The Day Jesus Cried Out // John 12:44-50

The Father, we are here this morning in part because we have trusted in that promise that you have made that you are working all things for your glory and our good.

So this morning is we look into your Word and we see the words of our Savior Jesus Christ calling out,

telling men the truth about the reality of their sin, the necessity of coming to the light.

So I pray that you would do a work for your glory and our good in our hearts this morning by your Word through the power of your Holy Spirit.

So may your Spirit come, illumine your Word through the proclamation of it through preaching this morning so that we may see Christ,

so that we may know Christ, so that we may love Christ so that we may follow Christ.

I ask this in Christ's name. Amen.

Turn please in your copy of the scripture to John's Gospel chapter 12.

There are plenty of things in this world that are factually true but are not particularly urgent.

It's true for instance that contrary to widely held belief throughout much of history that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa.

So that is an important truth. It's actually very significant truth, but it doesn't resonate with much if any sense of personal urgency in our everyday lives.

You probably didn't wake up this morning thinking to yourself that it was important that the sun is not revolving around the earth.

On the other hand, there are things that if they are in fact true, they would be not only important or significant matters.

They would be deeply urgent matters in the context of our daily life.

January 13, 2018, the residents of Hawaii received an emergency alert notification on their cell phones and also that was delivered as a news bulletin over the radio stations announcing of an incoming ballistic missile.

That had been launched that was incoming that was targeting Hawaii and therefore urging all the people to seek shelter immediately.

Imagine finding that alert pop up on your phone.

Now fortunately that that emergency alert turned out to be a mistake and you just imagine a whole host of interns must have been fired later that day.

But if it had been true and for those who believed it to be true, that alert represented a matter of profound personal urgency.

I don't think anyone was calling home that day going, hey, honey, did you see that emergency alert about that incoming nuclear ballistic missile that's going to destroy us all?

Anyways, you want me to pick up pizza on the way home? People weren't having those kinds of conversations.

They were calling home and saying, thank goodness I found you. Did you see the find shelter? I love you. Those are the kinds of conversations that were happening.

Why? Because it was a matter of personal urgency.

This morning we come to a text where Jesus calls forth a message and he calls it forth because it is a message of profound personal urgency for everyone who hears it.

Read our text this morning, John chapter 12 beginning in verse 44 and Jesus cried out and said, whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me.

Whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

If anyone hears my word and does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.

The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge. The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.

I have not spoken on my own authority but the father who sent me has himself given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak.

And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say therefore, I say as the father has told me, this is the word of the Lord.

What to consider with you this morning, some of these words of Christ, two truths and what they teach us this morning.

Truth number one, the light of Christ is a matter of great personal urgency.

Now we tend to communicate matters of urgency in the way that we speak or in the tone of our voice.

You know that tone that your mother had or that your spouse has that conveys to you, they just have to say a word and you know something is wrong.

There's an urgency in their tone, their tenor, the words that they're using.

And that's true of our text as well this morning. Jesus had previously recalled, hit himself from the people and then John informed us of the hard, hard,

response of the people who continued in their unbelief of Jesus. But now Jesus suddenly reappears from where he had hit himself and the urgency of what he has to say is communicated by the forcefulness with which he speaks.

Our text begins in verse 44 and Jesus cried out and said not just Jesus said, but Jesus cried out and said.

The Greek word here, cradzo means to vehemently or urgently call out in a loud voice.

It signals to us that what Jesus says here is a matter of great emphasis is in fact the climatic point of the whole of the latter part of John chapter 12.

This would be the same sense of the word that the Old Testament prophets would cry out.

It's a matter of urgency and authority with which Jesus is about to speak.

And to see why what Jesus says here is so important, we actually need to step back for a moment to consider the whole structure of the gospel of John and what that reveals to us.

John, the evangelist, as we've noted all throughout our study, he is a careful and incredibly intentional author who is writing not only by his unprogative but is also writing by the direction of course of the Holy Spirit.

And John has very intentionally structured this gospel in such a way to help us understand that the narrative that he is relating to us is proving a greater point is proving the thesis, the reason for which he wrote this gospel.

The thesis of this gospel is at the end of the gospel, John chapter 21, these things are written, the whole gospel has been written.

So that purpose, you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

That's why John has written these things for us.

This John draws us as readers toward that conclusion through each part of his gospel.

He has marshaled his proves, he has called forth his witnesses, he has summoned up his evidence and his arguments, and he's compiled these into a clear structure in his gospel that helps us drive toward that ultimate conclusion.

So this gospel, as we said when we began this gospel series, this gospel is essentially divided into two halves.

Chapters 1 through 12 comprise what we might call the book of signs, where the works and the words of Christ in his public ministry are demonstrating to the world his identity as the Son of God.

And then the second half of the gospel chapters 13 through 21 comprise what we might call the book of glory, where the words and the passion and the resurrection of Christ display his glory as the revealed Son of God,

who is commonly accomplished the work that the Father sent him to do and therefore is receiving the glory that the Father has ordained for the Son since the beginning of the world.

Throughout this gospel, John the evangelist has presented us seven signs that points to Christ's identity, and he has also paired those seven signs with seven I am statements from Jesus.

Now of those seven signs that are in this gospel, six of them appear in the first 12 chapters inappropriately the book of signs.

Most of the signs occur in the first half of the gospel.

So we had the miracle of turning water into wine at the miracle at the wedding at Cana.

We have the healing of the official Son in chapter 4, the healing of the lame man in chapter 5, the feeding of the 5,000 in chapter 6, the healing of the blind man in chapter 9,

and then most recently the raising of Lazarus from the dead in chapter 11.

Now the final greatest sign in this gospel is still to come.

And that will be the resurrection of Jesus Christ himself.

You're the end of this second half of the gospel, the book of glory.

But the final in climactic miracle of the first half of the gospel, the book of signs, is the raising of Lazarus from the dead,

which serves both as the penultimate sign in the gospel, but it also points to the final sign itself, the resurrection of Lazarus points toward the eventual resurrection of Jesus.

So the final sign of the book of signs points to the final sign of the book of glory.

And yet as we saw last week, in the face of all of these signs that Jesus has performed in the course of his public ministry,

including finally this resurrection of Lazarus, here's what the spiritual condition of the people is, verse 37 of chapter 12,

though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him.

So the book of signs is closing, and in the face of all the evidence, all the witnesses, all the words, all the works, they still do not believe.

Therefore, this moment, and these words here from Jesus in our passage, in John 12, 44 through 50, mark a fundamental hinge moment in this whole gospel,

as we're preparing to move now from the book of signs and into the book of glory.

Jesus cries out, because these are in fact the very final words of his public ministry.

The crowd in Jerusalem will not hear the voice of Jesus again until he hangs from the cross.

But light is going out of the world.

Soon these people will look for him, as he has told them, but they will be unable to find him.

Soon he will be returning to the Father who sent him, and where he is going, they cannot follow.

So not only does Jesus take these final public moments to reprise some of the key themes of his public teaching one last time,

but as he cries out is with an urgency that expresses the full weight of what this moment means for those who are hearing him.

This is a time for men to choose.

They have seen the light that has come into their world of darkness,

but this light is about to leave this world of darkness.

It is about to leave them back in the darkness in which they were stumbling before.

So the question is, what is their response to the light before the light is gone?

The train is leaving the station.

The ship is pulling away from the dock.

The plane is pushing back from the gate, and the final call is going out to all who would be on board

that this is no time for further delay.

You either get on board now or you miss the boat.

Now the reason for pressure for us this morning is we look at this text.

Maybe different than for those who were physically seeing Christ and who would soon no longer be able to physically see Christ,

and yet the matter before us in this text is no less urgent for us today.

Urgent for those listening to my voice, you have not believed in Christ,

because this very hour your life may be required of you,

or the very next moment the Lord may return.

In either case, the time of choosing for you will be over.

It is no use arriving at the dock after the ship has weighed anchor and pushed off.

It is the part that you are left behind.

You may wave and you may shout at that ship to turn around and come back for you, but it will not.

You may lament the fact that you did not get up early enough to arrive at the dock on time,

but that won't matter, won't change a thing.

You are standing there on the dock and the ship has left the shore.

It is urgent for you this morning if you have not believed in Christ.

It is urgent also for those listening to my voice who have believed in Jesus,

because every moment of every day that we live in this fallen world of darkness,

our hearts are being actively pulled and drawn away from Christ by the desires of our flesh and by the temptations of this world.

If you would remain near to Christ, we must have a personal urgency to hear the word of Christ

and to heed the word of Christ and that we may remain close to the side of Christ.

Therefore, the light of Christ is a matter of deep personal urgency,

whoever you are this morning.

In these first couple of verses, I want you to note with me,

what is at stake when it comes to hearing and heeding the words of Jesus?

So first, what is at stake number one?

What is at stake is whether or not you will truly believe God.

Verse 44, in Jesus cried out and said,

whoever believes in me believes not in me, but in him who sent me.

With Jesus here at the end of his public ministry repeats a point that has really been central

to his teaching all throughout the gospel of John,

if we have been paying any attention.

If he has come not in his own authority alone,

but that as the divine son who has been made man in the incarnation,

he has come expressly to do the will of his Heavenly Father.

It's the reason for which he has come.

All that he has done, therefore, has been an act of perfect obedience to the will of God the Father.

And the Father and the Spirit have, for their part, testified through this true identity of Jesus as the Son of God

by recognizing in his authority, in his word, and in his works

that they are testifying with Jesus about who he truly is.

Jesus, in other words, has come to mankind as the representative embodiment of the Father's will,

and as the perfect revelation of God's power and glory from the fullness of the Trinity.

The question then of believing in Jesus is not a matter of believing the teachings of some isolated

significant religious figure.

Now the question of believing in Jesus is the question of whether or not you believe in God at all.

That's what Jesus says here.

The one who believes in Jesus believes in God, but therefore the inverse is also true.

The one who does not believe in Jesus does not believe in God.

Friends, consider what Jesus is saying here.

If you are believing in Jesus, you are believing in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

You are believing in the God of the patriarchs, the God of the covenants, the God of the covenant promises.

But if you are rejecting Jesus, you are also that means rejecting the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and Jacob,

and you are calling him a liar.

And therefore you have no hope in the promises that God gave to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob.

Now understand that this means that all of the Jews and all of the Muslims around the world today

who think that they worship in some sense the God of the Old Testament

and fatically do not worship that God so long as they continue to reject Jesus.

They are not worshipping the God of the Old Testament so long as they reject His Son.

Therefore they are not, in any sense, true children of Abraham, nor do they worship the God of Abraham.

They worship some idolatrous notion of God, but by refusing to believe in Jesus

they reveal that they do not believe, nor do they worship the one and only true God.

They are idol worshipping unbelievers, just like every adherent of every other major religion that also rejects Jesus.

They may claim to have the Old Testament scriptures, but they do not worship the God of the Old Testament.

They don't believe in Jesus, therefore they don't believe in the one who sent Him.

And sadly this would seem to be a point on which the otherwise so hopeful and brilliant C.S. Lewis

toyed with an idea in some of his books that is simply disastrously wrong.

In his book The Last Battle, the great lion Aslan confronts a soldier who had served faithfully

in his whole life denying Aslan and seeking instead after the false God of Narnia the God Tash.

But Aslan says to this soldier that because this soldier had acted his whole life in sincerity believing in Tash,

that quote Aslan said, all the service that thou hast done to Tash, I account it as service done to me.

Now the implication being, or at least as many have understandably read this, given that Lewis depicts Aslan as a metaphor for Christ,

that Lewis is suggesting that so long as one's religious beliefs are sincere, that regardless of what one actually believed,

or if one actually believed in Jesus, that they would be saved, as long as one's belief was sincere.

Now, I want to say this clearly for you, Lewis levers out there, I am one of them.

There certainly is good reason to doubt that this is fully what C.S. Lewis believed about other religions.

But the implications of that fictional exchange could not be more wrong.

Christ is very clear. To believe in Him is to believe in the one who sent Him.

Therefore not to believe in Christ is not to believe in the one who sent Him.

Because therefore we must thoroughly reject in our pluralistic age, all notions of Christ,

or all notions that Christ can be rejected, and yet God can somehow be truly worshiped and therefore an individual can be saved.

Absolutely not. There is belief in Christ and therefore belief in the one true God, and there is idolatry.

Those are the options, that's the choice.

To soften our thinking, or to soften our witness on this point, is to take a shovel, if you will,

and to begin digging away at the embankment of those who are already standing on the precipice of hell.

It is the opposite of a loving thing to do.

Even if by saying something like that we might like to claim to ourselves, love wins, or something like it.

It is the opposite of truth.

And it is precisely that kind of evil lie that some of the largest churches even here in West Michigan have promoted,

and some of the most widely published false teachers from within our own community have also peddled.

Which means that our work is cut out for us, where God has placed us as a church here in West Michigan to confront not only a pluralistic society at large,

but also pluralism within the church here in West Michigan.

If we live in Grant, the name church for the sake of calling it something at all.

What's at stake in believing the truth about Jesus is whether we actually believe in God at all.

Second, what's at stake is whether you will know God.

Jesus cried out and said, whoever believes in me, believes not in me, but in him who sent me.

And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.

Jesus is declaring here that in some sense, some amazing sense to see Jesus is to see the Father.

There are a few things I want to very quickly say about that.

First, Jesus is going to have much more to say to his disciples in the coming chapters where he engages with them privately,

not publicly as he's doing now, but privately.

You'll have much more to say to them regarding his inter-Trenitarian relationship with his Father,

and how he, as the Son, makes the Father known to mankind.

So I am intentionally choosing not to dive as deeply into this remarkable truth this morning as we could do,

because Jesus is going to return to this theme more deeply in the coming chapters,

and I want to reserve some of those reflections for when Jesus more intentionally goes after this truth later.

Second, Jesus is not here suggesting that he and the Father are personally identical.

This is crucially important.

He is not saying that he and the Father are one in the same person, who just appear at different times as different personalities,

like masks that you put on and off at a mask grade ball, or like Superman who is at one time Clark Kent,

as another time Superman, but the same person just putting on different identities.

That would be the heresy of modalism.

We've talked about that before.

That God just appears in three different modalities, sometimes as Father, sometimes as Son, sometimes as Holy Spirit.

That is a heresy, we must reject it.

Rather, Jesus is saying that while he and the Father are distinct as persons, they share equally the divine nature,

and therefore in knowing the Son, one also knows the nature of the Father.

They are not one person, they are rather one God, and therefore to know that Godness of Jesus is to know that Godness of the Father.

Third, when Jesus speaks of seeing the one who sent him, he is not speaking of physical eyesight, but rather he is speaking of spiritual insight.

As Jesus stated back to the woman at the well in John chapter 4, God is Spirit, which means that he does not have a physical body like you and I do.

Therefore Jesus does not mean that in his human body, he bears a physical resemblance to God the Father, and therefore as you look at the physical form of Jesus,

you are beholding something like the physical form of God the Father, that's not what he's saying.

No, rather because somehow in the miracle of the incarnation, the fullness of deity dwell bodily in Christ.

Therefore, as we behold, the works in the words of Jesus, not with our physical eyes, but with rather with the eyes of faith.

As we look upon Him with the eyes of faith, our souls are able to gaze upon the supreme revelation of the divine nature that Christ shares with His Father, not merely propositionally, not merely conceptually,

but personally in Christ Himself as we gaze upon Christ spiritually with our souls through His words, through His works, we are seeing something in our souls of the nature of the Godhead.

As our souls gaze upon Christ with a spiritual eyesight that's granted by faith, our vision is being filled with the knowledge of the divine nature and the blazing glory of the Trinity that radiates from the person of Jesus.

Think about the most beautiful thing that you have ever seen for just a moment, really think about it, pull it up in your mind's eye.

Think about how long you could look at it, how long you could drink in its beauty into your heart until your heart actually began to sing with joy at the look of this thing in which there was just so much unspeakable beauty.

That beauty that we can see with our eyes and that takes our breath away, it points to something deeper, friend.

Something infinitely more beautiful and infinitely more lovely, something infinitely more worship inspiring than the beautiful sunrise or the gorgeous mountains that our eyes can see.

Brothers and sisters, your soul in mind was created, we were made and fashioned for the inexpressible delight and for the eternal happiness of daising upon the glory of God.

Our souls were created to drink in the beauty of His glory, to soak in the purifying light of His holiness.

Your soul in mind were created for this thing. It's why we chased after so many things, so many places that we try to find beauty and yet we find satisfaction is somehow always elusive.

Even the beautiful things tantalize us not by satisfying our inexpressible longings, but by increasing them.

You don't see a sunrise and turn away from that sunrise feeling satisfied.

No, no, you see a sunrise and you find in yourself this deep ache to reach further in and to know more completely the deeper beauty of which that sunrise just whispers.

And that greater beauty of which all creation variously whispers and sings and shouts is not to be found in another created thing, that beauty, that ultimate beauty for which your soul was created is to be found in the creator.

He is the beauty that your soul was created to gaze upon, to see, to know and to be supremely satisfied in. He is what you were created for.

The old churchmen had a term for this. They called this the beatific vision or the soul's days upon God.

It will be among the chief joys that we will experience in the age of light to come when we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

But how do we even begin today to know God in this way or way that begins to satisfy our souls now and that will supremely satisfy our souls in eternity?

This knowledge of God that your soul was created for comes through beholding Christ with the eyes of faith that the Spirit of God has given you.

So that as you look into his word, you would see him and know him and that as we read his word as it comes and fills our hearts, we would behold the glory of the Godhead that Christ Himself has made known to us.

You will not experience this joy, the satisfaction, the glory that you were made for if you are not regularly looking into the word of Christ, looking into the scriptures with the eyes of faith and asking God, show me your glory.

If you would live toward what you were created for and what will ultimately one day in the age to come satisfy your soul, you must come daily to the word of God with the eyes of faith to see Christ so that in him we might begin to gaze upon God.

Third, what's at stake is whether you will escape the darkness.

Verse 46, I have come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

Here Jesus confronts each one of us with an uncomfortable truth.

That is that spiritual darkness is the universal condition of this fallen world and being in darkness is therefore the default condition of all men and women everywhere.

We are in the darkness already, Jesus says.

The question is not if we are in the darkness, but rather if we will remain in the darkness.

Whoever believes in me may not remain in the dark, Jesus says.

This darkness of which Jesus speaks and that so characterizes our world is the evil of depravity and sin and death.

People stumble about hopeless in this darkness.

People are lost, deeply lost in this darkness. People are consumed in this darkness.

We live in a world today that is convinced of its own enlightenment in every sense.

But the concerns itself to be enlightened when it comes to the sciences and the origins of life and the universe.

Enlightened when it comes to what are acceptable forms of entertainment, enlightened when it comes to what makes for culture and art and beauty, enlightened when it comes to what makes for true morality and what makes for spirituality.

We live in a world convinced of its own enlightenment, but that is in reality plunged in the deepest and blackest midnight of sin.

But this darkness, this darkness that should be a dread in a horror is instead a covering for this world of people who hate the light and you shrink back from the light because they would not have the true evil of their hearts exposed by this light.

And this is the condemnation that men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

Jesus calls us out of this evil present darkness and he also calls us from the days of deep darkness of the divine wrath that are coming in order that we might instead walk in the newness of his life and his light.

And he cries out because this offer of believing in him and of coming to his light is an offer that is open, but it is not an offer that is forever.

That's why this is so urgent. This is why he cries out. This is his final public word to these people who are preparing to turn back to the darkness.

Friend, if you are still this morning in this darkness, come to the light of Christ by faith today that you may be delivered out of the darkness of your sin and you may be delivered from the days of darkness of the wrath of God that is coming against all in righteousness.

Turn today, come to this Christ where he yet calls to you.

Brother, sister, if you have believed in Christ, if you have come to the light, then my charge to you this morning is simply this. Walk as a child of the light.

Renew your commitment today to walk as one who is in the light rather than to be drawn back into the darkness from which you came as God told Israel again and again, don't go back the way by which you came.

Don't return to slavery in Egypt. Friend, don't return to slavery to sin. Don't go back the way that you came. Walk as children of the light.

How do we do that? By believing every day in the promises of Christ, by going to His Word and every day, beholding the beauty of Christ, and therefore as we do those things, keeping our heart near to the side of Christ.

This is a dark and an ever darkening world, and therefore the light of Christ is a matter of profound personal urgency.

That brings us then to our second truth from our passage. That is that the words of Christ that offer you life will also be the words that render final judgment.

Verse 47. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him for I did not come to the judge the world that to save the world.

The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge. The words that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.

For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak.

And I know that His commandment is eternal life. What I say therefore, I say as the Father has told me.

From these verses, we can learn a couple of important things about the words of Christ themselves.

Number one, the words of Christ, our words of salvation, yes, but they are also words of judgment.

It is true that those who believe the word of Christ and come to His light will be delivered from the coming days of darkness.

And yet it is equally true that those who hear the gospel of Christ, but then refuse to believe in Christ and reject the gospel of Christ,

it is His words that will judge them by the fact that they have heard the truth and that they have hard, hardly rejected the truth.

Here Jesus reiterates a statement that He has made already many times in this gospel, that He was sent into this world in His first coming not to condemn the world, but to save the world.

We should be so thankful for that truth because if the first coming of Christ had been about judgment, then every one of us would be going to hell.

Apart from Christ's work of redemption as the suffering servant on the cross, not one person would have met the minimum standard of God's righteousness.

So He came first as the one to seek and to save the loss, the one who was the suffering servant to bring salvation to the world.

But there is a coming day, friends, when Christ will return, this time not as suffering servant, but this time as victorious king and as righteous judge.

As Jesus has said in John chapter 5, all authority to judge has been given to the son by his father and yet as Jesus declares for us here in that coming day of judgment, the verdict will be very clear already.

There will be no need for lengthy trials or prolonged deliberations before the verdict and the sentence can be rendered in that day. Why not?

Well, because the word of Christ that was rejected by men will rise up to decisively judge them in that day.

If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.

The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge. The word that I have spoken will judge him on that last day.

So many people want to conveniently live by the selected words or selected sayings of Jesus that they compile that accord with their own notions of morality or how they want to live while ignoring those things that Christ said that would condemn them or call them out of their sin.

So many people today hear the words of Christ, perhaps they even hear them weekly in regular church attendance and yet they live for the world and in the world and as children of darkness Monday through Saturday.

They hear the word, but they do not keep the word. They are hears, but they are not doers.

Do you understand the dreadful danger that your soul is in this morning because you are hearing the words of Christ?

Because if you hear them and you do not keep them, if you are presented with Christ from his word, but then you do not believe and live for this Christ, it is these very words of Christ that you have heard but have not kept that will rise up against you to judge you.

And to sentence you on that coming day of judgment.

It is a dangerous thing to be a hearer of the word who is not a keeper of the word.

You cannot claim ignorance of what you have heard and have rejected.

So friends, we need to feel the full weightiness of the words of Christ. They are not to be trifled with.

They have the power of eternal life for those who believe them and who keep them and who turn to Christ and they, but they also have the power of eternal judgment for those who hear them and who reject Christ and do not keep them.

Second, the words of Christ have authority because they are the words of the obedient son.

First, 49, for I have not spoken on my own authority, but the father who sent me has himself given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak.

And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say therefore, I say as the father has told me.

There is not that Jesus in himself lacks sufficient authority to say the things that he is saying to offer words of life and words of judgment.

Rather, Jesus is declaring that as the divine son who has now come to mankind in the flesh, he has come to do the will of his father as the obedient son so that the words that Jesus speaks are precisely those very words that the father has ordained for the son to speak.

His words are the father's words. His authority is the father's words and therefore there can be no wedge that is inserted between the father and the son in order to separate their words from each other.

Nor can there be any question regarding the source of the incarnate son's authority. He speaks what the father has commanded him to speak.

So in this we find that Jesus is that prophet like Moses, but greater than Moses that God promised to one day send to Israel back in Deuteronomy 18 from our scripture reading this morning.

The prophet who is greater than Moses, but he would speak the words of God and therefore subject his hearers to sit under responsibility to those words that were God's very words.

Deuteronomy 18 verse 18, God speaking to Moses, I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I commanded him listen to this Jesus back in John 12, but the father has sent me the father who sent me has himself given me a commandment what to say and what to speak.

Jesus is this prophet from Deuteronomy 18 and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I commanded him and whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name.

I myself will require it of him.

Jesus says that he has spoken the word that the father has commanded him he is the fulfillment of the prophet greater than Moses Israel has been looking and longing for, but it is now his very words that will rise up and judge them and it is the father himself who required judgment on that last day.

That word has the power of eternal life for all who believe in Jesus and who come to Jesus and that same word will be a word of eternal judgment that the father himself will require of those who did not listen to Christ.

Friend listen to me there was a day when Jesus rose and cried out to a people who did not know this would be the last time that they would hear him speak to them.

To cry out an urgent message that contained the words of his father words of life and words of judgment and Christ in his word calls out to each one of us this morning to the unbeliever and to the believer.

Crys out to each one of us to listen to hear to heed and to keep these life giving words.

John near to Christ if you are an unbeliever or to remain near to Christ if you have believed in Christ so that we may abide in his light step out of the darkness and of this present evil sinker's world, escape the judgment that is coming.

Whoever you are this morning do not trifle with this Christ or with his weighty words.

Do not be here only you intellectually comprehend, but he was never moved in the heart to obey.

For each one of us the hour of the hour draws ever later that day of judgment draws ever nearer.

The offer of life and of light in Christ is extended to you again today.

But it is a matter of profound urgency.

Saint and sinner draw near to Christ today.

Come unto Jesus. Let's pray.

Father, it's hard to comprehend the grace that immediately after the account that we have read last week,

of the hard hardness of the people who despite the fact that Christ had given them so many words and it performed so many works in their sight yet they were hardened in their rebellion and turned against Christ and rejected him.

It's hard to comprehend the grace that Christ would once more yet again cry out to sin hard in sinners and call them to repent.

And yet we find in that story a picture of our own hearts as well.

Father, I pray that you would buy your spirit, cause us to hear Christ and to heed Christ in obey Christ that we may love Him and know Him and follow Him.

There would be people who walk in the light as He is in the light.

We pray in Christ's name, Amen.

This same John writing elsewhere says this is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.

If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth.

But if we walk in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ.

And His Son cleanses us from all sin.

People of God walk in the light as He is in the light.

Go in peace.