I speak of what I have seen in the presence of the Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”I say the things which I have seen with my Father; and you also do the things which you have seen with your father.”I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.I speak the things which I have seen with my Father: and ye also do the things which ye heard from your father.
3 sermons cite this verse
… Either I surrender or I fight. Now, that's the way we find Jesus in this crowd that surrounded him in John chapter 8, verses 12 to 59. He is not around a crowd that had never heard of God. I want to make that clear. He is in a context of religion. As a matter of fact, one of the three great festivals of the year is where he was at the time he spoke the words of John 8, the Feast of Tabernacles. Remember the other time that he brought a sword? He said, Are any of you thirsty? Come to me and drink. They were pouring out the water from that sacred vessel on that sacred altar, and he said, Wait a minute! Let me tell you where real water is. It's in me, and you come to me, you'll never thirst again. Oh, that was a sword. And it started an argument that still hasn't ceased. Now, he comes to this place called the treasury, according to verse 20 of chapter 8. …
He who has ears to hear the word of God, let them hear. Let us pray. Father, we need help in understanding the words of Jesus that we've just read. And so we invoke the help of the Holy Spirit who would illumine for us, for our understanding, for our edification, the words of this text. We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen. You may be seated. We've already seen in the earlier portions of chapter 8 and even before that, going back to chapter 6, how the hostility of Jesus' contemporaries is escalating against Him, and He is moving relentlessly toward His hour, His final hour, when He will be betrayed and crucified. But in the passage that we've read today, there are some very important insights for our understanding as Christians that come out of the context of debate. One of the singular benefits of debate throughout church history is that sometimes we know debate generates more heat than light, but also when issues are debated, important distinctions and clarifications are made so that we can get to the heart of the matter. And so we need to listen attentively to the key points that Jesus is making here in His debate with His adversaries in the first century. Last week we had read verse 30 as he spoke these words, that is that the Father had sent him and so on, many believed in him. But now we pick it up today where Jesus said to those who did believe in him, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. …
II. Their relative state will appear dreadful, if we consider how they stand related to the devil. 1. They who are in a natural state are the children of the devil. As the saints are the children of God, so the ungodly are the children of the devil. 1 John iii. 10. “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.” Matt. xiii. 38, 39. “The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom: but the tares are the children of the wicked one. The enemy that sowed them is the devil.” John viii. 44. “Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.” They are, as it were, begotten of the devil; they proceed from him. 1 John iii. 8. “He that committeth sin, is of the devil.” As Adam begat a son in his own likeness, so are wicked men in the likeness and image of the devil. They acknowledge this relation, and own themselves children of the devil, by consenting that he should be their father. They subject themselves to him, hearken to his counsels, as children hearken to the counsels of a father. They learn of him to imitate him, and do as he does, as children learn to imitate their parents. John viii. 38. “I speak that which I have seen with my Father, and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.” How awful a state is this! How dreadful is it to be a child of the devil, the spirit of darkness, the prince of hell, that wicked, malignant, and cruel spirit! To have any thing to do with him is very dreadful. It would be accounted a dreadful, frightful thing only to meet the devil, to have him appear to a person in a visible shape. How dreadful then must it be to be his child; how dreadful for any person to have the devil for his father! …