From Greenville, South Carolina, we present, Let the Bible Speak. Let the Bible Speak is the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America, preaching Christ in all His fullness. Thank you for joining us today. This is Alan Kearns with you once again, welcoming you to Let the Bible Speak. It's good to have you listening in, and I trust you'll stay with us for the rest of this 30-minute segment, as today we continue our studies in the life of Christ. This week, our theme, the Lord Jesus Christ as He revealed Himself to Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews. in that famous interview in which the Lord Jesus said, ye must be born again. It's a fascinating revelation that the Lord Jesus gave of himself and we'll be pursuing that in today's broadcast. But first it's time for our daily commentary, our hot topic for the day. I call today's hot topic, sodomite madness. In Washington State, the sodomite lobby has begun the process of introducing a ballot measure attacking heterosexual marriage. Responding to what they call social conservatives, who oppose same-sex marriage on the grounds that marriage is divinely ordained for the procreation of children, the sodomite lobby is demanding a. that people prove that they're capable of having children, before being granted a marriage license, and b, that married couples actually produce a child within three years of marriage. Otherwise, the state should declare their marriage annulled and unrecognized. At first, this seems a frivolous attempt to prove that if non-productive heterosexual marriages may be recognized by the state, then so may non-productive same-sex marriages. The point being claimed is that procreation doesn't enter into the debate. Sadly, this will not ultimately prove frivolous, and sooner or later, some zealots somewhere will push it through. Now here's the rub. If we allow sodomites and their supporters to define the debate in their terms, they can win by an appeal to, quotes, fairness. In a land that has more and more repudiated any explicitly Christian or even religious basis for its social policy, the usual way of opposing same-sex marriage is pragmatic. For example, marriage is meant to produce children. Therefore, same-sex marriage cannot produce children, cannot be treated as marriage at all. That's true, but it leaves the door open. for the kind of attack that's being mounted in Washington. The solid ground for opposing same-sex marriage is that marriage is a divine, not merely a human, institution, and that God our Creator has determined it to be heterosexual in nature. Any time we seek a solid basis for moral action in humanistic pragmatism, we will feel the only true basis for moral and therefore social purity is the law of God and the gospel of His grace. That is solid rock. As a famous Irishman said, all other rocks are sham rock. I am upon His throne, Touched now by every earth and ground, So music that is old. Awake, my soul, and sing Of Him who died for me, And with thee have I pledged my faith to all eternity. In the virgin sky, like God incarnate. Whose on the springs of truth is love, Krishna is bravado. Root of the mystic rose, as of that rose was dead. O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? of life, behold his hands and sighs, those wounds yet visible are marked in beauty glorified. O angel in the sky, and holy death at sight, O dawn of empty priming eye, and mystery so bright. Crown Him the Lord of peace, Whose pow'r our scepters raise, from bone to bone, That would make Caesar to be proud and praise. His reign shall no more end, And round it fierce and fierce, The throes of paradise extend, Their fragrance ever sweet. God is the Lord of peace, of fortunes and of times. He reigns far above the living spirits, He is the peace of life, Lord, have mercy on us. You're listening to Let the Bible Speak, coming to you from Greenville, South Carolina, the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America. I trust that you have already ordered your Let the Bible Speak quarterly magazine. We have a wonderful variety of subjects in this particular issue on the Psalms, including the Imprecatory Psalms, the 119th Psalm, the Shepherd's Psalm. You'll find much here that will be a blessing to you. Many articles, good writers, good devotional, much instruction. All these things are yours free of charge in the Let the Bible Speak quarterly magazine. At the back page you'll also be able to read of our worldwide programming schedule and that will enable you to pray for us. So, write to us for your copy of the LTBS quarterly at Let The Bible Speak 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, South Carolina 29615 or you may email us at ltbs at freeprez freeprez.org or you may call us toll free 1-866-877-LTBS 1-866-877-5827. We look forward to hearing from you. Jesus, wondrous Savior, Christ of kings the King, angels fall before Thee, prostrate worshipping. They confess thee in the heaven above. We would sing thee fairest here in hymns of love. All earth's flowing pleasures were a wintry sea, Heaven itself, without thee, dark as night would be. Lamb of God, thy glory is the light above. Lamb of God, thy glory is thy light of love. Life is death if severed from thy throbbing heart. Death to life abundance at thy touch would start. Worlds and men and angels all consist in Thee, yet Thou camest to us in humility. Jesus, all perfections rise and end in thee, brightness of God's glory thou eternally. favored beyond measure, vain I face to see. May we, gracious Savior, share this ecstasy. And now we return to John's Gospel, Chapter 3. We're looking at how the Lord Jesus revealed himself to Nicodemus. Yesterday I started by making the point that he made great claims for himself. We spent some time looking at how he described himself as the only begotten Son of God and what that term entails. Now we go on to another great self-description of Christ. He is the Son of Man. Now, here you come to the greatest mystery in the universe. That's a big statement, for there are mysteries in the universe. By the way, just to make you think a little bit, I like people to come and wake up and think a little. When I say the greatest mystery in the universe, the mystery of the Trinity is not a mystery in the universe. The universe is God's creation, and God is greater than His creation. The mysteries of the universe are things that happened in time. God has done things I can't understand. But let me tell you, the greatest mystery of them all is how God, the blessed, eternal, only begotten Son, should become the Son of Man. That makes everything else peel into almost comprehensible limits when you think how great that is. Son of God, the only begotten of the Father, yet the Son of Man, true deity and true humanity. And He's telling us, therefore, as God and man in two distinct natures, but one indivisible person forever. He is the perfect and only saviour and mediator between God and man. In the light of that, he makes it clear, verses 11 and 12, that he is heaven's authoritative witness on earth. He said to Nicodemus, verily, verily, I say unto thee, we speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness. It's always a perplexing thing as to why here the Lord Jesus lapses into the plural in all the verses around. He speaks in the singular, I, I, I, but here in this verse for some reason He goes into the plural without trying to solve the grammatical reasons. I think really there is, because of the subject material, And also because in dealing with the witness, he is showing that he is the mouth of God, he is the Word of God. He and the Father and the Spirit bear one united witness. He is using of himself a plural that denotes dignity. And he's saying, verily, verily. Sometime we'll do a series on the verily, verilies of Christ. Truly, truly. Amen, amen. By the way, What is that word? It's in the name of Christ. Revelation 3.14, He is the Amen. He is the Amen. And He is... What is He doing here? Compare this with Hebrews chapter 6. He is swearing by Himself because He can swear by none greater. That is the mark of deity. Only God can do that. Anybody but God doing that makes Himself an utter fool and blasphemer. But the Lord Jesus being God, truly God, can say using His own name and title, Amen, Amen, I say unto you, we speak what we know. When God speaks, it's never a theory. That's why I don't like it. I understand good men use this, and they don't mean anything ill by it, but I don't like it. There's something in my gut that rejects this when they talk about God's concept of sin. God does not deal in concepts. A concept by its very nature is a relative term. It is limited in our thinking by our abilities to conceive. Now, it could be argued, since God's abilities are unlimited, His conceptions are truth. But why use a word that is so trammeled about with man's relative ignorance and apply it to God? God doesn't deal in concepts. God deals in flat-out truth. Let's understand that. God deals out of absolute knowledge. We speak that we do know. Furthermore, the Lord Jesus says, and testify what we have seen. That must have blown Nicodemus away completely. We're testifying what we've seen. Remember where this comes in. He says a little earlier, the wind blows where it wishes. blows where it wants to. It doesn't say you don't know the direction of the wind, but it's saying this, you hear the sound. You may even now in these days get a chief meteorologist who can trace its course. But he doesn't know where it comes from and he doesn't know where it goes to. And that's as true today as ever. Look at all these mysteries of this mighty universe. I'm here to tell you the things that we know and the things that we have seen. These are the earthly things. If I were to go on and tell you heavenly things, how could you or would you believe? I'm the witness of heaven and earth. I am the omnipresent Christ. Do you see that? Where was Jesus when He said these words? He was standing there in Jerusalem. But He said, I came down from heaven. And I am even now in heaven, even while I'm standing here talking to you in Jerusalem. The omnipresent Christ. Oh, this is the Savior revealing Himself. He says, I'm your authoritative witness. You come to me as a ruler of the Jews. You come with all your learning in the law. You know what Rabbi this and Rabbi the other thing has thought and said? But I come with absolute truth. And then he ascends to the greatest height of revelation ever given on earth. And he says, I am the gift of the Father's love to a perishing world. And what Luther called the little Bible, the greatest single text of Scripture ever written, surely the most potent words that ever have been formed in any language. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Christ is saying, I am the Father's gift of love to the world. And as such, I am the proper object of faith. Verse 15, he speaks of believing in the Son of Man. Verse 16, he speaks of believing in the Son of God. Verse 18 again, he says, he that believeth on Him is not condemned. He is the proper object of faith, because He is truly God manifested in the flesh. He is the Savior of sinners from ruin, and He's the bringer of eternal life. That's what He's saying. Now, in the light of all that, He teaches Nicodemus here that all who refuse to believe in Him are already under the condemnation and the judgment of God. Verse 18. Now why would that be? Because, verse 19, light has come into the world. Now understand this, it's true the whole world lieth in darkness. That's the world. That's its natural state. But just as in Genesis 1 we read, the darkness was upon the face of the deep, and God said, let there be light, and there was light. So now, in redemptive history, we have the very same thing in the new creation. Darkness was upon the face of the deep, and God said, let there be light, as we read in John's Gospel, chapter 1. And in verse 5, verse 4, in him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. You see, light has come into the world. What is light? Light is the perfect revelation of God's truth. Light is the embodiment of all God's personal perfections. and it has come into the world in the person of Jesus Christ. I want you to get the force of this. Some people don't like it when preachers preach this way, but I want to tell you, it just happens to be true because the Son of God said it was true. The refusal of any sinner to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is not because of lack of clarity in the evidence, It's not because the revelation is not plain. It is not because the invitation is not sincere. It is not because the grace is not available. The reason why sinners do not believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ is, according to Christ, the darkness and the depravity and the wickedness of their own heart that there is sin that they're hanging on to. They love their sin and they're willing to reject light for darkness. They're willing to reject life for death. They're willing to hang on to their own wickedness. and pay the price and say goodbye to Christ. That's what the Lord Jesus teaches in verse 19 through verse 21. And thus, the reality and the honesty of a man's profession. To be interested in divine truth, as Nicodemus was expressing an interest to be Interested in divine truth is tested by this. Not how much theology can he understand. Not how deeply can he get into the Hebrew or Greek text. But does he come or does he not come to Jesus Christ? Simple as that. No man is seriously interested in getting rid of his sin if he is not willing to come to Christ. That's what Jesus says. It's not my invention. That's what Jesus says. You've been listening to Let the Bible Speak, the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America. I hope that you found today's broadcasting a blessing to your heart. If you'd like to email us, our email address is ltbs at freepres.org. Or if you'd prefer, you may write us at LetTheBibleSpeak 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, South Carolina 29615. We would love to hear from you. If you'd like to know how to be saved and how to be sure you're saved, we'd like to send you my booklet, A New Beginning, and I think that you'll find it very helpful. Each quarter we publish a free full-color magazine, Let the Bible Speak Quarterly, with a good variety of Bible teaching and testimony. It's available to all who request it. If you'd like to receive more information about the Free Presbyterian Church of North America and its ministry, we'd like to send you our booklet, Separated Unto the Gospel. Or if you'd like to have tape or CD copies of the messages here in Let the Bible Speak, you may have them by contacting us. Or you may visit us on the web at letthebiblespeakradio.com. Now that's a lot of information to digest all at once, but you can find it all on our website, LetTheBibleSpeakRadio.com. There you'll be able to listen to and download our programs, visit our online bookstore, and read a text version of each day's commentary. So visit us today at LetTheBibleSpeakRadio.com. This is Alan Kern saying, thank you for listening. I trust that you'll join us each day at this time, Monday through Friday, as we let the Bible speak.