Thank you very much. I enjoyed that singing. Happy to hear young people use their voices for the Lord. I hope that every one of you meant every word you say. Now we're beginning tonight a series of studies in the Gospel according to John. And since we only have six nights together, it's quite obvious that we're not going to cover the whole book of John. We could spend all that time just on the I ams of the Book of John. There are eight of them. The Lord Jesus said, I am this or that, all those different times. Or we could spend the time just thinking about his wonderful prayer in the seventeenth chapter. I'm sure that this would be well worth our spending the whole week. If you're interested in that, get hold of Krumacher's book called Our Lord Praise for His Own. It will warm your soul. It's about a four hundred and seventy-five page book written just on that one chapter alone. The Gospel of John is written, I believe, especially for Christians. I think Matthew was probably written in Hebrew to begin with. It certainly was written for the Hebrew people and presents Christ as the King. I think Mark was probably written for the Romans. It's short, the book that gets right to the business, and would appeal very much to the Roman mind of that day. I think that Luke was undoubtedly written for the Greeks. He was a cultured gentleman. He was a doctor. And he presents the Lord Jesus as the Son of Man. But John, I believe, writes especially for the Christian, to draw us back, to bring us back to appreciate the Lord Jesus, His acts and His words. And I believe that it was written long after the rest of the Scriptures, the New Testament Scriptures, were completed. It's very likely that the Apostle Paul died about the year sixty-seven A.D. and the last of his writings was Second Timothy. It's very likely that the Apostle John waited then. Spirit of God led him to write the Gospel and the Epistles, the three Epistles and the Book of the Revelation, five books that complete our Bible, somewhere about the year ninety, or in the ninety. In other words, nearly thirty years. after all the rest of Scripture is completed, after all the rest of the apostles had given their lives for the Lord. Then the Lord uses this man, now an old man, to bring the people of God back to the truths that they have been taught by the Lord Jesus in the beginning. You get this very plainly in the beginning of his epistles. I want to read to you the reason for the Gospel of John given to us near the close of the book, chapter twenty and verses thirty and thirty-one. Then we'll go back to chapter two and begin our study of one particular phase of this book, the signs or the miracles which are recorded here. John twenty, verses thirty and thirty-one. And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through his name. Now in his first epistle, chapter five, he says that those who believe that Jesus is the Christ are born of God. And he says that those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God will overcome the world. And this, of course, covers all of the needs of a Christian. This tells us how we can have eternal life, and this tells us how we can live an overcoming Christian life. And it's by believing in who this person is. It's by giving him his right place in your life. So I want to make this practical. I want it to be something that you can take home with you with some handles on it, some things that will affect your life. I'd like to have you here every night this week. I know you've got other things to do, and so have I. I didn't come five hundred miles from home because I couldn't think of anything else to do. If I came that far, I expect you to get no farther away than you live. I think that's fair. And if you've got other things that are important, There are ways of postponing them. And I believe it will do you so good to be here for each one of these meetings and go through these signed gifts or signed miracles of the Lord Jesus. Chapter two. And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there. And both Jesus was called and his disciples for the marriage. And when they wanted wine, that is when they ran out of refreshments for the wedding, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, they have no wine. Jesus saith unto her woman, What have I to do with thee? Mine hour has not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set there six waterpots of stones. after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three Perkins apiece. This would be, we'll say, eight or ten gallons, large stone water pots. Jesus said unto them, Fill the water pots with water, and they fill them up to the brim. And he said unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast, and they bury it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was, but the servants which drew the water knew, the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning thus set forth good wine, and when men are well drunk, then that which is worse. But thou hast kept the good wine until now. This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory and his disciples believed on him. After this he went down to Capernaum, he and his mother and his brethren and his disciples, and they continued there not many days. And the Jews' Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money, said he. And when he had made the scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables, and said unto them that sold doves, Take these things in. Make not my father's house a house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shalt thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, forty and six years was this temple and building. Will thou rear it up in three days? By he spake of the temple of his body. And therefore he was risen from the dead. His disciples remembered that he had said this unto them. and they believed the Scriptures and the word which Jesus had said. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover and the feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men, and he did not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. Now those last three verses properly belong with the following chapter, and we will not consider them tonight. But we have here actually a three-part story. First of all, the story of the initial sign or the first miracle performed by the Lord Jesus, a turning of water into wine. I was rebuked for preaching on this one time. A lady said to me, I don't think you ought to preach on that, because it might encourage young people to drink wine. I said, well, the Lord put it in His book, and I intend to preach everything that's in the book, including the first chapter of Romans and a lot of other passages that people are ashamed to hear read in public. This is God's word. I make no apology for it at all. The responsibility for how it is taken rests, of course, first of all, in the Spirit of God as He applies it to your heart, and then on you that you take the Scriptures in connection with other passages of Scripture, and you'll know if you do this, that the Lord is not condoning the use of strong drink. The word wine is used of all kinds of drink made of the fruit of the vine, from the new wine which is just made to the old wine that had been settled on the leaves, as he calls it. And we are told in other scriptures that wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging, and he that is deceived thereby is not wise. So it's a foregone conclusion that our Lord did not prepare that kind of wine for these people. He certainly was not about to turn a wedding feast into a drunken orgy. So much for that. Now the story, the first story is the story of the Lord Jesus performing this wonderful miracle. And we are told here in this passage that this miracle, that's in verse eleven, this miracle manifested forth his glory and his disciples believed on him. Now all of the miracles show the glory of the Lord Jesus. Christ has different kinds of glory. He has the kind of glory which is his intrinsically because he is the eternal Son of God. The Lord Jesus didn't begin to be when he was born at Bethlehem. You certainly know that. That was the beginning of his earthly ministry. That's when he was incarnate or when he appeared to us in flesh, in human form. But the Lord Jesus always was. He is the eternal God, the eternal Son of God. And in the first chapter, in the first verse of this book, he tells us, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. So we're talking about an eternal person who came to this world for the purpose of doing something for mankind. Now he came with the glory that was his from all eternity. But he veiled that glory. People didn't see that glory. They said, isn't this the carpenter's son? They said, how does this man know so much? He didn't go to school. They missed the whole thing. That's because he veiled his glory. His glory as God was veiled. But there was another glory of the Lord Jesus, and that was the glory of the manifestation of his person. In the Old Testament we get a nice picture of this, the veil that divided the holy place from the Holy of Holies in the temple, first in the tabernacle, and then in the temple, was called the glory of his presence. And we're told that this was the covering veil. He said he called it the veil that covereth the glory. And so if you wanted to see the glory of the presence of God, you had to be the high priest, and it had to be the day of atonement. because nobody else and no other day could go into that inner sanctum and see the glory that was hidden. But that very veil that covered the glory that was behind it also showed out glory. For this veil was in four colors and was embroidered with gold cherubim. And these things tell us about the glory of the Lord Jesus. Those four colors present to us the Lord Jesus as he is seen in these four Gospels. And so while the Lord Jesus veiled his glory, while he came down here, at the same time he was showing his glory. And he showed his glory both in his words and in his words. There was another glory of the Lord Jesus, his acquired glory, which is going to be his in the coming day, because he became the Son of Man. God is going to give him the glory and the kingdom and the place in a coming day. He shall be glorified. because of what he has endured. So the Lord Jesus showed forth his glory in this miracle. And the glory that he showed forth here was the glory of the Creator, the creedorial work and glory of the Lord Jesus. And then the second movement of this chapter is an interlude when the people for a little while did not see the Lord. He was away with His own. And then He appeared the next time in the judgment scene. We just read about this, how the Lord came into the temple and drove the people out with a whip of small cords. And this manifested the glory of His judgment. The Lord not only created this world, but the Lord is going to judge this world. The Lord not only made you, He not only gave you, your being, but the Lord is going to judge. in the coming day, all are going to appear before Him. Saved are going to appear for rewards. Unsaved are going to appear to find their part in the lake of fire. It's very serious, but it's very true. You and I are going to stand before the Lord one of these days as a judge. And the fourth movement of this chapter is a sort of postlude, and yet it really is the foundation for the whole chapter. and that is the story of the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus told in Symbol. Now let's begin with the story of the marriage. Tradition says this was John's own marriage. Very likely it could be. If so, this would be the same house into which Mary was taken in the nineteenth chapter. John did live in Jerusalem, we know that, and so it's very plain that John would want the Lord to be at his wedding. And it certainly is true that John did have a home and did have a wife, and is mentioned by Paul as being one of the apostles who did have a wife. So it could have been his marriage. In any case, it was the marriage of a young couple who did not want to begin life without the Lord Jesus. Now, I just love a wedding. And I've performed many of them out where I live. And I'm so happy when a young couple wants a Christian wedding. And I do everything I can to make it just the way they want it. I had a wedding for one of the girls in our assembly a while back. Her name was Taylor. And after the wedding was over, someone said that was just lovely. I never saw anything like it before. And I said, no, it was Taylor May. She and her mother wanted it just this way, and we fixed it just exactly like they wanted it. It was a lovely Christian wedding. And I think it's wonderful when young people can have the kind of wedding that they like to have. But you're going to be terribly disappointed if you leave the Lord Jesus out. Some young people are playing with fire. They're keeping company with a non-Christian. And they may say, well, I don't intend to marry him, but your heart gets out of control. And then you marry one who is not a Christian. I only have one sister. My sister married an unsaved man. She has given me permission to tell this from the platform if it might be a warning to some other young Christian. She's been married for twenty-eight years to a man who still has no use, whatever, for spiritual matters. And she said, you don't know how awful it is, Johnny, and you can't pray with the one you love the most. You want to be sure the Lord Jesus is at your wedding, and he never blesses a marriage between a Christian and a non-Christian. He's commanded you not to do it. But there are other things to be considered, other factors in this case. It is possible for you to marry one who is a Christian and still not marry in the Lord. You ought to be sure that the Lord is leading you to marry this very one. And he'll do far better for you than you can do for yourself. I get the willies sometimes and I think who I might have married. But the Lord was gracious to me. The Lord was kind to me. The Lord did far better for me than I ever could have done for myself. We've had thirty-eight happy years together. I hope we'll have many more as the Lord leaves us here. I'd like to go to heaven hand in hand with her. The Lord knew what he was doing. He did so much better than I could have done for myself. A little boy went into a grocery store with his father and they had peanuts in the big burlap bag and all roasted peanuts and the boy was eyeing them and the grocerman said, Help yourself, son, take a handful. And he kind of hung his head and he said, Go ahead, take a handful. His father said, The man says, Take a handful. But he was very bashful. Finally the grocerman took a handful, put him in his hands and the guy outside his father said, What's the matter with you? You're not that bashful. Why didn't you take a handful? He said, He's got bigger hands. Our Father has bigger hands than you have, brother and sister, and you'll be so much happier if you let him choose for you. He's got great plans for you. He thought about you before you were born, before the foundation of the world, in fact, and now he's reached you and saved you, and he would like so much to make you a happy, useful Christian. Be sure the Lord is at your wedding. and be sure he's at every other thing in your life too. What a shame it would have been if the Lord hadn't been there and they'd run out of refreshments and they would have been embarrassed in front of their guests. And life is like this. We're always running out. We're always a day late and a dollar short. We always run out of money before we run out a month. You young couples know what I'm talking about. It seems that nothing in this world ever quite holds up to what we expected. But if the Lord is there, he can take care of the deficit. And he was, and he did. Now there's a nice illustration in this, I think, of a soul being saved. First of all, there were six big religious empty water pots. And incidentally, the Lord tells us about dealing with exactly six people in the Gospel of John. You ever notice that? As so much as to say, let me show you what these six big water pots are like. There was Nicodemus in chapter three. And Cykers Well, another woman in chapter four, a Samaritan woman. And you look the other four up. I think I'm going to spoon feed you. Five of them, six of them in the Gospel according to John. Six people whom the Lord blessed. And all of them were desperately empty when he found them. In spite of sin, in spite of religion, in spite of anything else, they were all desperately empty. And they were religious, too. Even the woman who had had five husbands and was living with a man who wasn't her husband, she wanted to discuss religion. Everybody's religious. The atheists are religious. Communism is a religion. Everybody has religion. But somehow or other it doesn't satisfy. These pots were set here for the purifying of the Jews. There they sat, empty and cold. Until the Lord said, fill them up with water. I think of the water of the Word. This is what I'd like to do. I'd like to be one of the Lord's servants, doing what the Mother of the Lord said, whatsoever He said unto you, do it. And I believe the Lord has told me which water He wanted to put into the pots tonight. Excuse me, if I'm insulting. There might be some big, empty pots here tonight, and God would like to fill you up with His Word. Fill them with the water. Now they're full of water, but water isn't what they want. I don't know how many people have said, well, I have been coming to your meetings, and I've been listening to your preaching, but I'm not getting what I want. Well, what do you want? I want a happy feeling. But you see, God's way is to give you Christ. And when you receive Christ as your Savior, then you get the happy feelings afterward. But water turns to wine afterward. And that's exactly what happened. A miracle took place. A miracle took place inside every one of these six empty water pots, or had been empty water pots. A miracle took place. The Lord turned the water into water. And the Lord had to do that in your soul, too. The Lord can just get to you tonight. He can just get you to see your need of Christ. He can just get you to receive the Lord Jesus tonight. He'll turn that water into wine, a wine of divine joy. That was a miracle, all right. Only God can do that. I can't save anybody. I gave that up a long time ago. I think I was eight years old, nine, and I had a cousin who wasn't a Christian, and he was six. And my dad said, maybe you'd like to give Clint a gospel paper. I thought, I'll do one better than that. I'll go in and save you. So I went in and I said, Clint, are you saved? He said, no, I'm afraid I'm not. Would you want to be saved? Yes, sure, I'd like to be. All right, and I very briefly told him what John III, XVI said. I suppose a boy of that age would run through it pretty fast. And when I got through, I said, you believe that? Well, of course. I said, you're saved then. Was he? Oh. People don't get saved by nodding their heads. People don't get saved by saying yes. People get saved when the Spirit of God doesn't work in their souls. Don't you settle for anything less. Some of you are teaching Sunday school classes, child evangelism classes, working in camps. Don't be a party to making tears. Let the devil do his own work. That's Satan's work producing tears. You see to it that they get the gospel. The story of the death, barrel, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and then leave it in God's hands, and the Spirit of God will do the work. And when He does it, it'll stick. I know, He saved me. In the year nineteen hundred and eleven, And if God hadn't done the work, I wouldn't be here tonight. And then the result, the result was that a great many people were made glad. You don't know how many people would be glad if you received Christ tonight. And the result was that many believed on the Lord. This was like dropping a rock in a pool. The ripples extended all the way to the shore. And that's the way it is. And Christ comes into a light. other people are touched and the gospel goes on and on and on and on. My wife and I have had the privilege of rearing about five hundred boys and girls at the children's home. We've just recently turned the management over to younger people. And those five hundred children, a great many of them now, at least three hundred of them, I suppose, are married. And then most of those who are married have children of their own and I'm not sure, but something over a thousand grandchildren we have now, and you ever care to discuss this at the meeting. I don't have pictures of all of them, but it's been wonderful to see the Lord expand the Word. One is saved. This one leads another one to Christ. Three of my boys are preaching. Two of my girls are singing the Christian radio program. Dozens and dozens of the children are teaching Sunday school classes where they live. It's wonderful to see what God does when he begins with a life and then reaches out to lies all around. And if God isn't reaching out through you, there's something wrong. Maybe you could have missed it. And then the Lord went away. This is the way our Savior when he came here into this world. He came to seek him to say that which is lost, and then he went away. It says he was away for not many days. I know you think it's a long time since Christ went away, don't you? Well, that's because you've got the wrong kind of calendar. That's because you're figuring our time. You know, when our astronauts went to the moon, they had to have a new timetable altogether. Because how do you tell what time it is on the moon? You can take a watch with you. Of course, you know what time it is on the earth. But how do you tell what time it is on the moon? The sun rises and sets once every twenty-eight days. Are there days twenty-eight times as long as ours? How do you tell what time it is on the moon? Well, they had to have they invented a whole new system of time telling. They arranged the way so that they would know where they were because they have to know in relation to the earth so they can get back here and land on time and in the right spot. You're using the wrong kind of time. Do you think it's been a long time since the Lord Jesus went back to heaven? Because He says, A day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day. How long is it since He went away? Just day before yesterday. When's He coming back? Real soon, I hope. But when He comes back, He's going to do something that you may not like. When the Lord came back, He did not come to manifest the glory of His Creator-ship. By turning this water into wine, the Lord Jesus showed that He was indeed God. Who is it that turns water into wine every day? It's being done all around us. It happens every season. The water is drawn up from the ground through the vine and pushed out into the grapes, and these grapes are filled mostly with water. A grape is about ninety-seven percent water, about the same as you are. And he fills this grape full of water, and then in the process of time this thing, this sweetens. And this grape juice can be squeezed out, and after a process of some months, you have turned water into wine. It happens all the time. God does it regularly, but only God can do it. And because He was God, He did it in a few seconds. Because where God lives, there aren't any clocks and calendars. Your timetable is wrong. You say it can happen in six months, but it can't happen in six seconds. But you see with God, nothing is impossible. He showed that He was God. He's coming back again. When He comes back, He's going to show that He's God too. Do you know how He's going to do it? The whole fifth chapter is occupied with proving that our Blessed Lord can exercise the two prerogatives of deity. There are two things which only God can do. The first one is to give life, and the second one is to judge. You read the fifth chapter of John and see if that isn't what he's talking about. He says the Lord Jesus can give life, just as the Father can give life. He says the Son can judge, just the same as the Father can judge. In fact, he says the Father has committed all judgment into the hands of the Son because he is the Son of man. When the Lord Jesus comes back again, He's coming back to show the glory of his judgment. Well, what glory is this? It's the glory of righteous judgment. When I was a boy, I worked for a judge. I believe he was a good man. I believe that man, Judge Hunter, dead many years now, I believe that man did his very best to give a righteous judgment. I've been in his courtroom many, many times. I've heard him sentence a man to be hanged by the neck until dead. And I saw that man after the sentence was passed and after the court was dismissed. I saw him take off his robe and drop into a chair and take his handkerchief and wipe his forehead and groan. He felt this. It's a terrible thing to have to sentence a man to death for murder. I believe Judge Hunter was a righteous man, and yet I couldn't say that Judge Hunter never made a mistake. I couldn't say that his judgment was always right, because he had to act only upon the evidence that he had. But when the Lord Jesus comes back again, he will have all the evidence. He will know exactly what is right, and he will judge righteously. There is no respective persons with God. The word person, as you may remember if you studied Latin in school, comes from two words, pur and sona, which means literally through a mask. And it was used of the people who acted on the stage. When they were acting out of stage play, they wore a mask. It was a comedy. They wore a grinning mask. It was a tragedy. They wore a mask with the corners of the mouth turned down in the old days. and the man who was acting out apart was acting and speaking persona. He was being somebody whom he was not. And when the Lord says there is no respect of persons with God, he means there's no use for you to try to pretend anything because God sees behind your mask. God knows exactly what you are. You can fool me. You can tell me after the meeting that you're a Christian and I'll just smile and Shake your hand and say, I'm so happy for you and I will be happy and I'll write to my wife and tell her that somebody accepted the Lord and you might be a phony. I have no way of telling. I'll tell you somebody who can tell. Our blessed Lord Jesus knows the heart and you and I are going to appear before him. You better be sure that you're real. I'm always glad when professing Christians get saved. And I've seen a good many of them give up their profession. People who said they were Christians. You better take stock. You better go back and examine the foundations. You better be absolutely and mercilessly certain that your sins have been forgiven because you'll have to meet the judge who knows. When the Lord came back, he walked into the temple. And here are the people engaged in their business. they were making religion convenient. This was the most hateful thing of all to God. Our Lord's dealings with the people were always more severe when he was dealing with religious people than when he was dealing with the down and outer. See how gentle he is in the fourth chapter of John's Gospel and in the eighth chapter of John's Gospel. And compare that with a sharp digs that he gave to that man, Nicodemus, and some of the others. And you'll find that the Lord was merciless with religious professors. There is nothing worse than God's sight than a man who claims to be religious but is not really born again. I don't say these things to disturb you unnecessarily. If you really belong to Christ, what I'm saying won't trouble you in the least. You have nothing to be afraid of if you know Christ as your Savior. If you've really received Him as your Savior, you have nothing whatever to fear. In fact, you'll be glad to have the foundations examined because every time you go back and think on your receiving Christ and turn back to the Scriptures which you believe, you'll have your assurance redoubled. You'll be happier than ever every time you examine the foundations. Our Lord went into that temple with this whip of small cords. The book of Jeremiah says that when Christ comes back, he's going to come with an overflowing scourge. Not a whip of small cords. He did that here on this earth. But when he comes back again, he's coming in judgment. And he judged these people. He drove them out of the temple. He took their religious paraphernalia away from them and left them standing before God as they really were lost. They objected to this. They wanted to know what right he had to this. They said you'll have to give us some kind of a sign. They said this in the face of a sign that had just then taken place. Was this a miracle? Of course it was a miracle. When one man, unarmed, walks into a place where a great crowd of people are in business, and these people have money at stake, and they love money, that's why they're in this business, and people will do anything to defend their money. When a man can walk into that, and with nothing more than a whip of small cords, drive all those people out of the tent, overthrow the changers' money, drive out the sheep and the oxen, and not get a word back, a miracle has happened. Only the Son of God could do this. If you do that, you'll start a riot. The Lord Jesus did it, and there was something in his eyes that told them, This man has a right to do what he's doing. And so he said, It is written, My Father's house shall be a house of prayer for all people if you have made it a den of thieves. And the Lord drove them out. This was the miracle of the judgment of God. Another miracle of the judgment of God is going to take place. The Lord says that when heaven and earth have both passed away, All of the dead, that is those who have died without Christ, are going to stand before God. Where are they going to stand? Not in heaven. Well, they can't enter heaven. Not on earth because the earth has just come to an end. Where are they going to stand? They're going to stand in space before God. Think of it a little bit. They stand in space before the judgment of the great white throne. And in an orderly fashion, the Lord examines the records one by one. The books are open. At least three books will be open, according to the twentieth chapter of the book of the Revelation. This book, the Word of God, we have in our hands will be open, because the Lord said, the words that I have spoken, they shall judge you in that day. The book of life will be open, because this was examined in the twentieth chapter of the Revelation. and then the book of your deeds will be open because they will be judged according to the things written in the books according to their deeds and you will face those books if you die without Christ and you will be judged eternally they said give us a sign tell us tell us the basis for this tell us what rights you have to do this and he said what seemed to be a conundrum to them he said destroy this temple and I'll build it in three days. That doesn't make sense. You can't do that. It took forty-six years to build this temple. Herod used the best architects and the best construction engineers. He took a long time to build this beautiful building. Forty-six years. You say you're going to raise it up in three days? But he wasn't talking about that temple. That temple hasn't been raised up to this day. The Lord said not one stone will be left on another. And when Titus came in there, he tore that place apart to get the gold that was in it. And it hasn't been built to this day. He wasn't talking about the temple of Herod. He said, he was talking of the temple of his body. Destroy this temple. In three days I will raise it up. and they did destroy that temple. They beat his face until the book of Isaiah says that it was not like the face of a human being. They plowed his back until the prophet calls it covered with furrows. They spit on his face until they covered his face with spittle. They beat and buffeted him and they nailed into a cross And then when he was dead, a soldier with a spear as broad as my hand tore his heart out. And out came blood and water. They destroyed that body, all right. They hated that body. They hated him without a cause. Three days later, I blessed Lord Jesus was alive. The people were terrified. Even his own were terrified. They had seen him die. They had seen his body destroyed. And they were terrified. And the Lord said, don't be afraid. Handle me and see. A spirit doesn't have flesh and bones the way you see me to have. And then he said to that doubter, Thomas, put your finger in that hole in my hand. I don't know whether Thomas ever did it or not, but he could have if he wanted to. There was a hole big enough for that fisherman's big finger to go into. Then he said, Reach your hand, thrust it into my side. Put your hand right into my heart, and be not faithless, but believing. Thomas fell to his knees and said, My Lord and my God. Did he come alive? Oh, yes, he did. Happy Easter. Don't wait for once a year to talk about this wonderful story. Make every Lord's Day a memorial of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We haven't even preached the Gospel until we tell that He was raised again from the dead. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and He was buried, and He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. That's the basis for all that I have read to you in the second chapter of John. How can the Lord, as Creator, bring joy into the lives of His people on the basis of the suffering and death at Calvary's Cross and the glorious resurrection? What right does the Lord have to bring joy into the lives of people who have destroyed their own joy by their sins? He can do it because He justly put those sins away. He suffered for sin, just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. What right does the Lord Jesus have to take people into heaven who deserve to go to hell? He can do it because He went to hell for us. Because He suffered everything that you and I would have suffered. In those three dark hours when the sun hit its face, the Son of God took everything that you and I deserved. and bore it in his own body on the tree. That's the basis of bringing joy into the lives of those who are willing to have it. What's the basis of his judgment? What right does the Son of God have to send people to hell? He has the right of the Redeemer. It was his precious blood that was poured out for you. It was his death that answered to God so that there is no reason for any person to die. I think the saddest verse in all of Scripture is that one where the Lord Jesus says, Depart from me, ye cursing into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. I think that's the saddest verse in the Bible. I can almost see him holding up his hands. Those hands that are pierced, the hand that says to you depart will be a hand with a hole in it. a mark of the nail. The hand that is held up to send sinners away into a lost eternity is the very hand that was nailed to the cross for those sins. That's the basis of judgment. And what will you have to say? It says, and they shall go away, voluntarily they shall go away into everlasting punishment. How could you face the Lord Jesus at the judgment? without turning away from him, voluntarily, saying to yourself, I have damned my own soul. I have rejected the only hope of salvation. That's the basis of judgment. Souls are going to be happy eternally because Christ died for them and rose again. Souls are going to be miserable eternally. because they rejected that faith. Let's pray. Our Father, in the precious name of the Lord Jesus, we thank thee from the bottom of our hearts that Christ died for our sins and that he rose again and that he has brought so much joy into our lives. We have heard the word of God and has turned to joy in our souls. We have been satisfied and we have been used of thee to satisfy this. And this is all of thy grace and we thank thee for it. We thank thee, our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, that thou hast suffered the just for the unjust to bring us to God. We thank thee that we can tell others about this, that we can offer The salvation of God is a free gift. And then our Father, as we consider that awful time when our Lord comes back and this world is called in judgment before God, we think of our friends and our loved ones without Christ. And we're not sure whether we've done everything that we could to win them to Christ. We ask our Father that thou help us who are believers to do all that we can to win them to the Lord before it's too late. And we pray for any here tonight who have not come to Christ, some who may have a false profession, some who may never have given any serious thought to it, some who may have been hypocritical, whatever their need, they're not the Lord. We pray that tonight they will realize the seriousness of facing Christ in their sins. God bless us as we go from this place. Help us to remember thy word. Help us to honor thy son.