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The last words of a man have meaning. Many times before someone dies, they ask for you to keep a vow for them, to make a promise to them, to take care of this thing or situation for them. And it is no different than with Jesus’ last words. But the words of which we will be looking at this evening weren’t any of that; they were spoken from the cross. It was spoken in front of Pilate when Jesus said, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth.” A dying man’s last words to his bride, the church. When Jesus said, “I bear witness to the truth,” it was not an abstraction to which he was referring. It was to Himself. For it was Jesus Himself who said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” And then Jesus adds, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice.” A dying man’s last request for his bride, the church, to listen to the voice that speaks truth.
Now, you remember Pilate’s response. It was a response of sarcasm: “What is truth?” Though it may not be said by this country and by many others in this world, it is that which they think. “For your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth. Let’s just all get along.” You have some who want to take the truth and use it to bludgeon other people and to shove it down their throat. The other extreme is you have people who will never say what they believe to be true. Both are not what Christ is asking of His bride, the church.
And so here we are in this world, and we literally are in a world that’s starving for truth. We’re in a world where they are completely starving for truth about who they are, about what this world is all about, and about what is beyond this world. And you, you’ve been given a gift. Because you’ve been given ears to hear this truth. And you’ve been given faith to believe in that truth, even if you do struggle. That’s a gift.
So what is this sacrificial truth of which Jesus speaks that He desires His bride, the church, to hearken unto and listen? The truth is, you can’t suffer enough. You can’t have enough heartaches. You can’t have enough disappointments. You can’t have enough raw deals to make the Father pleased with you. He is only pleased with one God-man’s work. That’s a comfort, isn’t it? The truth is there is no other religion in this world, no matter how we would love to think that. There is only one religion, one truth, one God. And He’s revealed it to you in this dying man, hanging upon the accursed tree.
The truth is, there is no other truth but this truth. You can’t suffer enough in this world to please the Father. You can’t lose enough jobs… be divorced. Have your children walk away from you enough that God would say, “Oh, let me have mercy upon you above others.” For He had only one man, God, who brought such suffering. So you’ll never have to face it. That’s a comfort. We love to do things to fix the wrongs we’ve done. You can’t do enough right things to fix what you’ve done. You can’t do enough to fix all the things that you have not accomplished or failed to notice. Only one God-man has done enough to fix your wrongs, to make them right. Isn’t that a comfort?
The truth is God is not impressed with any vow you make. Not your marriage vow. Not your vow to your family. God is not impressed with any of your vows because none of those make Him happy with you. God is not impressed with your prayers, no matter how often or how little. And He is surely not impressed with your great love for Him and other Christians because He’s only impressed with one man’s vows: yielding to the Father’s will and one man’s prayer who prayed for your soul before it was ever conceived and one man’s love for you, the sinner, before you ever could love. Isn’t that a comfort? That’s the truth.
The truth is that only the sacrifice of Jesus brings full and free forgiveness. That is a comfort. The truth is only the blood shed for your sin is what brings you salvation; it pays for you. Only this God-man’s life and this God-man’s death has any meaning. That’s the truth. Why is it we wish to try to impress God rather than say, “Thank you, Lord, for the Son who impressed you for me”? Because sin is very ugly. Sin is very heinous. It twists you and causes you to hurt other people’s feelings, to say words that you regret saying, to think things that you ought not to think.
Oh, it comes and it goes. Go to a nursing home and see what death looks like right in the face. Take a deep breath of what death smells like. It’s not pretty. We can hide what it looks like, and we can polyglycote what it is in our lives, but we can’t take it away. Behold the God-man who is stripped naked as he hangs on that tree. No thing covering him. And we’re embarrassed if we have anybody see our foibles. There they stand in stark light. And it’s an ugly sight.
Your and my sin, it can’t be reformed. Your and my sin, we can’t teach it out of us. Your and my sin cannot be disciplined. It can only be killed. That’s it. And He killed it for you. And it’s ugly. And it stinks. And it is something that is what the text said: men hid their faces from Him. The truth is, and you memorize this truth: the truth is all who believe and are baptized shall be saved, and all who do not believe shall be condemned. That is truth.
If your God-man is going to be saved, so humiliated, so crushed, so numbered among the transgressors to save such as we, there is only one Lord, there is only one God, there is only one salvation, and one baptism into which to be baptized. His death and His resurrection did not Jesus say, “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth Himself, what He has done for you”?
And everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice alone and no other. This is truth, and everyone who does not believe will be condemned. You’ve been given ears to hear by His Holy Spirit. You have been given comfort in this sacrifice, and you and I have nothing to say or do except thank you, Lord, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
