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What does it mean that God hardens hearts and blinds eyes? If God makes these choices, does it matter what we do? Join us in our final sermon in our Gospel of John series and examine together the theology of unbelief. As we come together today, I hope that we will build our hunger. You know, some things tend to trigger hunger, I find. For some, if I say kaya butter toast, wow, maybe you had a full breakfast, but a little something is there. Or it could be a croissant, it could be uh pancakes or crepes, it could be different things for breakfast for different people, dim sum, whatever it may be. But what I hope is that this morning we will feel hunger for spiritual food. And even as we're approaching soon the new year, that hunger is key for us to continue growing and to continue going out and doing good works in Christ. And it's my hope that in the next year in 2025 we continue to see God move among us. It's really my desire that we would even see every Sunday morning when we come together, God speaking to different ones in the congregation, different ones of you. And we'll every Sunday have people coming up saying, you know, the Lord has given me something to share. May I share this with all of us that we can continue to be encouraged and built up together. And it's my desire, we'll uh be welcoming more in the next year from the local community who will just come in because they want to know: is there really a God? Is there really someone who can help them? Is there really someone who cares for them? So I hope that as we uh continue moving forward together, that you'll have a hunger for the Lord, a hunger for Him to do things. It's my hope, my great hope that next year, uh this back room where we have prayer before the service will get so packed that we're gonna have to meet in another room. Because I tell you, the prayers back there are powerful. Every time I join them for prayer before the service, I myself am build up as well spiritually because we join together, coming before the Lord, he meets with us. Amen. All right. We have uh our final, this is our final time in the selected passages from John today, and we're at that moment in the timeline when Jesus' public ministry is finished. The cross is coming soon. And so he's displayed his signs, uh, he's delivered his discourses, his sermons, his parables, and yet the signs have been rejected, and people persist in their unbelief. And it shouldn't be a surprise to us because John warned us in the beginning of his book that this would happen. This is from uh John 1, verse 11. It says, He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. And that's the story that we've seen played out. So as we journey through the passage this morning, we're gonna look at unbelief, predestination, and hardening of hearts. Uh, this is a challenging thing for this time of the morning. Uh second, Jesus' final challenge to believe. And then thirdly, we're gonna look especially at verses 42 and 43, which talks about the glory of man and the glory of God. Church, shall we pray? Lord God, we magnify you today, and we've we've been worshiping you through song and through our prayer, the collect together. Lord, now as we look to your word, would you feed us? Would you build us up on the inside? Would you make us spiritually strong? And Lord, I pray you would give us a hunger even for the next year to see greater things than we've seen yet. Lord, that we would continue to see you powerfully at work in our lives and in our community. So, Lord, would you open our ears and ready our hearts for your word now? We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. So, uh this passage, we see that the people, although there were signs, they persisted in their unbelief. Why is it that they didn't believe? Why is it after so many signs, and it's not just things that maybe we would consider not as big? Like someone came and they had a fever and Jesus prayed for them, and a few days later their fever was like it wasn't like that, right? It was really dramatic signs and miracles that he performed. Food being multiplied from a little bit to thousands and thousands and thousands of people being fed, the lame walking again, blind eyes, blind from birth, seeing again. And so we're talking about someone who literally raised the dead. And so, how is it? Why is it that they didn't believe? Maybe uh if we think upon the Old Testament for just a moment and we think of Moses, and by the power of God, Moses performed all these miracles, uh, the plagues uh that fell upon the Egyptians at that time, the parting of the Red Sea, and we're not sure how many people walked through the Red Sea, how many Israelites there were at that time. Uh, from what I've read, could have been 30,000 people walked through that sea. It could have been all the way up to one or two million. We don't know how many there were at that time. But this was an amazing miracle. God brought them through, and remember, his way to lead them was the pillar of fire at night and the pillar of smoke during the day. These were dramatic things. And how did they respond? Well, when they came to the Promised Land, the faith of most of those who went to Rechia failed. They said it can't be done. God had done all this, but they they said it couldn't be done. And so somehow their belief in who God was faltered. And church, this continues to happen today. There are cases where God does a dramatic miracle. Perhaps it's even someone who's in critical condition. And out of desperation, they pray, God, if you are real, if you will heal me, I will do anything. I'll follow you, I'll go to church, I'll do whatever you ask. And sometimes God answers that prayer and they are healed miraculously. But not everyone that that happens to follows through. Some somehow they persist in their unbelief. And so there's something going on here. And this is what's being spoken of in the first verse that our sister May read for us this morning. Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him. They still continued in their unbelief. So why? Well, from our passage, we see that these ones in John today, they persisted in their unbelief to fulfill scripture. Now just read out the few verses again. So that the words spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them. This is a difficult passage. I'll be honest, I would be just as happy not to have to cover things like this. These are difficult words. They really are difficult words. Because you see, this word hardened used here in the 12th chapter of John, it means to make insensible. And if we're going to put it in plain English, Scripture is telling us that God rendered their heart incapable of understanding. He made it impossible. This is a hard word, right? I don't know about you. I find this to be a hard word. So is John telling us that people couldn't believe because they had to fulfill Scripture? Were these people predestined by God to persist in unbelief and that their eternal destination would be hell? If God hardened their heart and made it so it was really impossible for them to believe. John quoting the prophet Isaiah, he says, God's blinded their eyes. If you read again and again, uh there's this phrase there, it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Exodus 9, verse 12. It says, But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them as the Lord had spoken to Moses. So does this mean that we're predestined either to uh believe or to persist in unbelief, and it doesn't matter how we live. I can go ahead, I can do anything. Won't make a difference anyway. Either God has predestined me to believe, or he's predestined me to unbelief. It's a difficult scripture today. Look, I don't want to get too much into the issue of predestination, uh, and certainly not at uh nine plus in the morning, but we have to we have to at least spend a little bit of time on it. Uh it's not what John was focused on, it's not what the original audience was thinking about, but a few words need to be said because Scripture clearly says God has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts. So look, God is sovereign. All right? That means he's the ultimate authority. He gets to do whatever he chooses to do. That's the reality of a being who's greater than everything else. He is at the top. He has ultimate authority. Even if we don't like it, he has ultimate authority. He's the one who makes the rules, and if he chooses to, he can just as easily break them. Because God is fully sovereign. He doesn't have anyone to answer to. And this would be terrible news for us if God were of bad character. If he easily changed his mind, if he enjoyed playing tricks on us, uh, we would be in big trouble. But that's not who God is. He is not like that. He is upright and he is righteous and he is holy. And we are singing his praise this morning. He is holy. But also true, while God is sovereign, and that is true, we do have free will. We are not just predestined like a set of dominoes where you tip the first one, and each domino is just gonna fall in the path set before. It's not really exactly like that. We also have free will. We're not wind-up toy robots just following a set of programming because then we couldn't love God. If there's no free will, there's no way for us to choose to believe in Him and to follow Him and to obey Him. Uh instead, right now, I can choose to take a few steps, I can choose not to. I can speak, I can be silent. I could go running down and out the door, or I can choose to remain here. So there is such a thing as free will. There is such a thing as God's sovereignty. He knows everything, and He knows everything I would do even before I was born. He knew I'd be standing behind the pulpit this morning, even before I did. But it doesn't mean exactly that He He caused it. Foreknowledge is not the same as causality. All right, we're we're it's a bit rough for this hour of the morning, but uh we just need to know God sometimes chooses to sovereignly intervene, and when he does that, his purpose is going to be accomplished. Sometimes, because he knows the future, he plans to weave together circumstances and people into his plan. And so that's something less direct. And there are sometimes he allows us to just make choices because he's given us free will. And that's why we have so many problems in the world because of sin, because we have free will. If he was intervening every single time, that that would that would not be free will. Okay? Alright, so the blinding of eyes and the hardening of hearts. Something to help us kind of grasp this a bit better, I think, is from 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verses 10 to 12. It says, they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Now, without going into another sermon and uh going too far, going into the context, I just want you to notice something here, all right? God did send a strong delusion. Who did he send it to? To those who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in unrighteousness. Or we put it the other way around. Uh those who didn't believe, those who loved wickedness, unrighteousness, well, God gave them a strong delusion. They chose wickedness and God gave them over to it. And so this is not this is not predestination. This is, it sounds to me like the beginnings of justice. Those who have rebelled against God are starting to receive some of the consequences of that choice. And so uh we know there will be a day of judgment one day, but this is maybe a precursor to it. This is something that comes a bit before. Uh, it can be seen as a judicial hardening of hearts, as in law and judge, a judicial hardening of hearts. It's not judgment given to a morally neutral people or a morally pure people. Uh, it's a holy condemnation of guilty people who are condemned to what they've already done, rejecting God and hardening their hearts. And so, if we consider as we read this in the Gospel of John again, who is it that he's blinded and hardened hearts? It's not everyone. We know that many people receive this good news with gladness. We know that many people turn to Christ. It's not everyone, no. It's those who have persisted in their unbelief. And so there's a truth here that God is active in judgment as well as in salvation. It's a truth that there are consequences to our actions. And we can't just believe that if we put things off or we can still just kind of live our own lives, that there'll be no consequence to that. It's a reminder that we don't have all the time in the world. And so we should be active in prayer and active in sharing the good news of the gospel to others. Because those who persist, those who actively reject Christ, those who persist in their unbelief, their hearts will be hardened, and it will go on more and more as they continue. Okay, so this morning, John's focus wasn't on predestination. Praise the Lord. It was on the identity of Jesus. It was on the identity of Jesus. Uh John told his original audience, and he's telling us today, that Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecy. Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecy. People seeing the miraculous signs of Jesus and yet still persisting in their unbelief, this was something that was foretold. This was something prophesied. And now that prophecy has been fulfilled. And then we come to Jesus, his final challenge to believe. And so beginning in verse 44, John recounts this final challenge. It says, 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. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. And so he's saying, believe in me means to believe in God. Believe in me means to believe in God the Father. And so we all believe Scripture, right? In chapter 14, verse 6, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. And so, as Christians, we we don't believe that all religions are simply different paths leading to the same higher being. We don't believe that. Because Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. It's an exclusivity claim. People don't like it, certainly, because it means we can't all be right. But for us, as we believe and we believe Scripture, then we believe that Jesus is the truth and no other. And Jesus continued, he said, to see me is to see God the Father. In verse 47, he says, If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I don't judge him, for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. And so Jesus is telling us that for those who have heard his teaching, but they're not yet living it out, they're not yet obeying it, there is still a chance for them. There is still a chance for redemption. And so instead of condemning them, Christ desires to give them time to repent. As we all know, John 3.16, it says, For God so loved the world. He so loved the world. He so loved us that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Verse 48, he goes on to say, The one who rejects me and does not receive my words as a judge, uh, who does not receive my words has a judge. The word that I've spoken will judge him on the last day. If we've received his teaching, but we're not yet living it out, there's still hope. But if we have rejected Jesus Himself, we're under condemnation because hearts have been set against God, the Son. And as long as He's actively rejected, there's no hope for salvation. And so when we set ourselves against God, we're living in spiritual darkness. And when that's the case, in the quiet moments, when we're not busy with something, when everything is still, when we're all alone, if we're persisting in that unbelief, if we're rejecting the Lord, we we sense something's not right on the inside. This is true for people. Feel that there's an emptiness. Somehow there's a discontent. There's a sense that things are not as they should be. And so what happens? Well, for people living in that condition, they want to fill it with something. They want to cover up this. And so money, sex, power, entertainment, all these things are pursued and focused on to kind of fill that gap. Friends, to reject Jesus is not to be taken lightly. That's what Scripture is telling us today. Continuing on, verses 49 and 50, for I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who has 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. And so Jesus is saying, I speak with the very authority of God. These words are not to be taken lightly. Well, I want us to go back to two verses, and this is kind of the final thing we're focusing on here. These are verses 42 and 43. John chapter 12, verses 42 and 43. Nevertheless, many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But for the fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue. For they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. So even those in positions of authority, many of them, they had not hardened their heart. But they they believed in him, and yet they weren't living it out. Their belief was something hidden. And I have to believe that this is the ones that Jesus was referring to when he talked about those who hear his words but do not keep them. And so in the future, these ones who have believed in him but they keep it hidden out of fear, will they go on to confess Christ as Lord and God and as Savior? Or will they prefer their own pride and their position to the end? We don't know. Their eternal security is unclear. But it's quite troubling, I find, that they don't confess his name. Luke chapter 9, verse 26. This is what Jesus said. For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the Holy Angels. Church, we are saved by grace, not by works. Can you repeat that with me? We are saved by grace, not by works. We're not saved by works, it's by grace. And yet we're not saved without works, because salvation is a matter of life and relationship. It's not just something intellectual, but it's an emotional experience. If you claim to follow Jesus, if you claim to follow Jesus, and yet after many years, even until many years, there's been no change in your life, then you're not in Christ. Because we know that you, if you are in Christ, then the Holy Spirit, when you commit yourself to Christ, to say, I surrender to you, I confess my sin, would you save me? At that moment, the Holy Spirit comes into your life. At that very moment. And as the Holy Spirit works in you, the Holy Spirit is a catalyst, an agent of change inside of you, prompting you to become more Christ-like and providing the means to do so, the power to do so. Because true faith brings true change. True faith brings true change. Can you repeat that with me? True faith brings true change. And so we're not saved by works. We are absolutely not saved by works. Nothing we can do is going to be enough to save us. But when we give our life to the Lord, we are changed. And we will know that because we see that change working out. And so as we look at those being spoken of, those ones in authority who they believed in him, but they kept it hidden. And for us, it's very dangerous ground if we say that we are a believer, but there's been no change in our lives. James chapter 2, verse 26, it says, For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. That kind of faith that has no outworking, it's a dead faith. But true faith brings true change. Unbelief is a serious thing. That's what we learn from the passage. Unbelief is a serious thing. It's not the same as doubt. All of us go through times of doubt. Doubt's a struggle with what we believe. It's not a rejection of Christ. It's not a rejection of that belief, but it's a questioning, a working it out, a struggling with it. We go through times of doubt, everyone. But unbelief is something different, and it's something serious. It's the conscious rejection of God and his word. Number one, unbelief is serious. Rejecting Christ is serious. Not just because we're in trouble at that point, but because for some, there's even a hardening of the heart. Even sometimes we read sovereignly, hearts hardened because they have rejected him. And so we don't want to allow any hardening of hearts. And it's serious and it's bad news. This is the negative side, right? But here is the hope for us. If you have surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ, and you've said, Lord, I confess my sins, I confess I've not hit the mark, I confess that according to your holy law, I receive the death penalty. But I want to accept your Son Jesus Christ who died for me to wash me clean. That is the good news for us, because the Holy Spirit comes into us, and we don't have to question our salvation anymore. Because for each one of us who's done that, if you look back right now on your past, you can see you have changed because the Holy Spirit's been at work in you. And he's going to be fully committed to us, continuing to change us, continuing to transform our minds, continuing to turn our natural inclination from doing wrong to doing what is right. From doing things that displease God to doing things that please him. And so as we finish off our series in John, we can see behind the miracle the sign that Jesus has revealed as the Son of God. And we can look forward to 2025 and know that God is at work in us individually and as a church. The Holy Spirit is changing us.com. Have a blessed day.