In the sermon 'The Serpent & The Son' by Paul Carrington, the speaker delves into the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus as recorded in John 3:9-21. The sermon emphasizes the necessity of being 'born again' and the critical role of faith in achieving salvation. The speaker draws parallels between the lifting of the bronze serpent by Moses and the crucifixion of Jesus, highlighting the 'must of the cross' for salvation. The sermon explores God's motivation, driven by love, in sending His only Son to save humanity from eternal condemnation. It highlights the condemnation inherent in choosing darkness over light, despite the availability of salvation through belief in Jesus Christ. The sermon concludes with a call to embrace the free gift of salvation and to continually look to Jesus for spiritual sustenance.

John 3 verses 9 through 21. Nicodemus answered and said to him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said to him, Are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things? Most assuredly I say to you, We speak what we know and testify what we have seen, and you do not receive our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

No one has ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for blessing us with another morning to come and to hear your word preached. We thank you for giving us your word and giving us your Son and giving us salvation.

Lord, thank you for being so kind to us and I pray that you would give us humility and give us soft hearts as we hear your word preached in Christ's name, amen. Well good morning. It's a great pleasure here this morning to be able to come and to speak to us on this wonderful scripture, perhaps the most well-known scripture in all of Christendom, if you will, John 3.16. And we're going to be speaking and covering off verses 9 down to 21 here this morning. But just as we as we consider this whole matter of John 3 16, it's really worth pondering just for a moment where John 3 16 actually gets its force.

You know If I ask you what's the most well-known river in the United States, right away, almost any child over five years old will say the Mississippi River, most likely. That's the one that most people will know. But if I were to ask you where or what is Lake Itasca, What would you say? Most of us would probably shrug our shoulders, not knowing, and I wouldn't know myself, except that Lake Itasca is actually the source of the actual Mississippi River. And what we're going to be seeing today in some of the verses that John 3 16 actually gets its source a little bit further Upstream at the headwaters of verse 14 So we want to be able to explore that this this morning here and what we're going to be doing is picking up the Lord's conversation with Nicodemus here in verse 9.

And just to set the context, the Lord had been in Jerusalem for the Passover. He had been there with some of his disciples and the crowds at this point are probably dispersing and they're going back to their homes and if you recall in chapter 2 he had made Quite an uproar in the temple he had cleansed the temple he had he had purged it He had basically called the people there to repentance in terms of reforming their worship before God And now in verse or chapter 3 we get this this religious very well-known likely very respected man coming to Jesus by night. And I like the way A.W. Pink puts it. He says, men like this are walking on the clean side of the broad way that leads to destruction.

Moral, externally righteous, keeping the laws, but without any life in Christ whatsoever. He was born of the flesh and therefore he was shut out of the kingdom. And so what we saw last week is this word must that the Lord says he must Be born again. And so what you see is a man coming to Christ Perhaps with questions and thoughts, but what does Christ do he goes right to the essential need of his soul He doesn't waste a whole lot of time. He goes right to where Nicodemus had his greatest need.

And this would have been the greatest shock to a man like Nicodemus. I mean the grand assumption was by birth I'm I'm a part of the kingdom. You see it all the way through the book of John. We were never in bondage to any man. This is the viewpoint of the Jew.

I'm born upright because I'm a part of the nation of Israel. It was almost taken for granted. And what they were looking for right now was a Messiah, not to save them from their sins, but to overthrow Roman oppression. And that's what they were hoping for and waiting for. They wanted a conqueror to take out the Gentile oppressors.

And so that was the need of the hour. How can we get free from this burden that we're under? Well what Christ is pointing out to him is that he's under far greater bondage and chains much much stronger than those of Rome But like most unregenerate and religious men, he was quite fine in his current state. And so the Lord totally destroys that. He might have been a man, if you think about it, like the Apostle Paul who says, according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee.

Nicodemus could have said that. He could have also said circumcised the eighth day of the stalk of Israel concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. He could have made all of these declarations. But what we see the Lord Jesus doing here is he's going to work to save a man's soul. And what I love about this is when you look in chapter 3, you see a man who is at the very pinnacle of society and righteousness, at least externally, and Christ is going after him to save his soul.

And then in chapter 4, you see a woman at the well who had to come to the well because of what she had to come at the middle of the day in the heat of the day so she would avoid all the gossip and all the women and everyone else that's coming at that morning time to get their water she would come off hours so she wouldn't have to meet up with anyone and Christ comes and he meets with her And so what we're seeing is that the gospel spans from the highest of the high in Man's eyes down to the lowest of the low That's the beauty and the power of the gospel that we're going to be exploring today. Jesus Christ came to seek and to save the lost. And if a man will but own himself lost and undone, he might find a ready Savior there to meet him and embrace him and take him in. And so while this is a private interview with Nicodemus, the Holy Spirit has this here why so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

And so before Nicodemus can actually have life in his name. He has to be brought face to face with who he really is, his present condition, and he hears some of the most unpalatable words his carnal flesh could ever hear. That Nicodemus, you're dead in your sins, is basically what the Lord is saying to him. And so in just a few sentences the Lord graciously overthrows his entire world and we find him asking this question in verse 9, you know, how can these things be? And so just by way of breakdown for this morning, we're gonna look at verses 9 to 12 and what that does, these verses here is really pointing back to the new birth, what the Lord had just spoken about.

Not just the new birth, but I want to just emphasize one word over and over, this word must, The must of the new birth. And you're going to see that word again in verses 13 down to 16. The must of the cross. There's no option whatsoever. And we're going to be looking at God's appointed means to lift the condemnation under which we all abide by nature.

And then verses 17 down to 21 we're gonna see this matter of condemnation and against the beautiful backdrop of God's love the Lord's gonna reveal to us something I think very shocking about our ruined race and we're gonna be spending some time looking at that but in verse 9 if you start with me in verse 9 we find Nicodemus here totally at a loss he's baffled he's he's reeling he's bewildered after hearing what the Lord has just said to him he's asking this question how can these things be It's as though he's saying if what you're saying is true Lord, if everything you just told me is true, then what does that actually say about me? A man who's grown up going to church my whole life probably has the entire Torah memorized. If what you're saying is true, what does it say about my presence standing with God that just a few minutes ago seemed so rock-solid and so sure? His security had just been dealt a death blow. And he must be asking his question, all these questions in his mind, could it be that my entire life I've been laboring under false notions, thinking that I was climbing up the ladder to salvation only to realize that it was leaning against the wrong wall?

And now he's an old man. And it's as though he's saying, I'm ready to acknowledge you as coming from God, but this is all beyond conception. And if you think about it today, even in our modern day, right, To insinuate that a man is not presentable to God in his natural state is the height of offense. People get offended if you even say that if you die in your present condition without Christ, then you will suffer eternally in hell. This is the world that we're living in but it was no different back then.

And in verse 10 we see this this rebuke of the Lord. He asks Nick, he answers Nicodemus's question, how can these things be, with a question. He says, are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things? And so you see something even more intense here in that Nicodemus wasn't just a Jew that grew up in the church, but he was the teacher of Israel. And what a travesty, an utter travesty it is when when the seers can't see.

When teachers are untaught and when the blind are the conductors. This was the state of Israel in this present day. No man had a way to actually find life And this is why Jesus Christ came and so what what they had was a lot of formalism They had a lot of ceremonialism But no actual life in Christ and what the Lord is implying here Are you are you a teacher of Israel and you don't know these things? He's implying that if you had truly searched the scriptures the Old Testament you would have found all the way through that there's talk of this necessity of being born again or of regeneration maybe not in the exact same words that the Lord was using but the theme is there all the way through. David, how many times does he talk about this new heart begging God to give him?

In Ezekiel 37 we we see this valley of dry bones that must come alive through the command of God. In Ezekiel 36 It talks about this new heart and this new spirit in Jeremiah 31 It talks about this new covenant where the laws of God are no longer written on stone But are written in the fleshly tables of our heart This is this is the theme all the way through but Nicodemus didn't know that and so Jesus says this he says we speak what we know and testify what we have seen and you do not receive our witness. Nicodemus, you're active religiously. The Pharisees, Isn't it true when you read in Matthew 23, it says that they would travel, land, and see just to make a proselyte, to convert someone over to the Pharisee party. They would spare no expense.

But they couldn't show anyone the way. When he's made a proselyte, What is his state? He's twofold a child of hell than them all they would do with their religion with their wooden empty lifeless religion Would create men who are even worse off than when when they were found originally But Jesus says we likely this is a reference to John the Baptist and himself, he says we speak what we know. While you guys speak of things you don't understand and of things you have no vital experience, no living experience with, we speak what we know. How important it is for those who name the name of Christ to actually know him, to have a vital living experience with God.

But he says you do not receive our witness. You're dead, you're locked off from the life of God. And this is what the Lord is sharing with him here. In verse 12 he says, if I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And what the Lord is basically saying is, I have done everything in my power in sharing what I shared with you earlier to make the gospel digestible for you.

I've tried my best to do that. Like a mother, you know, for you that are mothers here, it's almost like you have a little baby and you cut their food in little bit little bite-sized pieces so they can't choke it's it's that kind of picture that he's he's saying here I've done everything I can here to make this easy and the very fact that you're baffled by what I'm saying it reveals the state of your heart and he says I've I've come I've spoken in parables I tried to make the new birth, regeneration and the new birth as easy to understand. I've used things around us like the wind to try to make it understandable, parables and metaphors. And this is such a beautiful thing about the Lord, isn't it, that he stoops down to help us. He doesn't just, here he is high and lifted up, but he comes in the form of a man.

He speaks in a language that can be understood and yet, and yet, the things of God are spiritually discerned. This man is dead in his trespasses and in his sins, but what we notice here is this word makes its first appearance, this word believe, And I want you to remember that word as well because believe will be said seven times Just in the next ten verses this word believe that tells us something about what the Lord is about to share With us and and if you think about Nicodemus and the necessity of the new birth it would be like Peter remember when the Lord asked who do you say that I am and they would go down the line of all the prophets and he asked them who do you say that I am and Peter says you are the Christ the Son of the Living God and and what does the Lord say flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but but my father who is in heaven that is the great need that this man has it wasn't a matter of intellect was it it wasn't a matter of learning but it was a matter of unbelief and so the Lord doesn't dismiss him and say sorry Nicodemus I've taken you as far as I can, come back when you're more ready to learn.

He doesn't do that, but he does something else. He takes a different tack in a sense, and we begin to see something. He leaves off talking about the must of regeneration, and he begins to speak about himself and the must of the cross. He begins with who he is and then he talks about his mission in these next few verses and then he talks about his motivation behind his mission. What is the thing that has motivated him and what has motivated his father to come.

We'll see that today. And if Nicodemus, if you can just believe in the Son of God, who he is, what he came to do, you will enter the kingdom of heaven. He will have been born again if he can understand who Christ is. And so from looking at the must of regeneration, we come to this must of the cross here in verse 13, and it says this, no one is ascended to heaven but he who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven. And Nicodemus was willing to own Jesus as a rabbi.

Remember when he came to him at night? He says, rabbi, we know that you are sent from God because no one can do the things that you are doing except God is with him. He was willing to own him as a rabbi, but what is the Lord Jesus doing right here in this verse? He's saying, I'm not a rabbi, I'm not even a prophet, but I am the Son of Man. This must have, if Nicodemus was paying attention, This must have exploded his mind.

It's almost like you remember in the next chapter with the woman at the well where she says When Messiah comes he will tell us all things and what does Jesus say? I that am speaking to you And he this must have been the the point where everything in the world just stops for a moment if Nicodemus was indeed beginning to be born again and he's saying this that I am the son of man my eternal residence is heaven I am altogether different than not only all the rabbis and everyone else that you would acclaim But I'm the one that actually sent the prophets I am the eternal son of the living God not a great moral teacher like a lot of people try to frame him today, not a social activist or spiritual guru, someone that can help you just find your way and you know just be a guide along the path. I am the Son of the living God is what he's saying here. And if he would only, you know, when you think of Jesus Christ as the Son of God upon his throne, where he was before he came in the flesh.

Do you remember how Isaiah described him in Isaiah chapter 6, when he had this vision? He sees this being, God upon the throne. It talks about how the train of his robe fills the temple, and he's high, and he's lifted up. All that could do for Isaiah was causing to just cover his mouth and say, I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. Nicodemus is having this personal interview with that God though he's veiled in the flesh here before us this morning.

But note the contrast in the next verse. In Isaiah 6 the Lord Jesus, he was high and lifted up in heaven in this temple. But we get to these verses here in verses 14 and we'll try to deal with verse 14 and 15 together. It says, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And so as I mentioned earlier before we get to verse 16, for God so loved the world, the headwaters are really here in verse 14.

And so we want to spend some time upstream understanding what is Christ actually saying here. And in Numbers 21, if you can, please turn with me to Numbers 21 in the Old Testament. And we're going to just look at the context here that the Lord is pointing back to. And this account here that the Lord is pointing back to. And this account here that the Lord is pointing back to is a time when Israel was wandering through the wilderness between Egypt and the promised land.

And they had just come off a battle where they had just defeated the Canaanites. They were fresh off of this battle, but as they kept going through the wilderness, they grew discouraged along the way, and they began to murmur against Moses, and it says, and against God as well. They were complaining about the wilderness. It's hot. You know, there's no water.

And one of the things they actually say is, our souls loathe this worthless bread. The manna that God was giving to them became something that was just now something they would cast off. Why did you take us out of Egypt? And here we are in the wilderness, wasting away. Well, the Lord, it says in verse 6 and 7, so the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people.

And many of the people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he will take away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people." And so sometimes we can just read, you know, we read something and we don't get the gist or the depth of what is actually happening here. But imagine the horror even for ourselves, right, this morning.

It's almost like the equivalent of a plague is rushing through the camp. And these are fiery serpents. That's probably a description of the feeling of the venom when it's coursing through your veins It's this burning feeling and if you look at what happens when a person is snake bitten by a by a poisonous snake Especially the ones that are more fatal It's It's a terrible description, especially as they go towards death without any anti-venom, without anything to help them. It's one of the worst ways to die because what happens is when you get bitten, first of all you're feeling this unreal pain and swelling just starts wherever the bite took place and then you can actually at times feel the venom coursing through your body it leads to paralysis where your eyes might be able to move but nothing else you can you can barely breathe your lungs won't expand and contract it's It's this kind of almost like you're drowning and suffocating. Nausea, all these feelings come upon you.

It's one of the most, as I said, terrible ways to die. And here, because of the people's rebellion against God, God sends these fiery serpents to go and to destroy the nation, but they plead with Moses, please ask God to alleviate this curse from us. And so in verses 8 and 9, what does God say to Moses? He commands Moses, he says, the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole and it shall be that everyone who is bitten when he looks at it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole.

And so it was if a serpent had bitten anyone when he looked at the bronze serpent he lived. And so what is what is Jesus saying here? He's saying a whole lot in in this one verse but what he's saying is this there's a there's something that sin does to us. He's making a parallel towards sin, but worse than what happened to the nation of Israel, as bad as that is, the nation of Israel getting bitten. You can just imagine if snakes were to come in through here and what what mayhem and pandemonium there would be.

But worse than being bitten by a poisonous snake that can only destroy the body. What does sin do? Destroys not only your body but it destroys your soul in hell for all eternity and so if this is actually true what the Lord is saying here and likening himself to what Moses was doing back in that day that snake-bitten equals sin The remedy we'll talk about in a second, but if this is true, then there has never been a more desperate situation for all of us, for all of mankind. There has never been a need for a more urgent message on how we can be saved. Because by nature, this is the thing we all have to understand, is as cute as our children can be, and as nice as we like to think of ourselves, by nature every soul entering the world enters this world snake-bitten.

And what I mean by snake-bitten is you have the venom coursing through your body and you can do nothing about it. This is the nature. It's a soul-killing poison. And men dress it up, men pat each other on the back, we make light of sin. But sin goes through us and it ends up destroying us unless it is dealt with.

If you were to gather all the computers in the world and try to catalog all of mankind sins The all the capacity of the computers in the world would not be able to compute All the wickedness that goes on in our minds and in our hearts in our actions one to another the things we say the places We go the things we watch partake of you catalog it and it becomes something that is, it's unbelievable. You can't even get your head around the amount of sin that operates in the world that we live in. But Jesus Christ has come. If you think about it, every single day, every single day, 150, 000 people die, leave this world. And how many of them are totally totally unprepared to meet God how many are totally unprepared to face eternity probably the vast vast majority totally unprepared and there's no do-overs there's no hold on a second you you go off the edge stadiums full Three stadiums full of people every day just wiped off the edge of the earth into eternity.

I was talking to a man earlier this week As I was traveling and a man named Joseph 64 years old We were talking about the things of God. He he grew up in a communist country atheist most of his life But has some idea of God And we were chatting about man's greatest problem sin And what did he do? He does what most of us do. He began to profess his own goodness. When you don't say it with your lips, you might think it in your mind.

He's been married 42 years to the same woman. He just goes to work, he tries his best to provide and so on. But when we started talking about not his righteousness, but the righteousness of God and his righteousness in light of that, everything shriveled before him and he says, you know what, I just don't like to think about it. I don't want to think I'm 64. I don't want to think about eternity I just want things to be happy go lucky until I die Because it's a hard thing for a man to come together with himself and to look at himself in the light, not of his own righteousness, but in the light of the Word of God.

And so we see this picture here as Moses lifted up the serpent. Did Christ have to compare himself with a serpent? Like of all things, did he have to compare himself with a serpent? Well, on the cross what we see is that Christ was made sin for us. He became the actual embodiment of sin.

That's what he actually became in his embodiment. And he came, if you think about it, look at it like this. He came to destroy the works of the devil. If you look in 1 John, it captures his thesis, the reason why he came. It says he came to destroy the works of the devil.

He destroys the work of the old serpent by becoming the actual embodiment of all that the serpent represents, which is sin and rebellion against God. And this is what we read in Galatians chapter 3 verse 13. It says, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For as it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree." It's speaking of Christ's crucifixion. Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.

And in 2nd Corinthians 5 it says, for he made him, God made His Son, He made Him who knew no sin. Always make sure you understand that Christ became the embodiment of sin, though having never sinned or broken one of God's laws Himself. So it says He made Him to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. This is the greatest exchange that you can ever think of, what God has done for us in His Son. And so you see this word though, as I said earlier, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must Must the son of man be lifted up So just as men must be born from above The serpent the bronze servant had to be lifted up The only way that the condemnation that we all are under could be alleviated or removed was for this perfect spotless righteous Son of God to do what he's doing.

If men are to be pardoned and are not to perish then the holy justice of God Has to be satisfied. This is what what he's saying here And so it's so beautifully points to the cross because here is Jesus Christ facing naked justice so that we can face unending love. Can you think of what he's doing? Just let it sink in what he's doing for us on the cross. And again, they're not his sins, but they're mine that he's suffering for.

He's doing this because I have sinned. One of these things that we can't, my mind can't even grasp and grapple with, but nevertheless what happens is this. In the book what we just read in in numbers, It says in the same way even so must the Son of Man be lifted up and you can imagine this get this picture in your mind the people are snake-bitten maybe in their tents some of them lying around Moses asked God what do I do he he fashions a serpent out of bronze and he puts it on a pole and you can imagine the pole Going up so that everyone I mean there was a lot of people in the nation of Israel and some of them were paralyzed Some of them could do nothing at all to help themselves. They were just there suffering as the venom coursed through their body. But what happens is this, Moses lifts up the serpent.

So what is Moses? Moses is the law giver. Moses is the one through whom the law came. But he can't save them. He doesn't say, look at me.

He says, you've got to look elsewhere. You've got to look above me. And who is Jesus Christ? That word lifted up. What it means is placed on high.

He's been placed above Moses. What can the law do? The law tells you what? It tells you that you have broken God's commandments. That's what the law does.

The law is good. It's holy. It's just. But because we are undone, all the law can do is condemn us and So if you're gonna be saved stop looking at how you can try to reconcile and barter and fix your life By keeping God's commandments because you can't do it and he doesn't say look to yourselves introspect and figure out you know like Buddhism or some other way to go down and try to figure out if there's anything Try to mind your own heart Here's a challenge spend your entire life mining your own heart and you will not find a single ounce of gold That's who you are. That's who I am But Jesus Christ high and lifted up is what we're talking about here And so this crimson stain of sin, the snake bite that we all have, it's coursing through us.

You don't have a chance of saving yourself. You have a better chance of swimming across the Atlantic Ocean both hands tied behind your back than finding a remedy for the sin that you face there's simply none other than what God has provided in his son Christ if only Nicodemus could could come to see this if only Nicodemus could sing that wonderful song, Not the labor of my hands can fulfill thy law's demands. Could my zeal no respite? No. Could my tears forever flow?

All for sin could not atone. Thou must save and thou alone. We don't want to ever be in a place where we misdiagnose our state and misdiagnose our sin it's just a flesh wound the fevers I sense the fevers going down I think I'm getting better you're not getting better there's nothing that improves Procrastination when it comes to the things of God never helps. But today if you will hear his voice, Do not harden your heart. Turn to the living God.

You think about Christ Himself, you know, think about all of this, right? How did man's fall begin in the garden? It began with a look. It began with a look. She saw that the tree was good for food.

But man's redemption is also accomplished with a look, which is why Isaiah says of the Lord, look to me and be saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else and so to the sick to the sin sick tender souls Jesus Christ is pointing to himself he's saying come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest take your yoke upon take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I'm meek and lowly and hard and you will find rest for your souls he says today is a day of salvation but it didn't come cheap you see just as a candle burns itself out to give light to everyone in the room, so Christ is doing the same thing. He's burning himself down to nothing. He became the offscouring of the earth so that we could become sons of the living God. It's one of the most amazing things. And so all of this Nicodemus is hearing and he's listening to.

He thought Israel is the thing. This little narrow stream that's been, you know, hundreds of years that God has been dealing with Israel. Well now this narrow stream it bursts its banks and it floods into what we're gonna see in verse 16. For God so loved the world. It's so important though that we understand verse 14 and verse 15.

And so we want to spend some time now beholding our God in this kingdom, the gospel of the kingdom. And so because He became a criminal in your place, your regarded as righteous, because He was rejected, you are accepted. Because he bore the curse, you bear the blessing, and because he died under condemnation, you will live in eternal bliss. This is what God says. What do we do with a God like this?

You know, we read earlier Romans chapter 8, and it says, his own son, but freely delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies." And so we get to verse 16, and we've talked about the must of the cross, but now it's as though he's lifting up the hood, and he's showing us what is the motivation, what is God motivated by, that he would actually do what he's doing for people like us who have been snake-bitten, who are living in rebellion, who want nothing to do with Him. What is the motivation behind God's actions?

And we see it here in verse 16, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. We see right here in this verse, this most off-quoted verse, but sometimes perhaps not deeply understood. It was the motivation of God right here captured. It says here, God so loved the world. In other words, God loved the world in such a manner.

If you want to understand how did God love the world you point to the cross how did God look he gave heaven's best all of these questions are answered in what he gave to us in his son Jesus Christ It's the hardest thing in the world to to speak about the love of God It is the hardest thing because it's it's as though God's love is like an ocean without a shore and a sun without a sphere as someone rightly described it. It just has no ending. It's so over abundant anything that we can conceive of. The love of God for sinful men. And we just read about the perfect justice, Yes, that had to be satisfied.

What about God's perfect holiness? Yes, it had to be satisfied. But the greatest display And the reason why God did what he did is captured right here Love is the Foundation and it is the motivation for all that God is doing and has done for us in Jesus Christ I know a few years ago our brother was preaching and he made this statement says God cannot stop loving you Because he never started God's love is I've loved you with an everlasting love. This is the love of God for sinful men. And what did he love?

It says God so loved the world, not just this little nation of Israel. Can you imagine Nicodemus at this point? You know, I just, I thought maybe we could be set free from Roman oppression if he's listening to Christ. Sometimes we come to God with such minuscule things, we ask such small things, but he's come to do the greatest thing for us, which is to set us free. And so what was the condition of the world?

If you think about Israel's condition, I mentioned it earlier, it was almost dead. People were going through religious ceremony. But the state of the world was far, far worse than the state of Israel. Israel is like a diamond in the rough. If you just go over in your Bible maybe later this afternoon and flip over to Romans chapter 1, what you'll see is this portrait painted of the state of the world and what men are like without God.

Chapter 2 deals with the Jews, but chapter 1 is a devastating account of man's heart before God. Well Nicodemus is here listening to all of this and it says, God gave his only begotten son. Look at the cost, the immensity of the cost. If these things would just dawn on us more and more, it'd be such a blessing. But it's echoes of Abraham.

You remember Abraham when he was taking Isaac. God says, take your son, your only son, whom you love. And later on in chapter 3 verse 35 it says, for the father loves the son. They've enjoyed eternal fellowship. They were always together and love was the bond.

But now he gives his only son for sinners for you and for me it boggles and baffles the mind if you ever want to just think of Is there a greater token of goodwill than what God has done for us in Christ? This idea that He didn't send Christ in case you couldn't save yourself. It wasn't in case. He must die because you cannot save yourself. And so the best of heaven is given for depraved lawbreakers like you and me.

You have nothing in your heart at all to recommend you to God. I have nothing in my heart. Paul says, even after he's regenerated, he says, I know this, that in my heart, within me dwells no good thing. But all that he has is the goodness that God has given to him, which is the righteousness of his Son. There's no islands of righteousness, little areas in your life that are acceptable before God, but we're wholly undone.

And then he says this, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. And so what is the relationship to be between us and the one who's lifted up? What is that relationship to be like? It's captured in one word, it says believe. He keeps saying believe, believe, believe in the one whom God has sent to pay for your sins.

And belief isn't just a mental ascent, just like looking isn't just a final. I'll give a glance, but it's a intense look Because you know there's no other alternative if you are to live and if you are to be saved and so faith and belief is An entire resting and depends. It doesn't start off like that though does it I know when I first became a Christian you you know So little you trust God so little but he takes that Even that and he he takes you and he begins to grow you and before you you know it by the end of your life He's increased your faith and He's increased your love for Him because of His goodness. But I want to also point to this one word, belief, because belief is the gateway by which someone enters into the Christian life. Without belief, there is no entrance into the Christian life whatsoever.

And he says these words, whoever. If you look in John 3.16, one of the most blessed words in that whole verse is this little word, whoever. Whoever believes in Him. Whoever. This is so amazing because who can believe?

What does whoever mean? Whoever means whoever. This is the extent to which the gospel, the guiltiest, the vilest, the filthiest of men, their bid to come. No matter what you've done, no matter how blackened or bloody your hands are, no matter how far advanced the snake venom is within you, you can come. Whoever comes, that's what Jesus says, whoever comes to me, I will in no wise cast out.

In Revelation 22, you see these words, whoever wills, let him come and drink of the fountain of the water of life freely. It's an extent, We can play all sorts of religious games, but they call us whoever. Come. Come. That's the call to us today.

And it can be no other way than just for the unjust, the holy, for the vile. That's what God is doing for us. And so with this word whoever what is God doing? He's cutting off every excuse From unbelievers you have no excuse God has said whoever comes let him come and drink partake of the fountain of the water of life freely. Don't say, when I fix myself, you know, when I fix myself up a little bit, then I'll come.

I've talked to so many people who have this warped mindset. How many millions of people perish in this way? My advice would be stop playing whack-a-mole with sin. What I mean by that is you try to get your life under control, you hit it and then something else pops up, you hit it, you're trying to cover your... And it doesn't work.

It doesn't work. Sin is so entrenched with us. You will never make yourself right with God By trying to do things on your own. God has made a way in his in his son So mark it down the only sin There's only one sin that bars you from God and from peace with God. It's the sin of unbelief.

That's the only sin. All your other sins, God can deal with in his Son. But unbelief is the sin that bars you from coming to know Christ. The Corinthian church, right, if you look at the Corinthian church, they were absolute monsters of iniquity. Look at what he says, of such were some of you, but you are washed.

See, God can save to the uttermost those who come to Him, but you must come believing that He is able and mighty to save and willing to save you. No matter what you've done, God is able to overcome that. And so do you see the power of God right when we look in numbers God saved little Israel by means of a snake but when we come to the gospel of John God is saving the world through his son Jesus Christ it's a beautiful beautiful picture that we're seeing here and so so far in verses 9 to 12, we pointed back to the must of regeneration. 13 to 16, it's dealing with the must of the cross. And now in verse 17 to 21, it's this matter of condemnation, a word that's mentioned four times right here for us to take a look at.

Verse 17 says this, for God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. And what the Lord himself is saying here is that that God's design Even though we should have expected Condemnation here's the son of men entering into the sin sick polluted world that has done nothing but reject him for centuries, millennia. He's coming into the world. You would expect the stick for him to take out the stick. But Jesus is saying, the purpose of my coming is not to condemn the world, but that the world through me might be saved.

That's what he's saying here. It wasn't the object to punish us with his coming. That wasn't what he was doing. And you can read in Ezekiel chapter 33, it's the same God, the same Spirit. He says, as I live, as I live, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn and live.

That's what God wants for us to turn from our ways and live. Verse 18 says this, he who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And so what is his mission? His mission, we talked about his motivation, God so loved the world, but the mission here is captured. The mission is to save us from condemnation, from our snake-bitten sin life.

That's what he came to do to save us from. And so when the gospel comes to you, what does it do? It finds you in your condemned state. That's how the gospel finds you. The gospel doesn't find you kind of making your way towards God at all, but totally dead in your trespasses and sins.

That's why Ephesians 2 says by nature we are children of wrath. That's what we deserve, the wrath of God. And so the gospel, what is it doing? The good news is presenting you with full and free pardon if you would but believe full and free pardon from all of your sins a debt you would never be able to pay if you had a million lives and and God has sent his son to pay for us and so if you will not believe if you are condemned right now or if you after hearing the Word of God decide that you do not want to turn to God it is because you will not there's a willingness of volition you will not believe even though God is saying believe. Don't insist on paying your sin debt, because the payment is eternity.

And so you look at this, verse 17 and verse 18, man's truest friend and only savior has come into the world. Since Adam's fall, all men have been blocked from the tree of life. All you see is a trail of tears from time of Adam, Cain and Abel. Cain kills his brother all the way up till the time of Christ. Just a trail of tears and destruction.

But now the door has been reopened and men invited back into fellowship with God to have this access to the tree of life. And that's what we read in John. You remember in John chapter 1, in him was life and the life was the light of men. You remember that? In him was life, where before in us all there is is death, and the life was the light of men.

And you would look at all of this, what God has done for us in Christ, this crescendo building, where Nicodemus is probably just amazed that God would be so gracious and kind. You see it building that God would send his son for people like us and you would you would look at this and if the angels for a moment if you could just picture if they were looking on at what God was doing in Christ you could imagine them thinking well anticipating all men are gonna rush out to meet him. The Lord Jesus Christ waving this banner of welcome, falling down on their faces saying, oh praise your holy name, thank you for coming. We had no hope and we were undone but we read in verse 19 something altogether probably I consider to be the saddest scripture in the entire Bible And it's the saddest scripture in the entire Bible because of what we just read of the beauty and the love of God and sending heaven's best for us and all of a sudden you get this stark break right here in verse 19 and this Is the condemnation? That the light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil he says this this word this he's saying it's not this or that It's not a few things that lead to our condemnation as a race, but the condemnation is tied directly to what God has done.

Light has come. Jesus Christ has come. The best that heaven has has come. And what does men, what do men do with it? What do people do with it?

They love darkness rather than light. They turn a deaf ear to the voice of God. They shut their eyes, self-imposed blindness to what God has done. This is the great ruin of the ages. This word, this.

This is the condemnation that light has come. But men love darkness rather than light. And you can imagine the angels who are watching this all unfolding and seeing what God was doing in His Son and sending His Son for people like us, anticipating the welcome that He must receive And then seeing what Christ is saying here, they must cover their mouths in wonder and be amazed themselves that men would be so hardened and so wicked to refuse what God has done. But not the Lord Jesus. You remember what he said in 2.25?

He says he knew what was in man. He wasn't surprised. He knew what was in man. If you want to know what is in man, that that mysterious verse 2.25, this is what is in man. Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

So there's no sadder words. Men aren't just in darkness, right? This is what he's saying here. Men aren't just in darkness, but they love darkness. This is the state of the human race and so God gives all that he can but men Will not divorce their sins.

They're wedded to their lusts they they look at their bracelet their their shackles and they think they're bracelets and they're enslaved to sin and continue in sin. He will not be free. By nature we're spiritually nocturnal creatures. We don't come to Him because we have such hardened, depraved hearts. It has to come from outside of us if we're to be saved.

And so the reason why men and women will not come is because they're determined not to come. And so we're left with this thought here that though salvation is all divine grace, All of it, if you will be saved, is by grace. Yet the rejection of it is all of man. You will bear your own load. And I want to just take a moment here just to talk to us about a very unpopular topic.

If you think I missed it, we're gonna spend some time looking at it. This word perish and what that actually means, what are the implications of the word perish? And the unpopular topic even amongst Christians is this teaching on hell. The Lord is set before us right here in these words, life and death. His plea is choose life.

Eternal life is on the one side, but everlasting destruction is on the other side. And everything in the world, everything in your life, hinges on What you do with Jesus Christ what you do with what we just covered will depend Determine where you spend eternity And a brother and I were talking the other day and we were talking about hell It was with Duane Krauss and we were sitting down talking about hell and he was talking to to me and he shared with me one of those most Terrifying pictures but one that I think is so necessary. It was from Thomas Watson, a reading that he had read, and he talks about hell and we don't take this lightly because hell is eternal. It's forever And all hinges on our response to Christ. He says this, the torments of hell abide forever.

Time cannot finish it, and tears cannot quench it. And he draws this picture he says after souls, after people of lain millions of years in hell, their punishment is as far from ending as it was at the beginning. He paints this picture. He says this. Imagine this for a moment.

All the world right now, there's no sea. There's no land, just sand, grains of sand. That's all there is. The whole world is a desert. He says that if that were the case, imagine every one thousandth year, every one thousand years, a bird would come and take just a single grain of sand and take it away.

It would be a long time before the vast heap would be removed. Yet if after all that time the damned might come out of hell there would be some hope But this word forever breaks the heart. Oh Then such as are delivered from hell have infinite cause to admire and bless God says how the vessels of mercy should run over with thankfulness. Picture that. There's no release.

There's no do over. Heaven and hell, life and death, belief in Jesus Christ is what sets us free. Well we come to verse 20 and 21 and he says, for everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light lest his deeds should be exposed but he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen that they have been done in God." And what he's saying here is this, that after the good news and everything has been delivered, If you insist continually on practicing sin, if you are inclined to continue on this path that you're on right now, if you resolved to look at Christ and say maybe another time, then this is your lot. It says he hates the light and this is truly the case. Men do not like the light in their natural state.

This is why Christ was killed. We know he was killed because of his father allowing him to be so, but he was killed because men hated the light. And why do they hate the light? Because they're protective of what? The very thing that's gonna lead them down to the pit for all eternity.

Their wicked sinful deeds. Men love their deeds and so they cleave to them even though Even though it will take them down to the utter torments of hell But he says this the gospel does have some friends He who does the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they've been done in God. You look at the harlots and the publicans. The woman at the well will later see Nicodemus, this man here saved by the grace of God. Well, the people who do the truth, those who see themselves as they really are, blessed are the poor in spirit.

There's no covering over their sin for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. They want to conform to God's ways. They want to be pleasing in His sight. They want to get rid of those things that are displeasing. And they want to walk in the light.

It says that the deeds have been done in God. And that's what Isaiah 26 says. Lord, you will establish peace for us, for you have also done all our works in us." There's no boasting at all. It's all God at the end of the day. To Him be the glory.

To Him be the praise. And so I want to end here. There's just some brief application just to consider. For the saints, for those of you who are in Christ, who know of whom you believed, remember this, that the Christian life, it began with a look. It began with a look at Christ, just like that serpent lifted up on a pole above the law and above yourself.

That's how the Christian life began for you. But know this also, that the Christian life doesn't just begin, but it's entirely sustained by looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God. We need to know this because what happens sometimes even as you go further on in your Christian life is if you take your eyes off of Christ, what happens? Your love grows cold. Your love grows cold towards God, but it also grows cold towards one another, and we become harsh and wicked and indifferent to one another.

We lose track of where we ought to be going because we're worrying about all these Peripheral things because our eyes aren't on Christ And so while the Christian life begins with a look all of it all of it right to the very last breath should be consumed with looking unto Jesus. That's the advice of the Apostle in Hebrews chapter 12. May the light not grow dim. May we not be like those churches in Revelation where we've forgotten our first love or where we think we're rich and we're really poor, blind, wretched, and naked. May it not be so, but may we constantly, and if you found yourself maybe growing cold and hard, today is a day to look toward Christ.

Lift your eyes towards Jesus Christ. Well for the unbelievers which in a room this large even those who are like Nicodemus growing up in the church memorizing Scripture, an adult as well as a child, let the solemn fact that you're gonna spend eternity somewhere be deeply impressed on your heart. Your eternal state depends on your present state. There's no other way to put it. And my plea for you this morning is not to be like poison-riddled Felix, an axe, who says, go away for now.

When I have a convenient time, I will call for you. Don't be like snake-bitten Agrippa, who was almost a Christian and died in his sins and spent eternity under the wrath, is spending eternity under wrath of God but postponing the day of salvation to the day of damnation is never a good plan repent today if you will hear his voice that's my my great plea is look and live repent and believe the gospel Weigh what God has done for us in Christ and and take the free exchange that God is offering take off your tattered garments What is your sin doing for you and put on the robe of righteousness that today? God is extending to you. May God give us understanding may he enlighten our eyes to see The glories that are in Jesus Christ. Let's pray together Father in heaven we we come before you.

Oh great God We we praise you and thank you Lord for those of us that have been brought to see The riches that are in Christ. Oh Lord, how little though we see it. We praise you. We thank you Lord, we praise you for your kindness towards such wretched sinners. Oh God But this is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptance that the Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief.

And Lord, we call out to those who are still dead in their sins, O God. We call out on their behalf. Lord, would you be mighty to save? Would you be merciful today, Lord, save our children? O Lord, save any that are deceived, any that are like Nicodemus religious but lost.

Oh Lord may you extend your hand down. We so desire to see your glory Lord, we desire to see you high and lift it up. Thank you for being with us Lord, Thank you for your word. We do praise you. In Christ's name, amen.