How Can the Truth Make Us Free?

Tom:

We are continuing in the Gospel of John and right now we are in John:8:31-36 [31] Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; [32] And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. [33] They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? [34] Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. [35] And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. [36] If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
See All....Dave, I think we did go over 31 and 32 last week, but as I said, I remember saying last week that this is a verse we ought to camp out on.It’s just so important.But beginning with John:8:31Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
See All..., “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, we be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

Dave:

Well Tom we need to remind everyone of verse 30: “As he spake these words, many believed on him.Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him…” so as we mentioned last week, everything that he says now, he’s saying it to Jews, who it says believed on him.These are not people who have rejected Christ.They’re not having him crucified at the moment.They believe on him and we tried to explain that because subsequently verse 59, “Then took they up stones to cast at him.”They are going to kill him now.These are the ones who believed on him, because they don’t like what he says.Well then, how do we explain that?Well they believe he is the Messiah.But they have another expectation for the Messiah and when Jesus says if you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed.That was a little bit shocking to them.Well the Messiah is now the Messiah greater than Moses?We’re Moses disciples and following the Messiah—the Messiah is just going to conquer our enemies.

Tom:

Right, take the sandal of the Romans off our neck as it were.

Dave:

Yes, and wait a minute, wait a minute he’s saying, “You continue in MY word.”I thought we followed God’s Word.Who is this?“Then are you MY disciples,” no, we are Moses’ disciples.Now we’ve got a problem.Then he dares to say, “You shall know the truth—THE TRUTH shall make you free,” whoa this is incredible Tom!They say we are Abraham’s seed; we were never in bondage to any man.What?They are in bondage to the Romans right now.They were in bondage to the Assyrians; they were in bondage to Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon.We’ve never been in bondage to anyone?And he is not talking about that.He is talking about sin and self.And Tom we really ought to spend just a few moments on this matter of truth.

Tom:

Absolutely.

Dave:

Yes, he says—

Tom:

I mean how could it be?That TRUTH could set somebody free?They need their thinking rearranged here to understand what he is saying.

Dave:

Well it’s not the idea of truth, “I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God.”That could send people to prison.So we have to define what does Jesus mean by the truth?You shall know THE truth.Verse 45, jumping ahead for a moment: “And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.” Whoa, wait a minute; the truth must be rather special.We’ve had people say, oh scientific truth, facts—no, don’t confuse truth—the truth that sets people free with the facts of science or with the facts of mathematics.For Jesus to say 10 x 10 = 100-they’re not going to object to that.Or if he is talking to a group of physicists E=MC? or the attraction between two bodies is directly proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers.If they are scientists they would acknowledge that.So he’s saying, “But wait a minute, this truth is something that you don’t want to hear.Now that’s interesting.When you get over to chapter 18 and he’s talking with Pilate, Pilate says what is truth?Jesus says everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.Now I would relate that to this verse 45.I tell you the truth and you don’t want to hear it.But wait a minute, if you are of the truth, you want to hear.Then what could this be?Well when we get to John 14, see that’s the wonder of the Bible.It all fits together.You can’t just hang it all on one verse.

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

Which we’re trying to do, but the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation is so interwoven, only God could have written this.And John:14:16-17 [16] And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; [17] Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
See All..., Jesus says, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. And then if you go over a couple more chapters in John:16:13Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
See All..., “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth….”Tom, I guess people think I’m very impatient because I do lose patience with the Christian psychologists for example.They say all truth is God’s truth; we get some from Freud and some from Jung and so forth.Wait a minute, wait a minute!Jesus said the Spirit of truth will lead you into all truth.Oh, the Spirit of truth is going to teach you mathematics?He’s going to teach you physics and psychology—

Tom:

How to fix your transmission in your car?

Dave:

Yes!

Tom:

I don’t think so.

Dave:

No, this is not THE truth.In fact, Jesus said, “I am THE truth.Thy Word is THE truth.”So THE truth is something very special.What is it?It’s God’s Word.It’s revealed by his Holy Spirit in the hearts of those who are willing, as we have been talking about this whole program.Who are willing to know him, to obey him, willing to know THE truth.When you get to 1 Corinthians 2, it says the things of God, the natural man, doesn’t receive the things of the Spirit of God.They are foolishness to him.He cannot know them.The world cannot know THE truth, so don’t tell me any of THE truth, please, comes from a man named Sigmund Freud, or C. G. Jung, or from your college professor.No, I’m going to go to the Word of God to get the truth of God, from the Spirit of God and no where else are you going to find this.

Tom:

Dave, let me press this a little harder here.An individual who doesn’t know the Lord, who’s not born again, how much of truth can he or she understand?In other words, if she is being drawn to the Lord—I think about my—again, going back to my own salvation.I didn’t know Him, but there were a lot of things that I was being shown, being taught that drew me toward him and I acknowledged those things.Now I didn’t understand—I didn’t have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, but I understood enough to keep moving in that direction—accepted, believed enough.

Dave:

Yes, it has to be Tom.We’ve been saying it.If a person is to be saved, if they have the power of choice, then they must have the capacity to understand the gospel.All human beings have that capacity, otherwise they couldn’t believe the gospel and that’s the only means by which they can be saved.Now when we get to—

Tom:

I want to just jump in here, the verse that you quoted from Corinthians—many people say see, no one can possibly come to that understanding.

Dave:

The things of God understandeth no man, but by the Spirit of God, 1 Corinthians 2 says.“But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God,” (1 Corinthians:2:10But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
See All...).So what the Bible would say those who are open to be convinced and convicted, because when we get to John 16, Christ says when he the spirit of truth is come, he’s going to lead you into all truth, and then he will convince the world of sin, righteousness, judgment to come.So an unsaved person can know that he is a sinner.An unsaved person can know that Christ died for his sins and that the only way of salvation is through Jesus Christ.That’s all an unsaved person can understand.That is the gospel.Then when they are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, then they can understand as Paul said the deep things.The wisdom of God.He has hidden these things from the wise and prudent, that is by the world’s standards, has revealed them unto babes so that a babe in Christ can understand the truth of God, his Word in a way that a brilliant genius cannot understand.But the point we are trying to make Tom, is we don’t go to some other source of truth.That is one of the foundational errors of Christian psychology.All truth is God’s truth.We’ll get some from Freud, some from Jung, some from here, some from there, the sociologists and so forth.No, when it comes to knowing God, being a Christian, living the victorious Christian life, being free from this bondage that Jesus is talking about, the bondage of self and sin, the truth is in God’s Word and it comes only through Jesus who is the truth and by the Spirit of truth.And the last verse you read Tom, “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.”Try all these other psychological techniques and so forth, they only bring you into more bondage.But you go by God’s Word and you put yourself in the Son of God, you will be really set free.