Let us turn to the Gospel of John and we'll turn to the 5th chapter, the 31st verse and read to the end of the chapter. John 5.31-47. Beginning to read now, hear now the very word of the Lord. If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There's another who bears witness of me and I know that the witness which he witnesses of me is true. You have sent to John and he has borne witness to the truth. Yet I do not receive testimony from man, but I say these things that you may be saved. He was the burning and shining lamp and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light. But I have a greater witness than John's for the works which the Father has given me to finish, the very works that I do bear witness of me, and the Father has sent me. And the Father himself who sent me has testified of me. You have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his form, but you do not have his word abiding in you, because whom he sent, him you do not believe. You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, And these are they which testify of me. But you are not willing to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive honor from men. But I know you that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in my father's name. You do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, him you will receive. How can you believe? who receive honor from one another and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God. Do not think that I accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, Moses, in whom you trust. For if you received Moses, you would believe me. For he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" May the Lord bless this reading. to our good understanding. I love some of these passages in John. They are so thoughtful regarding the coming of the Messiah. These Gospel writings that have to do with our Lord, they're like theological lessons here in this fifth chapter. Last week we saw how important the Son was in terms of His voice. and the fact that life would come through his word. And we had a sermon on the greatness of a reformed doctrine of the Word of God. And it flowed so wonderfully from the lips of Christ who spoke. It was like a theological lecture on the idea of the Word of God. Today, we have an excursus or a lesson on the whole idea of truthfulness, of truth itself, of how we tell truth, of the fact that there must be witnesses to truth. The whole passage is speaking about witnesses and and their relationship to the truth. I've entitled the message Verification Information because we are concerned every day of our lives with truth claims and verifying those truth claims. How do you verify somebody makes a claim whether it's in print or orally? How do we have any idea that those truth claims are so? And then especially when it comes, not to some product like toothpaste, but when it comes to truth claims relating to the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the incarnation of the eternal Logos. the eternal word, come now to preach to us in this world. Well, here we have him standing before us. And as he stood before his people there in the first century, he not only comes with his ministry, but you see, he makes these sorties, if you will, these theological studies talking about this and that so that he might better inform the church of his day that they might be more persuaded. to embrace him. And then for all of church history that we might think upon these things. Now you know that my major in college and then in the doctoral studies has been in the field of philosophy and so much of the field of philosophy deals with this whole question of how do we know what's true? How do we know? I mean people are full of claims. In order to sell anything, in order to buy anything, you have to make claims about your product or what you are marketing. And so we become somewhat callous to this whole process. And it's so easy to be skeptical about everything. Just say, well, everybody's making these claims. Nobody's true. I'm just going to be skeptical about everything. Nobody says anything that's true. But we know in our hearts that we do find things that are good and true in this world. Often times we have to try them. But trying them, we find that pen that really writes well. And so we start using that product and we want to use it throughout our lives. Maybe it's a car. We talked about buying cars recently in the congregation. We've had to do that. Tim got one a year ago. We've got two new ones here in the Canaldo family in the last month. And I don't know what this says about the dangers for the Damero family, but we have these needs. They come upon us. We have to decide. How do we know what is true, what is false? How do we know what to trust? Well, our Lord Jesus here, speaking about his own ministry, makes a number of claims, and the claims are that when he calms, as he is calm, that it's not just because of his human words that he speaks about himself. As a matter of fact, he says very little about himself. He doesn't try to build himself up. He does make certain claims here and again, but he says in verse 31, if I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. In other words, if the only truth claim, or the only way of verifying that somebody is saying the truth, if it only depends upon them, then they are in trouble. Because there are only words and there's only themselves. We know in the Old Testament that to get a conviction in a court of law that we needed two or three witnesses, didn't we? You can't come and get somebody executed by simply making that claim yourself and not having that claim verified by any other sources of evidence or observation. You have to have two or three people in order for it to stand up in court. Now in this case, in this passage, our Lord says that he has four witnesses to the fact that he is the Son of God. Today we have many people that are skeptical about Jesus. Few that are willing to accept him as Messiah, Lord, and King. But if we examine these witnesses, we find that these are very, very sure witnesses indeed. The first witness that spoke of Christ was John the Baptist. We see him mentioned in verse 33. And our Lord says, our Lord afterwards in verse 34 somewhat dismisses the witness of John the Baptist because after all John was, quote, just a human being too. Despite the fact that he was just a human being, he witnessed the truth. He was one who was enlightened. And we know he was called, he was a biblical prophet. He had a divine office. The biblical prophet, if he prophesied falsely, he could be executed. He was called upon to be executed by God in the Old Testament. It was only the failure of weak generations of Israeli society that failed. to summarily execute false prophets. Very often they didn't withhold the judgment of the civil court from the false prophet. But it was a heavy, heavy burden upon him. If you wanted to pretend that you were a prophet of God, you were playing with your life because you could be executed by the laws of that nation. at least when those laws were in place and the nation had her own sovereignty. We know at this point that Rome was a sovereignty over Israel and she only exercised a portion of that sovereignty that she once had. But John was a part of a noble office, the office of a prophet. And the prophet came to proclaim the word of the Lord. He did not move his lips at his own behest. He wasn't just giving out his thoughts, he was giving out thoughts that were conjured up in him, that were motivated in him, that were developed in him by the Holy Spirit. And the book of the Scriptures is all the result of this process of when God would move upon the hearts of his prophets and then they would write these things down and magnificent books were written that are in our hands even today. We know that when it comes to famous ancient books like the writings of Socrates, we have no original sources of those books because we don't have any books of his within about four or five hundred years of when he lived and wrote. We just have the stories about him and quotes of him, Socrates and other books that were written. But with the Bible we have the word of God which has come down to us which has been providentially preserved from ancient times. We know that when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the 19, was it 1940s or 50s? And they compare the Hebrew, the Hebrew, the Bibles that were found in Qumran with the with the Bibles before that, the earliest Hebrew Bibles they had dated from the medieval period. They found these Bibles in Qumran. They found out that they came from the first century A.D. and they found out that those Bibles, Hebrew Bibles from the medieval times, compared literally letter for letter with the Bibles that they discovered in Qumran. Just amazing testimonies of the Lord. And so these things had come via the mouths of the prophets. And what did John say? had pointed to Christ. He said my life must decrease. His must increase. He said he was just a man unfit to untie the sandals of this one who preached so boldly in Galilee and Judea in that day. So Jesus says that John had testified to him I love verse 35 where he says, He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in His light. Oh, does that not describe the revival that took place under John's preaching? You were willing for a while to delight in His light. But then Jesus goes on to say that there are greater witnesses than John. greater witnesses than John's, that witness of his ministry. He doesn't have to speak for himself. Greater witnesses. The first that he mentions are the miracles that he does, the works that he does, the divine works that he does. Coming to a wedding at Tana and a wonderful time of celebration of young love, of family, The ordination of the family by God in this world. And here was a young bride and a young groom. And there was something so casual. This was not an earth-shaking need. But there was something so casual as running out of wine at the wedding. And Jesus' mother, knowing something of his ingenuity and wisdom, came to him and said, do something about this. Remember, he rebuked her for a bit, but then he went on and he turned water that was there in these huge jugs, these huge clay vessels. You can see in the Dead Sea display down in Cincinnati right now, you can see some of these great earthenware jars that they had to store water in that day. He took those and he turned the whole thing into wine. Not just the cheap stuff either. We know that it was whatever, however you judge the quality of wine, it was excellent stuff. So that the people of the wedding remarked about it. Said, how is it that you saved the best to last? Well, it was the wine of the kingdom! It was the wine of the Messiah. It was the divine stuff by divine mercy. If God will be concerned about the wine at a wedding, will he not be concerned about us, his little children? So he sent Jesus into the world. and he cured the sick, he raised up the dead, he did all of these things. The very fact, the very foundation of a miracle in terms of its meaning is that it is not something that can be accomplished by normal causes and effects. That's why we dispute so much with some of our charismatic brethren and other evangelicals today. They just want to claim everything is a miracle. If everything is a miracle, then nothing is a miracle. You know, if miracles are easy, then they're not miracles anymore. But Jesus did the real thing. A crippled man by a gate who had never walked was told to take up his bed and go home. And he takes it up and he walks through the streets. A man who had never walked above or never seen in terms of personal height, never seen above where he was sitting or sitting on a chair or something like that. But now he walks home. Amazing thing. No one, when I'm working in the hospital as a chaplain, I very often fall back upon the fact that no one who came to Christ looking for help was turned away. There was none of this, you'll have to have faith, the Lord may do this, the Lord may not do that. Everyone who came to Christ in his earthly ministry, if they asked, they received. They walked away healed. It was an amazing display. of divine power. And these witnessed to Him. In fact, the word in Greek that was used for miracle in the New Testament is the word Samion, which is translated sign. From the phrase signs and wonders. They were signs and signs point. Signs tell us something. And these signs pointed to the power and the efficacious nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was not just a man born to Mary and Joseph. He was born to Mary and Joseph, but it was a miraculous kind of supernatural thing. It was different. It was not based upon human impregnation, the human cause and effect relationship. This was divine impregnation from the Word of God, the seed of the Lord. to grow up one who would be the right arm of the Lord, who would serve the Lord, the Father God, valiantly. He would do the will of the Father. He was the second Adam. And these signs pointed to Him. The third sign here, or the third witness, verse 37, is the Father Himself. the father himself. And there is a kind of combination here between the third and the fourth witnesses because he talks about the father on one hand and then he talks about the word of God on the other. That the father testifies of him and that the word of God testifies to him. So we have these two last witnesses. The father testifies to him partially through the power of these miracles but also through the word. The word that the father has installed down through the centuries as a witness for truth. And then also, verse 38, through the word that was there that had been given the scriptures, verse 39. He says in verse 39 that the Scriptures in which you think you have in them eternal life, but he says these testify to me. And he says you're not coming to me. So that means that you don't really love the Scriptures and you don't really love God because this is the Word of God and this Word testifies of me. Now you see, if we have a skeptical view of the Word of God, If we, in some sense, do not trust that we can understand the Word of God, if we cannot hear God's Word shouting through these words, then we are of men to be most pitied. Because we can have no confidence in our own salvation. We're really no better than unbelievers, wandering about lost in the world. If the Word of God does not testify of Christ, if we have no way of interpreting the Word, there are many skeptics. How many times have I encountered in academic discussions that these liberals will say, you can get anything out of the Word of God. No, you can't get anything out of the Word of God. The Word of God testifies of Christ. Now, you may not think that the Word of God testifies clearly. But you will have to answer to that someday with an angry God staring you down and showing you line by line His clear testimony. Then when you're shaking in your boots, when you can't control your bowels, when you have the kind of psychological nausea that you've never even tasted in full before in your life, then you're going to stand before the Lord and say, you gave me your word but it wasn't understandable. No! Because God has declared, God has witnessed truth in his word. And the focal point of that word is where he says, I will send a Messiah. All through Moses, I will send a Messiah. What in the world was half of Moses' writings had to do with the sacrifice? Sacrificial of the atonement. And all of that pointed to Christ. How in the world could the Jews think that they embraced Moses when they did not embrace the idea of messianic redemption? They wanted a Messiah who was simply a political leader. What did that have to do with what they did daily, in and out, every day in the temple? But you see, when we have a spiritual blindness about ourselves, we make these most foolish, idiotic conclusions. We don't understand. But if the Holy Spirit touches us and massages our hearts, and builds us up like the valley of dry bones. If he breathes upon us and we have no light, then we can see these things that we didn't see before. And our Lord Jesus, the Father testifies to him and the Bible testifies to him. Moses testifies to him in the same way, verse 45, 46 and 47. He says in verse 47, But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? verification information. Jesus is giving us information here on how we know the things are really true. Now, if we can apply this a little bit to our lives, there are two basic ways that we can get knowledge. We can get absolute knowledge from God if God speaks to us. And that's the first kind. Then we can get accumulated, discovered knowledge from this world by trying things out. So, one is absolute. It comes to us like an oral message, a verbal message. It says, this is good, this is bad. There's no discovery involved in it. We're either talking to God or the devil. That's the only two decisions you can make about that sort of thing. That's the absolute knowledge. And then there's the accumulated, discovered knowledge that you have. You know, the first time we came in the building here, we had to unlock it. We used the key. I'd never used the key before. And the key in the door works the opposite. It turns counterclockwise to begin with and then to lock the door. And once you want to lock it open, you have to turn it clockwise then. So we had to work our way through these things. And you find out, well, turn it one way, it does this. Turn it the other way, it does that. The alarm system, they told us, they gave us the key to turn off the alarm. But, you know, I'm always afraid that I'll do something and I won't do it right. So I did what they said. Now I'm looking at the little display and the display changed and said the system was down. I thought, well, I hope that's right. I hope that's the truth. But it wasn't until I pulled the door and actually opened it and the alarm didn't go off. I thought, yes. This is the way we accumulate truth in this world. We take it kind of tentative step by tentative step. It may be the toothpaste. You hear it advertised. You say, well, you know, my teeth, I don't think they're as clean as they could be. I'm going to try this new toothpaste. And you brush your teeth and you think, well that was worse than the stuff I had. Or you think, well that's a real improvement. I am going to start using that stuff. That's the way we go through this world. That's called scientific knowledge. It's knowledge that comes by trial and effect. And we find our way along. But if you We see from that kind of knowledge that that kind of knowledge is always changing and it depends on all the circumstances of our lives being the same at any one time. Maybe one supplement or one medicine that works for us at one time in our history won't work in another because of environmental changes that change around us. And so the knowledge that we have that we accumulate in this world, it changes. The knowledge that we had about typewriters 40 years ago, is of almost no use whatsoever today except to antique collectors. Now, if you don't have digital, electronic knowledge, you're just not there. And in another 50, 100 years, undoubtedly, there will be other dramatic changes so that this knowledge that we have today that we thought was so nifty will be useless. Who today carries around a cell phone that weighs about four or five pounds like they did at one time, you see? But the word of God is different than that. And absolute knowledge is different from that. Absolute knowledge is a word from God that is not going to change today or tomorrow. It was the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And this is the kind of knowledge of which Jesus is speaking here. These witnesses were testifying something that was absolutely true. He was the Messiah. He was the Christ, the Son, of the living God. And these four witnesses, three of them were divine. John was half divine. He was an office raised up by the Holy Spirit. These four witnesses, these four grand witnesses all testified of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we live in a world where there is an absolute scarcity of knowledge. I mean, people will put each other to death. They will tax their people based upon what they say is true. And yet they're willing to change it in a minute. You know, they say, don't be puritanical with me. I don't want to hear this business about adultery. And then a young man like Tiger Woods believes their gospel and goes out and gets himself a couple of whores. And the whole world comes down on his head. all upset about his adultery. See how volatile men are today. They'll tell you that A is not true, and then they'll jump on you and crucify you the next moment because they believe it is true. Well, which is it? The men in their human society today, they're tossed to and fro by many winds of doctrine. But our Lord Jesus Christ is not like that. What He has said is true. The most important thing that He has said, He has said, on me, and I will make you acceptable with the Father. You can appear before the Lord at the end of your days. If you doubt His Word, you'll be ashamed, you'll be embarrassed, you'll be destroyed. But if you believe in His Word, And that day you may come before the living God feeling all kinds of squishy and weak, but if you believe in the word and if you believe in the forgiveness of Christ, if you believe in his provision of righteousness, you may quiver a little bit inside that robe of righteousness. But when you taste and see the smile of the divine God upon you, you will rejoice. my Savior, my Lord, Thou has given me everything that I could possibly want. And He will say, come into my paradise and begin enjoying eternity forever with me. It all comes down to verification and affirmation. And here we have a little theological excursus on it in the life of our Lord. Let's pray together. Our Father and our God, we pray that that we might not be like the skeptics of our day. Sweep us up, O Lord, in Thy witness. Help us to see the magnificence of this Word of God. Even the husk, we might say, of this Word of God may not appear so divine, but the Word that flows through it, the Word that it declares, is powerful and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. O Lord, we pray that we might base our lives on this sure Word. We pray that we might attempt to build our families and new societies upon this Word, for we know that in the end we will not be ashamed if we trust Thy witness. Help us, first of all, to claim this Christ whom Thou dost advertise so boldly in this Word. Help us to live by Him and help us to breathe by Him. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.