Our text this evening is found in the Gospel of John, chapter 14 and verse 12. John 14 and verse 12. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do, shall he do also. And greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father. John 14 verse 12. Now these words were first spoken on the Thursday evening of our Lord's last week in this world. That night he met with his disciples in a room which had been especially prepared And aware as chapter 13 makes clear that his hour, his dreadful hour, was about to strike, he speaks directly and plainly to the disciples. And he speaks to them at the end of chapter 13 of the betrayal of Judas. And then he speaks of the denial of Peter. And then when we come into chapter 14, the theme slightly changes, and it's a theme of comfort and consolation. And he tells them of his father's house. He tells them that he will be with them in the future, though absent in the body, he'll be with them spiritually. And he tells them that he will listen to their prayers and he will never abandon them. So it's all comfort in chapter 14, ending with beautiful words of peace, my peace. I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. And it's in this context that we again hear these now familiar words, verily, verily. Words which could be paraphrased, I solemnly tell you. So they are words suggesting something perhaps difficult to credit, but something really important, something he wants them to know. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father. Now, we've got in these words, the words of this verse, three things I want to underline. The first is faith. I say unto you, he that believeth on me. And we'll spend a little while with that first heading. And then witness the work that I do shall he do also. And in performing these works, they were bearing witness to the truth. And it's the very expression the apostle uses in Acts 2. They also bearing witness both with signs and wonders and gifts of the Holy Ghost. And then thirdly, the word empowerment. The last words of the text, I go unto my father. And going to the father, he would be exalted in a place of great authority, which he could exercise for the good of his people. And he could send supply to them and best of all, he could send the Holy Spirit to them. And that would be their empowerment. in their service for Him. So those three things really, faith, witness, empowerment. First of all, faith. The verse begins, verily, verily I say unto you, he that believeth on me. You will observe that in the verse before and in this verse, Believing is mentioned no less than three times. It's a most important concept in the thinking of our Lord. He is referring, first of all, to the faith, of course, which is in the apostles. and some of his words from chapter 13 to chapter 16 are directed primarily to the apostles. And yet the words also have a more general application to all who are his people and to that faith which is in all Christians. He that believeth on me. That is our Lord's own description of a true disciple, a true follower. He that believeth on me. And when you read the New Testament, you are confronted with the truth that Christians are distinguished by the fact that they believe, that they have faith. So we read in Acts 5, 14 believers were the more added to the Lord. That's how they're referred to. That's how they're described. In Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 39, them that believe to the saving of their souls. That's how mention is made of them. and what is said of them, them that believe. Often the world has the wrong idea of Christianity. They think Christians are do-gooders. They think that they are fun destroyers, that they are very severe and somber people. That's their concept. Perhaps they think they are those who excel by good works, helping their neighbor and so on. Well, hopefully these things are true. But the great distinguishing mark of a Christian is that he is a believer. And that's what makes him a Christian. So that's why it is an important mark of identification. Now, why is faith so prominent? And why is it emphasized as it is in the New Testament? And here we must say that the Gospel calls men to faith. When Jesus He began it, according to Mark 1, with these words, repent and believe the gospel. So the gospel calls men to faith. Paul, in Philippians 1.27, speaks of the faith of the gospel. In other words, last commission, recorded in Mark 16, 16. He says, go into all the world and preach the gospel. He the believer shall be saved. So each time the gospel is mentioned, followed by faith, because the gospel requires faith. A Christ will do nothing for us. It is as medicine on a shelf. It must be taken, received, and then that medicine will bring lasting good. Christ, therefore, mustn't be respected from afar, but he must be received and trusted by faith. And the Gospel therefore calls us to believe. Now faith is required and why is faith required? Why does the Gospel insist upon faith? Why not love? Why not hope? Why faith? Well, There are several reasons why God has chosen faith to be the right and proper response to Christ. And the first is that faith brings great glory to God. And Abraham, it was said in Romans chapter four, that he believed giving glory to God. And how does faith do that? Well, faith credits what God has said. Faith receives the divine testimony and holds what God has said to be truth and verity. and therefore responds to what he has said. So it gives glory to God, and for that reason God has chosen it as the grace which is exercised in Christ unto salvation. And there's a second reason, and it is this, that it humbles sinners. It exalts God and it makes him to be true, but it humbles sinners. How does it do that? Well, faith looks outside of the person, looks away from the person to another. Faith receives help from another quarter. Faith depends on someone apart from ourselves. And so it is true that it humbles sinners because it teaches them that they cannot save themselves. They must trust in someone else. Someone who is greater than they are. Someone who will help them. And there's a third reason why faith receives such importance in the New Testament, and it's this, that faith is a receptive grace. When we exercise faith, we are ready to receive help and receive good from someone else and take it to ourselves. Faith is defined in the New Testament as receiving Christ, as having Christ. And so it doesn't do something. so that salvation is put down to works, which man can do. But faith relies upon someone else and receives succor and receives deliverance from someone beyond the sinner himself, from Christ, of course. which makes us to feel that believing in Christ, committing everything to Christ, and putting trust in Christ, we are safe and well. If it was putting trust in ourselves, we would never be safe. We would never be well. But Christ is a mighty savior, mighty to save, all is well. if our trust is in Him. He that believeth in Him shall not be ashamed. He shall never be confounded. Rather, He will be saved. So faith is the essential grace and is so important to us. So where does or to what, to whom does faith turn? What is the object of faith? Well, we would say that the general object of faith is God's word. Faith deals first with what the scripture says, and particularly what God promises in the gospel. And taking that as true, faith can be exercised. But if we've got no word to direct us, no promise to encourage us, faith is lost. So the grand object of faith is God's word. That's why when Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, The 3,000 who were affected by his preaching, it says of them, they received his word and subsequently were, of course, converted. This is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life. So we got to do with the record first and the promise that life is in Jesus and believing that, we turn to him and commit our souls into his safekeeping. So the gospel promise, if you like, is the object, the general object of faith, but there is a personal object of faith. Something in the scripture, something in the gospel, something in the promise, something personal. It's the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And though faith must begin with crediting the gospel, trusting the gospel, being willing to act upon the gospel, it must proceed to the person whom the gospel reveals as the savior of men, the hope of the world. So scripture says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the object of faith, the personal object of faith. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Now, if faith is going to be exercised, there must be some preparation for believing. And what is that preparation? The Puritanists would have said two things are necessary to go before faith. The first is the law. And the law is made known to us with all its precepts, unyielding, The law requires the highest standard. There is no admittance in what God says regarding the law, no admittance of failure, no provision of forgiveness. It is naked command and authoritative command, and it requires absolute obedience and perfect obedience. If that is not rendered to the law, the result is sin. And if sin occurs, then judgment follows. And that must precede believing. Because the sinner must be humbled, humbled to see his need. humbled to recognize that he is in a desperate situation, that unless someone saves his soul, he will be lost forevermore, bearing the judgment of Almighty God. Well, we call this humiliation. is a necessary introduction to faith, the law. But that must be followed by the gospel. And the gospel is really, in the first place, the revelation of Jesus Christ. It's the making known of who he is, of why he came to save sinners, and of how he can be the savior. of those who hear the Gospel. And that is necessary as a preparative to faith. We must see our need, but we must see the provision for our need. We are sinners and we are sentenced and we will be ruined if nothing happens in the way of intervention. Yes, this generates a sense of need, but the gospel reveals the one who answers that need, the one whose name is Jesus, because he shall save his people from their sins. And so he is able to save unto the uttermost all that come to God by and he's represented to us as the one who is mighty, mighty to save. So if we see our ruined state through the law, and if we see that we have hope in Jesus Christ, then we know where faith has got to be placed, We know that faith has got to turn to Him. We know that faith has to trust itself entirely to Christ to save. And when faith is exercised, it involves the whole soul. Now, scripture puts it like this. Psalm 16 in verse 2, Oh my soul, thou hast said, thou art my God. It's the soul that has believed. Psalm 57 in verse 2, Oh my God, my soul trusteth in thee. So what does that actually mean? Well, the soul we often consider as mind and heart and will. These are the constituent parts of the soul. And the mind is involved in believing because the mind receives the truth. And it believes the gospel that Christ only can save. And it credits that. It accepts that. And then the heart is involved. The mind being fully persuaded that only Jesus is the answer to our predicament. The heart then desires this Jesus to be the Savior of the person. And so there is a going out to Him, a desiring to be saved by Him, to have Him as our own personal Savior, a longing in the heart. And then the will plays its part and the will chooses Christ. And the blessing which only Christ can give and determines that it is Christ and no one else. Christ and nothing else. And so faith at the end of the day places trust, where trust belongs. It puts all its reliance upon Jesus Christ. It comes to him in the way of prayer, in the way of approach, and it says, Lord Jesus Christ, I do trust thee, trust thee with my soul. Guilty, vile, and helpless, Thou canst make me whole. And in that act there is an abandonment, an abandonment to Christ, a renouncing of all others, and certainly a renouncing of self. No other can save me. I cannot save myself. Thou, O Christ, alone canst save. and my trust is in thee. Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Do you notice the wording here in verse 12? He that believeth on me, on me, That requires the sense in believing of trust, of confidence, of putting all one's weight upon Christ, as if he is the foundation for salvation. And we must cast ourselves upon him, and hold to him, trust in him, and then we shall not be moved. He that believeth on me Well, the result of it, of course, is salvation itself. Whosoever believeth, John 3, 16, shall not perish, which is what would have happened if faith had not been exercised. But whosoever believeth on him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved. Saved from what? Saved from the guilt of sin, which means saved from the liability of answering for your sins. That's what guilt is. Binding you over to be punished for your sins. We are saved from that. in that our sins are forgiven and there's guilt no more when we believe in Jesus. There is no punishment to come. There's no penalty to bear. We're free. We are saved from the law. We are redeemed from the curse of the law. The sentence was against us because we'd breached the law, because we'd failed to keep the law. The law therefore turned against us, turned nasty upon us, threatened us with eternal death. That's the curse of the law, but Jesus saves us from that. That's part of his great salvation. And what would have been the punishment? The wrath of God. The wrath of God is upon all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men. God is angry with the wicked every day. Oh, to suffer the anger of God in this life, every day knowing that God is incensed, that God is deeply perturbed by the way we live, and He has turned our enemy. Oh, to face death with that knowledge. that God is not for us, God is against us. And though He has not meted out His judgment, He will. After death, He will. It is appointed unto men once to die, and after death, the judgment. I cannot bear the thought of God looking upon me in sore displeasure. hostile to me in every way because of the way I've lived, angry to the point of destroying me. But Jesus saves us from that. And how can he do that? Because his works are the ground on which he can save us. He has taken our guilt upon himself. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. So he's answered in our place and in our state. He has taken in his suffering and in his sorrow the curse of the law. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. Listen, being made a curse for us. So the law smote him, the shepherd, that the sheep might be spared. So there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. The wrath of God, does he say from that? Yes, in that he bore that wrath throughout his life, but supremely in his death. The Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 1 10 says, he hath delivered us from the wrath to come. It pleased the Lord to bruise him God hath put him to grief. The substitute has suffered the fullness of the wrath of God upon sin." And on that awful day, the sky was darkened, and there was darkness over the whole land for hours. and penetrating the darkness was the cry of the Son of God, Thou hast forsaken me. That's the experience of wrath. That's the response of the damned in hell, forsaken, forsaken by the God of love. And he went through that that we might never know it. and therefore He can save us from it all, and bring us into blessing, the Saviour, the Saviour of the world. He that believeth on me It follows the second heading which I'll give you. Witness the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do. Now these words were spoken to the apostles in particular. And it is absolutely true that the apostles, within a little while, went out into Jerusalem and then traveled further afield. And they were enabled to perform very impressive miracles. So that the very shadow of Peter brought healing. The handkerchief of Paul brought immediate cure. They were able to heal the sick. They were able to raise the dead. In the case of Eutychus, who fell from the roof, in the case of Dorcas, whom Peter raised from the dead. And Jesus says, this will be the witness which will follow you. This will be your witness to the world that faith is real, Christ is real, salvation is real. The works will bear witness to it all. But I don't want to be unnecessarily restrictive in understanding this. He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also. Look at the life of Christ. What did he do? I think this verse means that his people will carry forward what he began. What did he do? He reached people with the gospel. They'll do that too. Believers generally, I mean, they'll do that too. They'll reach people with the truth. The Lord Jesus showed kindness to those who were suffering and stricken. They'll do that too. Believers will follow him in that. He went about doing good, they'll go about doing good. Jesus helped people who were desperate. His people will do the same. It will be part of their ministry to go to the afflicted and go to those that are broken and give their love and afford their help. So going about doing good, sharing the gospel with people, meeting the needs of people. He that believeth on me, the works that I do, shall he do also. But then comes the most perplexing part of the text, because Jesus says, shall he, the believer, do? Greater works than Christ did? The stilling of the storm? The raising of a man to life who had been four days dead? Greater than that? Well, I think these words are to be understood in this sense, that the works that these people do are not greater in degree, but rather greater in kind. What believers will do is that they will perform spiritual works. They will attend to the conversion of men's souls. And in that sense, they will be instruments to perform greater works. Now Jesus said himself, if I be lifted up, speaking of the cross, I will draw all men unto me." What happened after Calvary and after the resurrection was that Peter could preach in Jerusalem and thousands were brought to faith and brought into possession of salvation. That was the conversion of men's souls. It was a different kind of miracle. That's why I say different in kind. A different kind of work. But in a sense greater because even our blessed Savior never saw 3,000 people converted at once. So greater in that sense. Greater in the sense too that our Lord worked very much in one part of Palestine, but when his followers continued his ministry, they went from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria, And to the uttermost parts of the earth, that was greater than ever Jesus did. And they did it in order to effect the conversion of men's souls. So greater numbers were converted in many more parts of the world And they therefore saw the kingdom of Christ extended, mightily extended. Christ at the end of his life had just a faithful few. But under the ministry of those that followed him, the kingdom spread. with great power, and before long it was established in the whole of the known world. It was the greater work of the conversion of souls. No, they didn't perform greater miracles, but they did perform greater works. Because They won the hearts of multitudes all over Palestine and beyond. And they established the Church of Jesus Christ under the blessing of God in all the world. These are the greater works. So if the words apply particularly to the apostles, they apply generally to all of us. What is our work? To believe. But then what? Witness. Witness to others. Telling them of Jesus. Persuading them that he is the only one who can meet their case and deal with their plight. Declaring to them the promise of the gospel, that if they come to Christ, he will not turn them away. Testifying that that's what they did. They came in a desperate state and applied to Christ. He saved them. He can do it for others also. They commended to them the love of Christ. They told them not to mind their unworthiness, but to believe that Christ was all merciful. And he did not have respect to how bad they were, but he saved sinners of all kinds, even the chief of sinners. in part that Jesus did, and what his disciples did. It was the work of the kingdom of God, the work of the gospel. It was persuading others to turn to Christ, put their confidence in Christ. and rest upon the ability and willingness of Christ to save them. Friends, to believe is one thing. To witness to others is another. To believe is what saves you. To witness is what constitutes your service. Christian believer, how is it with you? Are you really concerned for the lost all around you? Children who've not yet professed faith. Are you prepared to speak to them and advise them and encourage them to come to Christ? Friends and colleagues at work, are you prepared to make a fool of yourself? As the scripture says, be fools for Christ's sake. And to tell them that you've found in Jesus more than all the world can afford. That he is the best of all. He's trustworthy. He's a savior and a lord and a friend. How is your witness? Are you continuing with the work? the greater works. Witness. And the third word, empowerment. Because at the end of the verse, Jesus says, having declared that the works that he did, they will do, and greater works in the way I've described, and then he adds this, because I go to the Father. And there's the key to the whole verse. He will soon be departing from them in His bodily presence. He will be returning to His Father in heaven. and there he will be possessed of sovereignty, which sovereignty he will exercise to the empowering of his people. In that state of sovereignty, he will be able to pour out his spirit upon his people so that they'll speak well, and speak forcefully, and speak effectually. Ye shall receive power from on high, Jesus said. When that power has come, their witness will be blessed. exercising sovereignty, pouring out the Spirit, granting salvation to those to whom the Gospel comes, to whom the witness has been given. So we have greater benefit now than Christ had during His earthly ministry. I say that carefully. but we have the Lord possessed of all power and authority aiding us. We have the Lord exercising his sovereignty and granting us the ability to speak successfully of Christ, moving us and moving those who hear us, and so bringing men to salvation And we have Christ on high, conferring salvation and forgiveness and eternal life and the hope of heaven to all who are prepared to look to Him. That is the church's empowerment. I go unto my Father. When I go, you will see the difference. I will manage my kingdom. I will strengthen you in your testimony, and I will bless your hearers. Empowerment. Well, my friends, it well deserves, verily, verily, at its beginning. And I return, as I close, to the first heading. Do you believe? I did not say are you trying to act the Christian part. I do not say are you striving to be like a Christian. I do not say are you regularly attending church as Christians should. But the question I put to you is this, do you believe? On the basis of the gospel, have you turned toward Christ? Have you told him that henceforth your faith is in him? If he fails you, You are utterly lost because you put all your confidence in Christ and what he has done for you. Does Jesus recognize you as one of them who believe? He that believeth on me, could he say that of you? that young person here tonight. Could Jesus say of you, He believes on me. She believes on me. They've come to me. They've confided in me. They've placed all confidence in me, and I have received them. Oh, friend, older person here tonight, have you believed? You may have a multitude of questions. You may have many anxious thoughts, but the issue is here. This is the crunch question, the question which will determine the way you die and where you will be throughout eternity. The question is this. Do you believe on Him? May God bless His Word, that tonight you may turn to Christ, whose arms are stretched out toward you, who receiveth sinners, and that you will fall into His arms and tell Him, He must say. and here alone. And tonight, may someone here believe to their salvation. Amen.