belief, but not true faith. True faith rests on what Christ has done for us on the cross. We understand, we believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, His death on the cross takes away our sins. We believe that He is the Lamb of God. We believe and we understand that when Christ died on the cross, He was taking the punishment for my sin, my scapegoat. That's what true faith is. Belief in Christ as our Savior, as our Messiah, the Lamb of God, as John the Baptist said. It's not miracles. Miracles, if anything, miracles are for believers. Now, why do I say that? Miracles are to encourage believers. When you get, for example, a miraculous answer to prayer, that's to encourage a believer. Miraculous deliverances in your life, miraculous providences in your life, That's for believers to see that the Lord is hearing your prayer, the Lord cares for you, and believers are encouraged. But they're not to convert unbelievers, not miracles. To be saved, you must believe in what Christ did on the cross. Miracles are not to convert people. And so this is why they saw the miracles, but Jesus did not commit himself unto them. They saw the miracles, they even believed in some sense. But the Lord knew, He knows. They're not true believers. They are not sincere. We have to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That is what makes true believers. And so this is what we understand. This is what we see here. True faith, faith that endures, is rooted in Christ and the cross. But what is being shown here? Well, it is the discernment of Christ. Christ is showing discernment, divine discernment. And I just want to say a few more things about this before we close, because this is how we are to conduct ourselves, most certainly concerning spiritual things. Now, we as human beings, we do not have divine discernment. But nevertheless, we learn from these verses that we are to exercise what discernment we do have. and not rush to make conclusions regarding, particularly regarding, one's spiritual state. Because we follow the example of Christ. This is, of course, why we do not have an altar call at the end of a gospel service in the morning. Some churches will, of course, call people to the front of the church. They will have many people, hundreds of people, coming to the front of the church, and then they will say, hundreds of people have been saved. We saved hundreds of people today. But dear friends, this is not in keeping with this passage. You know, people can be emotionally moved by a message. They can be emotionally moved by the occasion without truly understanding what the gospel is, without truly understanding what Christ has done. They will just come to the front. And we can't just receive them like that. We can't just entrust ourselves to them in that way. The Lord didn't do that. He did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men. Dear friends, we cannot make these light professions of faith. If people are too quick perhaps to come forward, we have to impress upon them that need for patience. We cannot fully embrace them as believers immediately because we see this example. We learn from the Lord that we need to have a discernment We need to have a more measured approach. We need to wait. We need to see how people respond to various things, respond to hard things, hard teachings, hard things in their lives, to see if they are sincere or if they will turn away. We have to show discernment. And we have to be careful, of course, with those who we take into the church as members. or any who come to us professing that they are believers. Of course nowadays people will very easily say that they are Christian and they will expect you to just to just accept that just because I've said I'm a Christian. You ought to accept that, pastor, and accept me as a member. Of course we can't, again. Jesus did not entrust himself immediately to them. He did not commit himself unto them. There has to be a measure of discernment. You have to observe that person. You have to spend time with that person. You have to see the fruits of the Holy Spirit. You can't just accept their profession of faith. I'm a Christian. Oh, well, yes, come into the church. There has to be some discernment. There does have to be questions asked because these are vital matters. And we know, we know that people can be mistaken about their spiritual state. We know that people can think they're Christian when they're not. We know these things. We know how men are. The Lord knew all men. He knew that men can be mistaken about these things. You even have to be careful, of course, with the pastor. Some people, when they see a young man who shows promise, they want to appoint him immediately. Remember what we read in the New Testament, particularly in the first letter to Timothy, not a novice. Why not a novice? Well, it's the same principle. Jesus did not commit himself unto them. You have to wait and see. Don't appoint a novice minister. Don't lay hands suddenly. Lay hands suddenly on no man, said the Apostle Paul. These are all words about discernment. So it's not just for people coming to an altar call. It goes right up to the pastor, to the minister. There has to be discernment, every aspect of church life. Don't just take people in hastily and put them in high positions of authority. You have to observe them. You have to see the true measure of their faith. Another application we can make in accordance with this, We don't hero-worship one another. We don't hero-worship one another. Now, of course, we are called to love one another. I'm not questioning that. But we do not hero-worship one another. That's something very different. What do I mean by hero-worship? Well, sometimes we can see Christians, or we meet Christians, and we can be very impressed by their zeal, by their conduct, by their gifts, by their friendliness, by their warmth, by their wisdom. And what happens? We start to hero worship them. This person is so nice. This person could never do anything wrong. This person is perfect. We start to put people on a pedestal. This person could never sin, at least not sin seriously. We start to hero worship people. That is not healthy because we ought to know what men are like, what all men are like. Again, these words, the Lord knew all men. He knew all men. What do we know about men? Well, the Bible even teaches us. that even the best of men can fall. Even the best of men can fall. We know that the heart of man is desperately wicked. We believe, or we ought to believe, we say we believe, in total depravity, because it's a biblical teaching. We believe in total depravity, that man is not good at heart. Man has a sinful heart, but sometimes, Sometimes we act as though we believe the opposite, we believe that men are good, or people are good, and they would never do this, or they would never do that. So we believe one thing, we believe in total depravity, but we act as though, oh there are people in the church, they never do anything wrong. But we ought to be like the Lord. We know all men. We ought to have a knowledge of these things that is revealed to us in the Bible, that's even revealed to us in true life. We all have an experience of how we thought people were one way, good and upright, and yet they weren't. We ought to know all men and not just worship people blindly. These are the principles here, discernment. Yes, we love one another, but let us not think that any one of us are incapable of falling, incapable of falling into sin, or even grave sin. We must know ourselves, we must know all men. Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. But dear friends, one final point just to make, and perhaps this is to end on a positive. What we learn from this passage is that it is only the assessment of Christ that matters. It's only the assessment of Christ that matters. We know at the very end of time, I won't turn to it now, we're running out of time, but we know at the very end of time, there will be many who go to the Lord saying, Lord, Lord. Did I not do this in thy name, and do this wonderful work in thy name, and do that wonderful work in thy name? They will give their testimony, they will testify. But what do we read here? The Lord needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. At the end of time, many will say, Lord, haven't I been good? Haven't I done this? The Lord will say, depart from me. I never knew you. He knows what is in man, you can't fool him. It's only the Lord's testimony, the Lord's assessment of us that really counts. But then it can work the other way also, can't it? Because we as true believers, those of us here who are true believers, sometimes we feel that we have fallen out of God's favor. Sometimes we feel that we perhaps have sinned so badly that God could never love us, and God will forget all about us, and we're not going to heaven at all. Sometimes, well, we may have a testimony, but we find ourselves in such a low estate that we can't even declare our faith. We can't even declare our faith to Christ. But in those low times and in those low situations, well, remember that the Lord knows. The Lord knows those who are His. Even if we are so low, we can't even articulate our faith. The Lord doesn't need our testimony. He doesn't need us to testify of our faith, to show how strong we are spiritually. The Lord will know. The Lord will know if you believe in Christ, if you trust in Christ, if you trust in his shed blood, if you believe that he died for you, the Lord will know. He doesn't need to see your strength of prayer. He doesn't need your testimony. Yes, we have a testimony, but your salvation doesn't depend on a testimony. It depends on Christ's assessment of you. He looks upon the heart. He sees whether you have faith or whether you don't have faith. And that will be what matters the most. So this, well, we can use it, perhaps I've used it negatively in some ways, but it's also a blessing to us that when we are so low that we cannot see straight spiritually, the Lord knows. The Lord knows who you are, the Lord knows his own. So these are the verses just right at the end of chapter two, verses that are important and that explain so much of why we do the things that we do.