Take your Bibles now and turn to John chapter 14. John chapter 14. And we are about, we're breaking into another chapter as we've gone through 13 of these in the Gospel of John. And the interesting thing about this, I said this when I preached a couple Sundays ago on Ephesians about the chapter divisions. I think chapter divisions and verse divisions can be helpful. But in some cases, I think that if we get too landlocked in the chapter divisions and verse divisions, we miss the flow of the passage and the flow of thought. And I believe that comes through here in John 14, because you have to understand as you're going from 1338 to John 14.1, there is a continuation of the conversation that's happened previously. So if we divorce 13 from 14, we can misunderstand or be a little lost with what Jesus is speaking about in John 14. If you go to many bookstores, some of the brick-and-mortar Christian bookstores are closing down, but if you go to those bookstores, or even if you go to a Barnes & Noble and you go to the Christian section, you probably won't have to look too hard to find books about heaven. That seems to be a very huge money-making enterprise are books of people who have had visits to heaven. And this recently, in the most recent years, have also turned into a Hollywood movie-making enterprise where just about each and every one of these visits to heaven have been turned into a film version. It started, really the craze started with the Heaven is for Real that was written way back when I was in school, probably even before I was in high school, by a guy named Todd Burpo who told the story of his son, Colton Burpo, Now, Tarle Burpo supposedly was a minister, and his son was in the hospital, and then they say that they lost him for a few seconds, and his son woke up, a four-year-old little boy, and recounts a story of how he went to heaven, and he tells this story. Now, Colton Burpo is now in his early 20s, and he continues to tell the story. and says everything from the fact that Jesus Christ rode around on a horse and had a rainbow colored sword to the fact that He got to meet the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is blue. That's funny, because I thought the Holy Spirit was here with us. But there's many other occasions. You had the Alex Malarkey story, where they had the boy who went to heaven, and this was the case of a car accident that happened at an intersection. And Alex Malarkey was actually, to this day, he's a quadriplegic, and says that he went to heaven. And his dad and him began on a speaking tour. They wrote a book. And it wasn't until he was probably around 18. He then recanted the entire story. He said that he made it up. He said he was pressured and he made up the entire story. In fact, there has actually been a movement to try to get Alex to change back to his story. His dad is still making money off of the situation and people are still having his dad come in and speak and tell his son's story that his son said that he made up completely. His mom got into a good Bible-preaching church, and interesting, I went and heard Justin Peters. I don't know if you're familiar with Justin Peters. I went and heard Justin Peters earlier this year, and he retold the story about how Alex's mom got in touch with him and said that she tried to get Lifeway to start taking down all of his books. and stopped selling the book. And I'm not going to mention the guy's name because he's actually a pretty famous guy. He was the head of LifeWay at the time, said that they weren't going to do that. Well, they weren't going to do it because they were making way too much money off of it. And then about three months later, it hit the news on CNN that it was all a lie. And then LifeWay put out a statement that said, upon recent discoveries, we have decided to bring the book down. Well, three months before they had those discoveries and they didn't do anything about it. So, whenever you see this, the interesting thing about these accounts of people visiting heaven is that they're not consistent with each other. And the other thing, probably the most glaring problem, is that they're not consistent with the Bible. When we think about heaven, I think sometimes we also have a gospel music view of heaven. We tend to get a lot of our doctrine and theology about heaven from gospel songs. When you think of going to heaven when you die, or you think of those that's already preceded you that are in heaven, do you think of them as being walking around on streets of gold and entering through pearly gates? I did a series on this several years ago, going through and getting biblical about what the Bible actually teaches about heaven. And the present heaven that exists right now, that our loved ones are there, and that if you were to pass away at this moment, would be in the presence of the Lord, is not what we tend to picture when we think about those things. You say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Brother John, I believe the Bible does say that the goals will be this pure gold. Yes, it does, but it's talking about the new heaven and the new earth, and that's in Revelation 21. We'll get there in just a second. We're only given three descriptions of the present heaven in the Bible. And in those three descriptions, they're actually very narrow descriptions on one particular location within heaven, and that is in the throne room. Place number one is Isaiah chapter 6. Very familiar passage where Isaiah says that he saw the train. He saw God high and lifted up and the train filled his glory. And if you read that account, you see Isaiah's description of what he's seeing in the throne room. If you go to Ezekiel chapter 1, the interesting thing is that Ezekiel gets a similar description, a similar vision And Ezekiel has a hard time describing it. He talks about different colors, a will within a will. It has confounded and confused many of people that's tried to go there as a commentator and describe what Ezekiel is saying. But the interesting thing is when you match that up with what Isaiah is saying, there are very similar accounts. And then the other one is Revelation chapter 4 when John is caught up to the heaven and describes the throne room and the praise and worship service that is going on in the throne room. All three of these occasions are describing the throne room of God. And we really don't have it. Now, let me say this. Could the present heaven that exists right now have streets of gold? And, well, let me say this about the pearly gates. They're not gates, pearly gates. The Bible describes them as one big gate that's a pearl. Okay? So they're not like gates that have pearls around them. It's one big pearl, which is the gate. So could that exist? Is that the way it looks? It could be. I don't know. We're not told. What we are told and described is what Jesus is preparing for us now, which is where we're at in John chapter 14. Now, I gave that introduction, and some of you have heard me talk about that before, so I wasn't really blowing up anything in your mind, but I am probably going to do that a little bit in this passage about heaven when we get to that. So, let's read chapter 14, verse number 1. Let not your heart be troubled, You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also. Whither I go you know, and the way you know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. And I wanted to stop right there. I want to cover these six verses tonight because I think this is important. Many of you probably know verse six. It's a popular verse, a popular gospel verse. understanding that Jesus is the way to God. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father but through me. Okay, so we can quote that verse. This verse was actually on my bed as a kid. Whenever I was growing up we had bunk beds and so my parents would put like little, they were not even, they were probably the ugliest frames and the ugliest little things you've ever seen, but it was just scripture verse in a frame and on our walls. And this was one of the verses. And so I remember sitting there as a kid going to bed, not wanting to go to bed whenever they told me to go to bed. So I'm sitting there laying in bed wide awake and just looking at this verse over and over again. So I could quote this verse. This is one of the verses that is instilled in my mind. But I want to talk about this tonight, that Jesus is the way. He then basically tells us flat out, there is no other way but me. We call this the exclusive gospel. There's no other way to God. You can't go through Muhammad. You can't go through Buddha. You can't go through living your best life. You can only go through Jesus Christ and the way that He says. Three things here. First, verses 1-4, we see comforting words. And why are these comforting words? He says, let not your heart be troubled or do not let your heart be troubled. The subject is you. It's an understood you. He says, you don't let your heart be troubled. So what is he saying this for? Well, let's go back to chapter 13. What all happens in chapter 13? Well, quite a bit. If you go back to chapter 13, you find out that first, he says, somebody in this room is going to betray me. What? Then he tells them that it's time for him to go. His time has come. He's probably going to be killed. So then they're thinking, what is going on? Who's going to turn over Christ? Who's going to turn over our Master to be killed? And so they're all distraught within their hearts. Of course, he only identifies Judas to John, but they're left with thinking, am I the one that's going to be betrayed? They're troubled. Then Peter says, I'll never deny you, and he finishes off chapter 13, says, before the cock crows the third time, you will deny me. So I dare say these guys are troubled. Now this word troubled is from the Greek word terrasso. It has already been used a few times to describe what Jesus was feeling. And we talk about this in chapter 13 about Jesus being troubled that his time had come. What was this? This was inner anguish at the fact and the understanding and the knowledge of what he was going to go through. Jesus knew the cross was coming. He knew he was about to bear the sin. on the cross. So, he was experiencing that anguish. The same word is used to the disciples. Jesus tells them, do not be in anguish. He tells that to us. What is it today that we are in anguish about? What is it today that gets into our hearts that causes us to be troubled? We may use terms like anxiety, discouragement, depression, feeling down. These are words that we use to describe this anguish in our soul that has us troubled, and Jesus' comforting words here tells us this, do not be troubled. Let not your heart be troubled. Why? He goes on to tell us, we have admonition in verse one. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. Now I read a lot of commentators tried to say that there's several ways, by the way this is written, because we don't have voice inflection here, we don't have the way that he's actually saying it, audio recorded, that there's different ways that we could take what he was saying is. Is he saying that because you believe in God, you can believe in me or Since you believe in God, you believe in me. Or, hey, believe in God and believe in me too. What is he actually getting across here? He's actually saying, because you believe... I believe that the Greek structure of this passage right here says, because you believe in God. He says, you guys already believe in God. And this is a theme of the message that he's been given to them all through the Gospel of John. I and the Father are one. And he kept repeating this over and over and over again. And he says, if you believe in God, you have trust in God, then you can trust me. Believe in me. So let's connect the dots here. Don't be troubled. Do not let this anguish dwell in your hearts and let it discourage you. Why? Because you have me. How does that help us? here today. We're not in the upper room. But how does that message help us? Whatever anguish or whatever situation that causes that anguish in our soul, He wants us to know, do not be troubled with that because you have Jesus. So the key to that is understanding how Jesus and the gospel encompasses all of our lives activities. Preparation, number two, preparation, verse two. So we have admonition, then preparation, verse two. In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you. Let me get a drink of water before I mess you up here. This is the King James Version. We like the King James Version. It is an older version. It has some out-of-date language in it. It is not the only version or translation. It is an English translation. In fact, I can't really say that it's an English translation that's 400 years old because none of you have a 1611 King James Version. You have a, basically, probably about a 100 or 200 year old translation. Because what you have in your hand is the, I believe it's 1789 Blaney Revision. This was revised about 200 years ago. Now, even at that, language has changed. We understand that the Word of God is encompassed in the original languages of Greek and Hebrew. And sometimes we tend to let the language that we see in this translation and we automatically filter it through our Western American mindset. And so when we see a verse, like John chapter 14, verse two, that says, in my father's house are many mansions. And then he says, he prepared that place for you. We go and build a theology on it that I have a mansion in heaven. and that you think that you're living in this small house here on this earth or you live in an apartment or wherever your dwelling place is here, you can look and be excited because one day you're going to live in a mansion. Let me blow that bubble up because this is a very poor translation of what he's actually saying here. Jesus did not go and prepare you a massive countryside Victorian mansion. That is not what he's talking about here. In fact, the word that is used actually means dwelling place or rooms. Some commentators have broken it down to basically say this. He gets across the idea that says, in my father's house. So the actual home, the house is God's and within that there are many apartments or dwelling places. Now if that dampens your spirits and upsets you a little bit that you, I thought I had the jackpot. I thought I was going to get a mansion in heaven. Listen, let me tell you this. Whatever dwelling place or apartment that God has prepared for His children is going to be plenty adequate. By the way, we are not going to heaven for the material possessions. That's a fleshly desire that we have. But I know some people will get mad whenever I say the King James translations of that you have a mansion will make them very upset, but that's not what it is. It's not a mansion. It's a dwelling place. It's a room. He's prepared a place for you. That's the emphasis. Murray Harris in his exegetical commentary said, the image could be of a large house with many subsidiary living quarters or of heaven as God's dwelling place where there are countless places of rest. D.A. Carson probably had the most astute take on this. He said, the point is not the lavishness of each apartment, but the fact that such ample provision has been made. that there is more than enough space for every one of Jesus' disciples to join Him in His Father's home. Besides, have they not just been encouraged to trust Him and always found strong reason to do so? Can they not therefore be assured that if heaven were other than what He has described, He would have told them? I just had a thought of, also in this passage, that the fact of, this brings out also a little bit of a truth of God's election, because if He did not know who was coming to Him, when is He going to stop being able to prepare the places for them? That means you're getting up to the end and He's still got them working on construction and rooms, right? No, because He knows who His own are. Revelation 21 verses 9 through 27, I believe, details to us what that prepared place is going to look like. And I do believe that that is the future home. So we have admonition, verse 1, preparation, verse 2, reception in verse 3. Reception in verse 3. He says, if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there you may be also. So we have a promise in verse three. What is the promise? The promise is that he's coming back and he's gonna take us with him. The promise is that we are not left to this. this alone. I mean to try and listen it's you probably heard this joke or this this quip a million times because the guy Joel Osteen really stuck his foot in his mouth whenever he wrote a book said your best life now. I mean because seriously how depressing if this is our best life but the promise we have in John chapter 14 is that he has prepared the best for us. Next, destination, verse number four. Destination. And wherewither I go, you know, and the way you know. He says, so where I go, you will know, and the way you know. They should have known the way, right? By this time, they should have understood that. But here Thomas has, I do think Thomas gets a bad rap, but here Thomas has a concerning question. Verse number five. What is his concerning question? You know what, maybe I would probably be more like Thomas than I would Peter. I think I would be like Thomas because I would be so concerned, I don't want to miss out on this. So I'm gonna be like the guy, hey, just so we're sure, I don't want to miss this. I want to make sure. How are we gonna know the way? Lay this out for us real, real plain, Jesus, one more time. So I got my notes, I got my pen. What's the way again? I remember what you said earlier, but just run over it one more time. So he says, Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way? So, I have this... Listen, I'm not the best at crafting outlines. I try my best, but I call it the limiting gospel. Because the gospel is... We put the gospel out there, but the way, which I believe is the gospel, is very narrow. There's only one way, and that's through Christ. And Jesus breaks this down for us. He says, and I love the answer to this question because understanding verse six is always the famous verse that gets quoted, and rightly so. But I think we miss the way that Jesus is saying it if we don't get the question in verse five. He says, where is this way? Jesus says, I am the way. I am the way. I am the truth, and I am the life. This is another, we've been tracking these as we've gone through the Gospel of John, the ego, a me statements, the I am statements, where he is referring to himself using the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew whenever Moses was with the children of Israel trying to lead them out, declaring the status of God or the title of God, I am that I am. So whenever he used this to them, he was declaring, I am that I am. from Moses, from the Exodus, and I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. R.C. Sproul said the structure of this statement is such that Jesus was not giving a string of descriptive terms. He was not saying, I am the way, the truth, and see, the life. Rather, the statement is in an elliptical form so that Jesus was saying, quote, I am the way because I am the truth and because I am the life. I am the way to the Father because I am the true manifestation or revelation of the Father. I am the way to the Father because I alone have the power to eternal life. Because He is the way, He is the only source of truth. And because He is the way and the only source of truth, He is the only source of life. And that's what he's been preaching, and that's what he's been demonstrating all through this gospel, all through his ministry. I want to read to you this little illustration that I pulled out of John Phillips' commentary on this. He says, a pioneer missionary in Africa tells how he was taking the gospel to a new tribe far to the north with his bearers. He arrived at a village, a point beyond which his porters refused to go. The missionary appealed to the local chief. Was there someone in his village who could act as his guide to the distant northern tribe? The chief summoned a man, tall, battle-scarred, carrying a large axe. A bargain was made and the next morning the missionary set off through the bush, following his new guide. The way became increasingly rough and the path had all but disappeared. There was an occasional mark blazed on a tree, occasionally a narrow path. Finally, the missionary called a halt. He asked the guide if he was sure he knew the way." That sounds so American, doesn't it? The man pulled himself up to his full height. White man, he said. You see this axe in my hand? You see these scars on my body? With this axe, I blazed the trail to the tribal village to which we go. I came from there. These scars I received when I made the way. You ask me if I know the way? Before I came, there was no way. I am the way." I thought, how much of a correlation that is to Jesus Christ. His scars prove that He is the way. Philip said they knew the way because they knew Him and He was the way. Mankind has no avenue of approach to God apart from that same word. Who became flesh and dwelt among us in order to supply such an avenue of approach? You know, it's interesting, I'm sort of a podcast junkie and one of my problems is I find a new podcast and I'm like, man, I hate that I found it because I'm so excited, I want to listen to everything and I already am listening to so many other things. I found one recently called Cultish. It's done by guys at Apologia, Jeff Durbin and a couple other guys. And they were just recently doing, I don't know if you remember watching this, I watched it, I thoroughly loved it, a couple of years ago they did a series on A&E, Leah Remini and Scientology and the aftermath. And so they were, in the podcast it sort of examines cults. And so they were talking about one of the episodes there, and they were talking about how Leah Rivety and her other co-host, a guy named Mike Render, were talking about the Jehovah's Witnesses on their thing. And so here are these two people examining this cult, and so they kept saying, by what standard are you examining this cult? Because they were not taking a position of alternative truth, or truth against the error of the Jehovah's Witness. So what are you pointing people to when you point out the flaws and errors of a cult? And said that their examination, while calling out the errors were accurate, fell far short because they had no alternatives to base it off, put it off against. You know what I'm saying? And so we understand It's sort of like how you put two pictures up beside each other. You talk about paintings, and somebody has a counterfeit painting, or something like that, and you have the original. And so you put the two paintings up there, and you see what the original looks like, and so you counterbalance that to the fake. Without Christ, and without a foundation of His truth and His Word, what do we have to counterbalance to any fake? we would be lost. And that's what I say about all those that try to do that, whether it's cults or whether it's any false idea system, without the Word of God. They have no standard by which to point out the fake. So we come to there. Let me get into this evening some application to this, and we'll be finished this evening. So we come through, Jesus comforts the disciples in their anguish, and then talks about them, about a place that he's prepared for them, tells them that they will know the way. Thomas asks about the way, and then he declares that I am the way. So what's our application? Number one, personal faith in a personal Lord brings personal relief. Personal faith in a personal Lord brings personal relief. The reason I was, I have an opportunity to interview some, a biblical counselor this week on, he just finished his doctoral thesis on the gospel and pedophilia. And so what he did was he examined, you know, the sin of pedophilia and also how can someone that has been in that sin or engrossed in that sin, can they repent? How do they repent? And what does that repentance look like? So I asked somebody, I said, do you have any questions or ideas for questions to ask this guy when I interview him? And he gave me this question and he said, what is the difference between a secular counselor and a Christian counselor? I thought that's a great question because that is where my commitment lies in biblical counseling. Because I believe in this statement right here, personal faith in a personal Lord brings personal relief. I believe the truest form of relief of the detriment of the challenges of the abuse that goes on in this life we have today can only be found in Christ Jesus, in the gospel, and in His Word. That's why I'm committed to biblical counseling and not to secular psychology. And you've heard me say this so many times. The problem with secular psychology is their starting point and their ending point. They have a wrong starting point with their view of man and the ending point on fixing people's problems falls way too short. Because, apart from this, they can offer no real relief. We know Jesus. James Montgomery Boyce pointed these things out in this passage of what Jesus was breaking down. He says, first point that we need to understand is that we know Jesus. He says that, believe in God, verse one, believe also in me. Number two, understand and see this in this passage, there is a prepared place for us in heaven, that Jesus Christ has prepared a place. Think about somebody that's been through such abuse in this world, in this life. There's a biblical counselor who gave her testimony at the 2018 ACBC conference. Her name is Pam Gannon. And this was a girl who, at the age of five years old, was sexually abused and molested by a neighbor. And she said, and I've heard this from several testimonies of young people that have gone through abuse at a young age. They said they felt like there was a target on their back and abusers just knew that they were the prey because after that it was her brother. And then it was a couple of others before she was even 18. She'd been abused by three separate people. And I think that, what kind of hope is it for somebody to say, this is all there is? This is all there is, but it's not. And the Christian has that hope. There is a prepared place. Number three, he was going to prepare a place for us. What a comforting truth that is. Number four, he is returning again for those whom he has left. And number five, he will be with him, we will be with him forever. So number one was personal faith, and a personal Lord brings personal relief. Number two, our long-term future is secure. Our long-term future is secure. Warren Wearsby said, the assurance of a heavenly home at the end of life's road enables us to bear joyfully with the obstacles and battles along the way. It was this assurance that even encouraged our Lord, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, Hebrews 12.2. When persecution comes, that's how you make it through. Understanding this truth, that this is not all there is, but having a focus point on the eternal destination, on that future hope. That is how Christians make it through persecution. They hold tight and they cling to that hope through persecution. We have been spoiled in America. And I'd say that that day of nurture and our freedom is coming to an end. That's not me trying to be doomsday, that's just me sort of saying, that's Johnology right there. That's my opinion. I think it is. I really do believe that it's coming to an end. And I think that we need to be ready. There may be a purging in the church. I think that we'll see churches, we'll see who the believers are. And I think you're seeing that today. I think you're seeing certain churches accommodate the culture. and then you're seeing some that are standing against the culture. But I've left preaching, I've gone to giving my opinions. All right, so I'll stop there. That's John 14, one through six. We'll pick up in verse seven and cover verse seven through 14 next week. Let's go to the Lord in prayer this evening. Father, we thank you so much for all that you've done for us. You are a great, wonderful, loving God. And we ask that we can keep our focus on your word. We thank you for being that way. We thank you for being the truth and being the life. We thank you for the glorious gospel and how it has changed our lives and continues to do so. We pray that we will activate that gospel in our daily lives as we interact with those around us. We love you and we give you the praise and glory in Jesus' name. Amen.