Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, for your word. The entirety of it is true. As we read it now and preach it, we pray we'll hear with faith and hope and love that you will save the lost in our midst, restore the backslider, and build us all up in your ways. For Jesus' sake we pray, amen. Please take your seats. If you'll turn with me please in your copy of the Word of God to John's Gospel and chapter 12, we're coming now to the end of the book of signs in John's Gospel and the end of Christ's public teaching ministry. Please listen carefully, this is the Word of God. When Jesus had said these things, John 12, verse 36, he departed and hid himself from them. Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him. So that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled, Lord, who has believed what he heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore, they could not believe. For again, Isaiah said, he has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart and turn. And I would heal them. Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. Nevertheless, many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue. For they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. And Jesus cried out and said, whoever believes in me, believes not in me, but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me, sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge. The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me. Amen. The grass withers and the flower falls off. But the Word of God endures forever. Well, the Gospel of John has one resounding theme, and that is the glory of Jesus Christ. From the very beginning, when John says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word, literally, and all things came into being. And apart from Him, nothing has come into being that has come into being. John is telling you that Christ is the most significant, the most glorious being that has ever or will ever exist. In our passage today, he says that Isaiah spoke this prophecy in verse 41 because he saw his glory and spoke of him, spoke of Jesus. When Isaiah was in that in the temple, in that fateful year that King Uzziah died, and he saw the heavens opened, and he saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, surrounded by those blazing, burning, angelic intelligences, the seraphim, the burning ones, created to live in the incandescent, fiery glory of God, and to live there, unconsumed. And he saw those seraphim look at Jesus And they could not bear the sight of His glory, had to cover their faces with their wings to shield their angelic retinas from the blaze of the glory of God in Christ Jesus. An awesome thing. And John is telling you that glory was the glory of Christ. It was Him I saw in the glory all those years ago. The glory of Christ. If there's one theme in Christ's gospel and John's gospel, there's one purpose, that you would believe in Him, that you would put your trust in Him. You remember how John tells us at the end of the gospel, now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you might believe that He is the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in his name. The goal of the gospel, John's gospel, is faith in the glory of Jesus Christ. The word faith, the verb to believe, occurs over 100 times, 101 times to be exact, in John's gospel. That's three times more than Matthew, Mark, and Luke's gospel. They all have about 30 times where the word or the verb believe occurs in John 101. In this chapter, John uses the word to believe more times than in any other chapter in his gospels, 10 times in this chapter. He speaks of faith in Christ, believing in him. That's his goal. That's His purpose as He comes to a climactic crescendo at the end of Christ's public ministry. And I wonder this morning, are you believing in Jesus Christ? Have you entrusted your soul to Christ? I know most of you have, but have all of you trusted Him? Are you trusting Him with your soul? Are you trusting Him with your sins? Are you trusting Him for your salvation? Are you trusting Him through time and for eternity? That's the great question. Now as John is so concerned about faith and unbelief in his gospel, it's interesting to note here as he comes to the end of the teaching of Christ in John's gospel, he gives you a window into what you might call the psychology of unbelief. Why is it that most people in Christ's day, and why is it that most people in our own day do not yet trust Christ? That's the question that John is asking from our text this morning. And as is so often the case with human beings, our decisions have layers to them. Like when you fall in love with a girl or with a boy, and you want to get married, your decision has layers. You fall in love with their personality. You enjoy talking with them, laughing with them, doing life with them. You fall in love with their character. You sense, this is a person I can trust. You fall in love with their faith, their godliness, that they're committed to the same God as you're committed to, and you love the way they want to glorify God with their lives. And of course, you fall in love with their being. You look at them, and they are fair in your eyes. There are layers to your commitment to your marriage partner. Well, there are layers, too, when it comes to our commitment to God and our faith in Him or our decision to remain in unbelief. In our passage, we'll see this morning that there are three layers John highlights. First of all, there's the intellectual layer. If you're to believe in Jesus, you've got to understand the gospel. and entrust yourself to the Savior, it reveals. Secondly, there's a social layer. We'll see in our text there are people who have a form of faith, but it's really unbelief. They kind of believe in Jesus, but not enough to totally commit to them, him, and to risk rejection from the Jewish establishment. The fear of becoming a social outcast holds them back in unbelief. There's a social element to unbelief and to faith. And lastly, we'll see there's also a theological element. If we're to come to faith in Christ, we need the arm of the Lord to be revealed to us. If that doesn't happen, we'll always remain in unbelief. And unbelief is a terrible thing. It's a hardening vice. It tends to get worse with time. And it can become so bad in a person's life that you can get to a place where you're no longer able to believe. If you're here this morning and you don't yet believe in Jesus, I want to encourage you to think that through. You might be saying, well, you know, I'm going to hold on to unbelief for a while, but I'll let go of it eventually. That's a dangerous and fatal mistake. Unbelief is like super glue. I was fixing a refrigerator recently. A little plastic piece had come off the top of it, and I used super glue. And you get the tube, and you squeeze it along the top of the thing you want to stick, and you put the broken thing back on, and you hold it tight, right? And you hold it tight for 15 seconds to a minute, and then you can let it go. And that takes another 24 hours, it says, to fully cure. But as you hold that thing in place, it gradually hardens, it gradually sticks, and leave it there long enough, and it can become all but impossible to remove it. Well, if you persist in unbelief, you need to realize that unbelief is like superglue to your soul. It'll stick to you, and the longer you hold onto it, the harder it'll be to let go of it and to come to faith. And you can get to a place, like these Jews, where faith is no longer possible. And so if you mean to go to heaven when you die, then resolve to trust Christ today before it is too late. Let's work through the text together this morning as God helps us. First of all, I want you to see the intellectual dimension of faith. And you'll see it there in verse 40. And we'll deal with the first phrases of verse 40 in a second. But notice he says, he's speaking about Isaiah from Isaiah 6. He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart. Last, They see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them." Now you see there, there's progress. Coming to faith involves seeing something. Something of the gospel. We'll get to that in a second. Then seeing it, realizing it's true, understanding it, not just with your mind, but with your whole inner being, your heart, that's everything behind your eyes when you close them. The darkness in your brain, in your being, where the real you exists. You understand it at the depth of your being, and then that understanding brings a turning, a turning from sin, a turning to God. And then, God heals you. But it begins as you see and understand something in your mind. What is it that we are to see? Well, Isaiah, if you look at verse 41 in chapter 12, John tells you what he wants you to see. Isaiah said these things because he saw, same word, his glory and spoke of him. It's not so much a message that God wants you to see. He wants you to see his son and his glory and to trust in him. And the word glory, of course, means weightiness, significance. What is it that makes Christ so weighty and so significant? Well, John will tell you. If you look at the end of the passage, John tells you that when you're trusting Jesus, you're putting your trust in the Son that has been sent into the world by God. Verse 44, Jesus cried out and said, whoever believes in me, believes not in me, but in him who sent me. That Christ didn't just arise as a holy teacher all by himself, a rabbi. No, he was sent from another world into this world. He was sent by God, the creator of the universe. And he was sent so that you would believe in him. We said in our Christmas Eve sermon, God could have sent nobody dearer, his son, Nobody greater, the one who is the heir of all things. Christ owns everything and everyone in the universe. You could have sent nobody wiser. Through whom? Through Christ. God made the worlds. Christ is the genius behind the world that you inhabit this morning. You could have sent nobody clearer. He is the radiance of his glory, the exact representation of his nature. What is God like? He's just like Christ. What would God look like if he became a man? Exactly the way God did look when he became a man. And in Christ we see a visible man-sized picture of the very nature of God. We see his heart, his eyes, looking out at a lost world and pitying the world as men and women and boys and girls who have no shepherd to care for them. You see his arms reaching out to that world, a lost world, gathering in the last and the lost and the least. Men like Matthew, the tax collector, an outcast despised by the Jews but loved by Christ and received to table fellowship. We see His hands gathering the little boys and girls up into His bosom and carrying them and blessing them, His hands touching the leper, His hand touching the dead body outside, and the corpse, and bringing it back to life. There's no one too dirty, no one too insignificant that God in Christ is not willing to touch this morning. He's willing to touch any. even the leper, which means he's willing to touch you this morning. We hear his voice raising the dead, stilling the storm, and speaking to the cripple being led down but from the ceiling. Son, your sins are forgiven you. All of those are a revelation to you of the character of God's Son, and therefore the character of God himself. For when you look to Jesus, you see the face of God, and it's the face of a father. Christ has been sent by God, and he's been sent to give you a picture of God. Whoever sees me, Jesus says, sees him who sent me. When you look at me, Jesus says, you see the one who sent me. You see God himself in his glory. And also, Jesus says, when you hear me, you hear the very voice of God. Verse 49, for I have not spoken on my own authority, but the father who sent me has himself given me a commandment what to say and what to speak. And I know that His commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me. Christ speaks only the words of God. He speaks all of the words of God. And he summarizes the word, the commandment that God has spoken him to say is eternal life. Sum up the teaching of Christ. What's he saying to you? This way to life, young lad. This way to life, young lass, young girl. Come to me and I will give you life, life in all of its fullness. in all of its glory. Do you see that? Do you understand that? That you're in such a messed up state, you and I, that we need someone to bring us to God, to show us God, and to die in our place before God, which would be the rest of John's gospel, as he unpacks that. Are you believing in him? Are you trusting me, Jesus says? The intellectual aspect, you've got to understand the gospel. Know it, know it's true, and then trust yourself to it. See, understand, and turn. Have you turned from your sins to God? If you haven't, you've never really understood the gospel. The intellectual element of faith. and unbelief. In the second place, we see that unbelief in faith has a social dimension as well. And you see that there in verse 42. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in Jesus, but for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it so that they would not be put out of the synagogue. For they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. And we see here there's a kind of faith that is not faith. They kind of believe, they're like the people in John 2, you remember when John says, now when Christ was in Jerusalem at the Passover, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. They believed in Christ, but Christ didn't believe in them. They didn't have real faith. And these Jews here don't have real faith, and you know that because their faith doesn't impel them to really close with Christ, because they fear man more than they fear God. But for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it so that they would not be put out of the synagogue. It's a terrifying thing. for men to reject you. We all know that, especially in our early years. I heard a 102-year-old lady once say, what's the best thing about being 102? And she said, no peer pressure. But we all know what peer pressure is like. You do something, you wear something, you say something, and all the people in your school think, he's a real dweeb. It's kind of embarrassing, and it feels awful to be rejected by men. And there are some people who allow that fear to stop them from ever closing with Christ. I knew a man once who was a frat boy in college, and he came to Christ. And he told his friends at the frat house, I'm sorry, I can't drink with you anymore, and I'm not going to hook up with girls with you anymore. And the moment he said that, everything changed. They kicked him out of the flat house. He walked away. He walked away from them because of his determination to walk toward God. And remember, there's two sides. You're rejected by man, and they will reject you because these are the people who rejected Christ. You walk away from man, but you're received by Christ. Maybe you're here this morning and you're frightened of coming out as a Christian for fear that you'll be rejected. And you will be rejected. The world that hates Christ will not love you if you love Christ. But remember, there are both sides of the scales. I want you to think this through, young person this morning, or older person. On the one hand of the scales, you've got the men rejecting you. Terrible. But on the other hand of the scales, other side of the scales, you have something much worse, God rejecting you. If man rejecting you is painful, and it is, what will it not be like if the maker of all men reject you? When Christ comes in the glory of the Father, with His holy angels. Think both sides of the equation through. You can see the rejection of men now. You can feel it. But don't let that buy your soul with golden handcuffs to keep you away from Christ. Because if you receive them, God will reject you in the last day. If you're ashamed of me and of my words, Christ says, of you, I will be ashamed when I come in the glory of my Father with the holy angels. There's a cost of following Christ. It's worth it when you look at the big picture, but there's a cost. And I will not deny that cost, but it's a cost that's worth taking. And Jesus says, if I will face the rejection of the world and the rejection of my Father to buy your soul, when I was put on the cross and everyone, even my Father, rejected me because I became your sin, if I'll do that for you, will you not face the rejection of the world for me? And thirdly, we see this morning, there's a theological dimension to faith. What I mean by that is, we can't come to faith by ourselves. We are responsible to believe the gospel, and John himself here is flabbergasted that these people are not receiving Christ. Though he had done so many signs before them, numerous signs, John only records seven, The turning of the water into wine in Cana, John 2. The healing of the official man's son, John 4. John 5, when he healed the paralytic crippled for 38 years. John 6, Christ fed the 5,000. Walked on the water. John 9, he heals the blind man, born blind. John 11, he raises Lazarus from the dead. Some scholars say that walking on the water wasn't a sign, he didn't do it before the crowds. They prefer having the resurrection of Christ as the last climactic sign. Whoever you slice or dice it, John records seven perfect signs to show the perfect glory of Christ the Savior, confirming the great seven I am sayings that litter the gospel. These people saw the signs. Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe. And John is shocked. Isaiah was shocked. Lord, who has believed what he heard from us? He can't believe. Why are they not listening? But he adds the second phrase. And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? To come to faith, you've got to put your trust in the message and the Christ it reveals. But you also have to receive the revelation of the arm of God. His saving power has got to come into your soul. As we said in Titus 3, he has saved us not on the basis of deeds that we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's got to come upon you to bring life to your dead soul. That's what we are before we come to Christ. We're dead, not just sick, but dead in our souls. And we need the regenerating power of God's arm to come into our hearts. And these Jews hadn't received it. They'd not believed. But they'd also not been born again. hadn't felt the power of the arm of the Lord revealed into their souls. Look at verse 39, therefore they could not believe. Could not. They were no longer able to come to faith. For again, Isaiah said, he has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart and turn and I would heal them. that God had, in judgment, rewarded their unbelief with everlasting blindness and hardness. He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart. There's a lot to explain there. I can't really explain it. There's man's response. These aren't blank slates that God is blinding and hardening. These are people who are refusing, stubbornly refusing to believe, resisting the Holy Spirit. And so God eventually gets to a place where he adds his amen to their unbelief and leaves them blind in it and hardened in it forever, no longer able to believe. Therefore, they could not believe. An irrevocable hardness comes upon them. The door of gospel mercy closes and they're trapped forever. And I say that to you this morning, because if you're here this morning, maybe you're thinking, I'm going to hold on to my unbelief for a while, and then maybe later when I've sown my wild oats at college and so forth, then I'll come to faith in Christ. That's dangerous. Remember the super glue analogy. The longer you hold on to unbelief, the harder it is to let go of it. and you may tempt God to give you over to an everlasting hardness." As the Puritans would say, the same wax, the same sun, sorry, that softens the wax hardens the clay. Come to Christ. Maybe you're saying, if I saw a sign, then I'd believe. These people saw signs, they didn't believe. A friend of mine died yesterday, a young girl in her 30s, three young children, married to Patrick, and Joy had breast cancer, fought it all year, and succumbed to it yesterday morning. And she was joy by name and joy by grace. I've never seen such a joyful Christian experience cancer. The day before she died, she was witnessing to her uncle-in-law, pleading with him to come to Christ, saying to him, tomorrow, or soon, I will be in eternity. And soon, you'll be there with me. Do you have sin? And he went, yes. Have you trusted Christ? He had no answer. Now, we'll be burying her on Thursday as God spares us. But if at her funeral, she was raised from the dead, maybe you'd say, if I saw her raised from the dead, then I'd believe these people saw Lazarus raised from the dead. I didn't believe. You'd find yourself saying, oh, maybe she wasn't really dead. Maybe she was just comatosed, almost dead, a near-death experience. But you'd find a reason to explain it away. Look at the world around you. You're surrounded by an everyday miracle. Let's say you said to God, let's say you lived in a dark universe on a black, dark, dusty space rock. And you said, God, I'll believe in you if you make a universe, make the sun in the heavens, fill the cosmos with stars, build a beautiful planet shrouded with the seas. and with grass and trees and shrubbery and birds singing the morning chorus, and little beasties swimming in the seas, little fish and mighty whales, and surround me with other human beings made in your image so I can know what you're like. God's done all that. Where do you think the world came from? But still you don't believe. At the end of John's gospel, you'll find Thomas, where all Thomas is at heart, Thomas said, I will not believe unless I see. And he saw Jesus and he believed. And then Jesus says, blessed are those who have believed and have not seen. How can you believe and not see Jesus in the flesh? Jesus says, or John adds the addendum after that verse, how can a man believe and not see? And John, it's after that verse that John tells you, explaining the famous purpose of his gospel that I read to you. How can a man believe and, how can a man see without, or believe without seeing? Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe. that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in His name. How do you believe without seeing signs and miracles? By trusting the authority of the message that Christ has brung into this world. Leaning on Him, trusting Him as your Savior. Let me say one last thing before we close. Jesus says in John 12, 48, the one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge. The word that I've spoken will judge him on the last day. The word Christ has spoken, the word you've heard this morning, it'll be enough for God to sentence you to hell forever if you've not trusted Jesus. Think about that. There's coming a last day. There are so many momentous days in our world. Christmas day, New Year's day, birthdays. But there's a much more momentous day. There's a last day coming when the gospel will stop and judgment will begin. When all of the markets of the world will stop. The sun will stop rising in the morning. The moon will stop rising in the evening. The birds will stop singing the hymns of the morning chorus at the dawn. When children will stop being born and men and women will stop dying. And Christ will return and the graves will open and the dead will rise. And then judgment will begin. Oh, my young brother, my young sister, my old brother, my old sister, would you join our faith? This room is full of men and women and boys and girls who have trusted this great Savior. He's commanding you today. He's not just offering you life. The commandment the Father has given me is eternal life. He's commanding you to come to life. And if you come, He'll not cast you out. He'll save you, He'll wash you, He'll cleanse you, He'll renew you, He'll lead you, and He'll keep you through time and through death. And when like joy you breathe your last, He will take you home to God because He's come to give dead sinners everlasting life. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word this morning. I thank you for its power. I thank you most of all for the Christ it reveals. Help us trust him this morning. For his name's sake we pray. Amen.