It’s a Fact

In this sermon, Dick Lucas emphasizes the certainty and transformative power of the Gospel message. He explores the truth of God’s love and grace as factual realities that should impact believers’ lives, urging listeners to accept and live out these truths.

The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.

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Well, please be seated. Well, thank you to somebody who’s put this large print ESV here. I will use it this morning rather than my own. Thank you for that courtesy. I must ask you this morning to forgive a less than robust voice and an occasional wheeze. All the bugs of the London Postal District SC one four JB decided to congregate on my chest this last week and on my throat. I have driven some of them off, but not all. However, yesterday afternoon I managed to speak at a wedding Thanksgiving, and all went well.

So I hope that you will be able to hear, and I will be able to speak well. We turn again to wonderful words, do we not, in John 3:16. I know it’s very familiar, but I’ll read that verse again. I’m particularly concerned for the section 16-21. Whether we’ll ever get to verse 21 is another matter, but at any rate, I’ll read verse 16 again:

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16, ESV)

Now, as I really said just now, I fear we’re going very slowly. In my retirement, I sit in pews as well as stand in pulpits. And I’m full of admiration for the fine young preachers and Bible teachers that God is giving us today, and how we need them. Because, as you know, in many places, and indeed in many churches, there has for at least a couple of generations, been a famine of the word of God. But one of the characteristics of these young men is how much ground they cover.

In one sermon only a week ago, I heard of someone who covered the whole of Acts 17. Well, if you know Acts 17, that means getting an express train and traveling through Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens in one go. And that’s certainly something I can’t manage. I discover that while I’m halfway through one verse, they’re halfway through a chapter. And by now, I’m quite sure some of these able young men would be halfway through chapter four. However, you must be patient with me. I’m a codger of the old school.

As Sir Walter Scott once put it, be patient, cousin, and shuffle the cards. Not that I want to rearrange the truth that you find as precious as I do, but I want to probe a little deeper into their treasure. This morning and next Sunday morning, and in particular this Sunday, I want to show how we ought to spell G O D, that word that’s so important and that few people in our country now know how to spell properly. So then, on with verse 16 against the background of verses 16 to 21.

Now, it’s not only that we have in these marvelous verses great truths, the greatest truths that the mind of man can take in about God and eternity, life and death, and so on, but we also discover that we’re alongside a very great teacher. Surely John and Paul stand out in the apostolic company as the two major contributors to our New Testament. And everybody notices with the apostle John that along with these profound truths, we have language that is astonishingly simple. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Gunning Fog Index.

This fog index aims to show the level of education needed to read any particular written material. According to the Gunning Fog index, if you read the Sun, your level is six. If, on the other hand, you read the Times, according to the Gunning Fog index, the level of education you need is 17, rather more. I was surprised to find that Reader’s Digest is only eight.

Well, in my amateur way, this week, while playing with my cold, wondering whether that was the end of me, I tried to apply the principles of the gardening fog index to John’s great gospel. And you won’t be surprised that the great prologue of chapter one is the level of education six, and that even if some of the later chapters in John are a wee bit more complicated, they never go above the level of eight, which only goes to show that in God’s providence and mercy, he who runs may read God’s saving truth.

The heart of the christian revelation is open to everybody who can read at all. And that’s how God meant it to be. Now, last week we started with a shock that God so loved the world, this dirty, sinful, corrupt mankind in rebellion against its maker. And the more, of course, we go back into secularism, the more we shall recognize this to be a correct interpretation and description of our world.

Of course, that shock was exactly the same as the religious establishment in Jerusalem felt when Jesus consorted with untouchables, publicans, and sinners, and the dregs of society. Of course, publicans there means tax collectors. I may have told you once that I went to an extremely smart and expensive prep school, and to my shock and amazement at lunch, the headmaster ought to have known better, said that the reason that he liked Jesus was that he was willing to consort with people in the pub. I was absolutely amazed that that was his level.

I think that’s the gunning fog level of two, wouldn’t you? Headmaster of a very smart and expensive prep school? But what the religious establishment was saying, of course, was, “How can he have anything to do with such people? If he’s what he says he is?” And I guess if angels gossip, which they may do, they say to themselves, “How does God have anything to do with those Christians on earth, if God is God?” Now, I want to spend a little bit more time this morning on the world just because the apostle himself does that.

One of the notable habits of the apostle John, and I’m not sure I’d ever quite noticed it before, to the extent I have this week, is reiteration. He loves to repeat his key words in order to get them right into our thick skulls and our hard hearts. I mean, look again if you’ve got your Bible open, or listen to the reiteration of the word world.

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:16-17, ESV)

Verse 19-20:

¹⁹ 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. ²⁰ For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. (John 3:19-20, NKJV)

Again, the word believe, that’s going to mean a great deal to us next Sunday morning, if not before. Verse 15. There it is, verse 16. And especially in verse 18. Look at verse 18. Listen to it.

¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:18, ESV)

Now, surely that’s purposeful. He’s repeating these great words of a world in darkness, of the light that comes to it through Christ, if we respond and believe.

And he repeats this again and again, lest we should fail to hear what he has to say. So it’s a shocker, not least to Nicodemus. Surely when Messiah comes, this great teacher in Israel would say he will rescue his people, Israel. And he, well, that pagan world out there, surely hideous in immorality, worse in its idolatry, he must surely visit them with a terrible judgment. That would be the attitude of Nicodemus ever since he went to theological college. And that’s why verse 17 is so powerful, isn’t it?

It’s answering Nicodemus, who comes in, of course, at the beginning of the chapter. It’s answering that attitude that was so popular then:

¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:17, ESV)

So Nicodemus was wrong in that attitude, and he is corrected by these words. And yet, at least Nicodemus knew what God spells.

You know, we live today, don’t we, in such a confused society where people have been given the idea that what I think matters. So they say, “Vicar, you know, I think that God is like that. And I wouldn’t like to think that God does that.” No teacher in Israel would ever talk like that. Any Israelite would know that. We can’t create a God in our own image. That’s the essence of idolatry. God must reveal himself. Otherwise, it’s only guesswork. What God, then, was Nicodemus thinking about?

And as they have that conversation, and Jesus talks to him about God again and again, what God is Jesus talking about? It may help us to understand the sentence, God so loved the world. Well, I’m not going to listen to one of Nicodemus’s lectures, but I am going to listen to Nicodemus and his friends as they worship God in a synagogue and use the hymn book of Israel. And we’ll just take one example. That’s all there’s time for.

But it’s a very well known one if you’ve got a Bible, and this is not a sermon, where we’re going to have a paper chase. But I would love you to look up Psalm 121:1-2. Many of you wouldn’t even need to look it up because it’s so familiar. Psalm 121:1-2. Now, don’t just slip over these words as we so easily do. They’re quite remarkable words. And this would be axiomatic to an Israelite worshipping in the synagogue, as it should be for us today.

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Now, there is something here that is quite unique and that is easier to miss. Do you see the Lord there in verse two is in capital letters? When you read the Lord in capital letters in the Old Testament, it always means the covenant God, the God who committed himself to Israel and revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. He was their God, and they were to be his people.

So whenever the word Lord comes in capital, it means that. And it used to be translated Jehovah, sometimes today, Yahweh. But I think personally much better just the Lord, the Lord God who committed himself to his people. But notice that this God of Israel is the one who, verse two, made heaven and earth. That is, the Jew believed that his God was also the creator of the whole universe, and that this colossal claim set him and his faith apart from all other faiths.

It was utterly different from the gods of the nations in the surrounding land. Israel has always felt itself, hasn’t it, surrounded by the nations there and now. But the gods of those nations around them, in Old Testament times, they were just local gods, provincial deities. And you must have noticed if you read through Isaiah, they love to mock those gods, don’t they? The great prophets of Israel call those gods godlets. On one occasion, I think it’s Ezekiel. I didn’t have time to look him up.

He calls the God of one of the nations nearby a dung pellet. The Old Testament prophets spoke very plain language. They felt and knew that these local deities were creatures of time and place and therefore perishable. I think I have. You know, I can trust preachers when they say this. Can you? But I think I have any one other verse I want you to look up. Untrustworthy as we are, I do think this is so important, I’d like you to turn it up. Jeremiah 10:11.

Because in the middle of a wonderful passage, you get a most remarkable sentence which exactly echoes what I’m trying to say this morning: Jeremiah 10:11.

¹¹ Thus shall you say to them: “The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.” (Jeremiah 10:11, ESV)

This is the local gods of the nations, of course. And as you read on in Jeremiah, it’s a wonderful passage.

¹² It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens. ¹³ When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain, and he brings forth the wind from his storehouses. (Jeremiah 10:12-13, ESV)

Every man is stupid and without knowledge as he builds his little idol. How stupid not to believe in the real God, who is the God of heaven and earth. And of course, these gods have perished. Moloch, the detestable God of the Ammonites, as he’s called, Kemosh, the detestable God of the Moabites. I wonder if Moloch and Chemosh have been in your mind this week. It would be very peculiar if they were. But they perished. I wrote that in my notes on Friday.

And then I wondered what my Roman Catholic neighbor might say and felt rather nervous. For, of course, Moloch, the detestable god of the Ammonites, was the cruel god of child sacrifice. And my Roman Catholic neighbor thinks that his word is still law in some of the modern clinics for easy abortion today and wonders why we Protestants don’t do more about it. So perhaps Moloch isn’t forgotten after all. Nicodemus then did believe in the real God, and in fact, some of the Nicene Creed could have been upon his lips.

Nicodemus believed in the one God, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. He never wholly followed the logic of this, of course. Well, he had in part, like any pious orthodox Jew today, slamming his front door and touching that little tin cylinder outside the front door. He would mutter to himself every morning,

⁴ “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5, ESV)

And that logic was always irresistible to the Old Testament believer.

The pagan with a hopelessly divided heart comes to an understanding of a true God who demands that all those different parts, different gods, all of them, should be abolished and the whole heart given to the one God. Because this God, this real God, will not tolerate a divided heart. That’s why he’s called a jealous God. So Nicodemus and every true jew of his day would have followed that logic perfectly plainly. But he had to take that logic a step further when he met this young rabbi.

Of course, Jesus wasn’t a rabbi, but they called him that because he knew so much. So out of respect, even this great master of Israel theology says to Jesus, rabbi. And I don’t know how soon he came to understand it, but in the end, he did come to understand that this young rabbi to whom he was speaking was going to say one day, those amazing words, all authority is given to me in heaven and earth. Go into all the world and make the circles of all nations.

In other words, if we believe in the one God, if we spell God properly and understand what we’re talking about, we’re talking about a God who won’t share your heart. And we’re certainly talking about a God who won’t share this world with any other ideology or with any other religion or with any other power. In the end, they will all be broken. So that’s the reason then behind John 3:16-17; that’s the reason for the incarnation.

That’s the reason why, in verse 17, God sends his son into the world because the world belongs to him, and the Son is sent to gather it back, to redeem it. God visiting his people. God visiting his world. Yes, God visiting. And in the person of his one and only son, he is to reclaim and redeem his world for himself. And that’s why we call Jesus the savior of the world.

I suppose we’ve got to put up with the fact that there will always be cultured despisers of apostolic Christianity, because this kind of Christianity, of course, means that we believe in a rescue religion. And that’s always embarrassing, isn’t it, really? To believe in a savior is not really a favorite subject of conversation amongst the chattering classes. I think everybody is embarrassed at times by this language, aren’t we?

It’s said in my family, I don’t know how true it was, that we had a great aunt, a Victorian aunt. I suppose most families had eccentric Victorian great aunts. At one time, she was called Aunt Libba, and she was to stand in Victoria station giving out tracts and asking the hurrying passersby whether they were saved. I’m sure they were embarrassed then, as people are now. But I think I’ve said before to you, this whole idea of saving the world is no longer quite such an embarrassment, is it? Because it’s almost common currency.

In the financial crisis of nine months ago, Gordon Brown stepped forward and said he was going to save the world. Maybe he did save the banks at your expense, and mine as well. And now we need to save the world from climate change. And we’re told this with a religious zeal, that if we are not saved from that, we shall perish. And our leaders work around the clock to save us from global terrorism and from global pandemics. Which is why the elders, like me, are at the head of the queue for the Swineview vaccination.

And all the time now, we know that we’ve got to save the world from overpopulation and famine and poverty. So global salvation is in everybody’s mind today. And we know very well, without rescue, there will be those who perish. So surely, if we’re serious about what we believe as we meet here on a Sunday morning, if God visits his world on a rescue mission, it must, by definition, be more important by far than all the others put together. Do you believe that?

I don’t see how we can avoid it, particularly since what he has to say has to do not only with this world but also with the world to come. Now, my time is nearly gone. But if we’re to follow this section 16 to 21, and I hope, I do hope, to get to the end of it by the end of next Sunday morning, we’re going to see that this great salvation is from two things, both very simple to say, but both immense in their implications. Jesus came to save us from darkness and from death.

The one is a matter of revelation, and the other is a matter of redemption. We consider God’s salvation from death, his redeeming love next Sunday morning, God willing, especially in verses 17-18 and so on. But I must say a word before I finish on God’s revelation through Jesus to the world because I think it brings us up very sharply indeed with some painful realism. I’d hate us to get excited and think that this was all going to be a battle easy to win.

I think verses 19 and 20 are some of the most vivid and powerful really, in the whole of the chapter. It’s about God’s revelation. It’s about the coming of Christ into the world. In a sense, it’s a magnificent Christmas message at the beginning at any rate. But then there is no sentimentalism about it and it is a less happy message than we might think. Let me read 19 and 20 again. Fasten your eye upon it.

¹⁹ And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (John 3:19-20, ESV)

The light has come into the world. Isn’t that, by the way, a lovely sentence?

The light has come into the world. I guess some of you will be standing up at carol services and saying a word, and you can’t get a greater word than that for simplicity, can you? Light is coming into the world. The coming of Christ was the great enlightenment, driving out the darkness of paganism and idolatry. But let’s go on.

¹⁹ 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. ²⁰ For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. (John 3:19-20, NKJV)

Oh my, that turns upside down, doesn’t it? The impertinent comment you get from some people that they couldn’t believe because it would be a leap into the dark. My dear friends, these people are hiding in the dark already. What we’re asking is that they should come out into the light. It’s the very last thing they want to do because their deeds are evil. Many of our judgments that we call intellectual are in fact moral. However,

It’s a marvelous affirmation, isn’t it? Light has come out into the world, but still, as they’re now, it’s astounding that people don’t welcome the light. It really does seem to be insanity, doesn’t it? To prefer ignorance against the knowledge of the truth and to prefer evil over good and death rather than life. It’s sheer madness, isn’t it? And yet that’s what we were before we were redeemed, all of us. There’s no sense in it at all, except that sin blinds us to our own good. I was trying.

This may seem very foolish, but I was trying to imagine that we were pagans before the time of Christ, and we were celebrating on the shortest day of the year the return of the light, as they did. Some of our big city councils apparently want to do the same and introduce. What is it called? Wintervale. Wintervale simply means farewell to winter, and that’s what our pagan ancestors were doing 2500 years ago. And apparently what Birmingham City Council, I think it’s at. I can’t remember exactly.

I hope they won’t sue me if I’ve got it wrong, but there are a great many stupid city councillors these days and they want to do this. It’s bizarre, isn’t it, to go back all that time? Bizarre, grotesque. So I tried this week, while I was huddled over my pills, I tried to imagine a pagan young man huddled with his family around the flickering candles and one of the young men saying, father, I don’t think I’ll take place in the celebrations this year, if you don’t mind. Why, my son? Well, you know, I like darkness.

I prefer it to light. In fact, I hate light. I hate those new sunrises early in the morning. I hate the warmth of the sun. I hate those long days. I prefer darkness. Hard to believe, isn’t it?

¹⁹ 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. (John 3:19, NKJV)

Christ came to save us from that darkness.

I think it’s Origen, one of the great early church fathers, who said that was the most wonderful thing to him about being a Christian at last and near God at last. To be able to say, once I was blind and now I can see. Come out of the darkness and understand why this world is here and what our part is in it all.

Well, next Sunday morning, we’ll look at that great deliverance from darkness and the even greater deliverance from death, brought about by the mission of God’s great son, to whom we who are Christians owe everything. And if you’re not that yet, well, it’s open to everybody. For whoever believes will have this eternal life and light.

Let’s pray. Stop for a moment. Think of these great words: world, light, belief, a dark world into which Christ brings light for all those who will believe in him, our heavenly Father. Even as we say these things to one another again, they seem almost too good to be true. And yet, we know that they are true.

We bring to you our dark world and its madness that prefers darkness to light. We ask you to have mercy upon others as you have had mercy upon us. And we ask that week by week, as we look at these things, it may transform our own thinking and our own living and that of those whom we love and meet day by day, for Jesus’ sake, Amen.