Let's open our Bibles to John
chapter 11. John chapter 11. I mentioned
last Wednesday night that I wanted to try to bring a message from
verse 44 and I hope the Lord will enable me to speak and that
he will bless his word to our hearts. I've titled this message, Loosed
from our grave clothes, loosed from our grave clothes. Verse 44, and he that was dead
came forth bound hand and foot with grave clothes. And his face
was bound about with a napkin. And Jesus said unto them, loose
him and let him go. Last summer, we began looking
at the miracles that are recorded in the gospel accounts that our
Lord performed. Certainly, the raising of Lazarus
is the crowning glory of our Lord's miracles. John tells us that many other
signs did Jesus that are not recorded in this book, but these
have been recorded. These have been written in order
that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the
living God, and that believing we might have life through his
name. This miracle of our Lord raising
Lazarus is a sign. It's a sign that points to something
very glorious and very encouraging and very hopeful for the believer. It points to two things, in fact.
It points to our regeneration in the new birth, being raised
from the dead. We're dead in our trespasses
and sins. And just as miraculously as Lazarus
who was rotting in the grave was brought forth alive. So when
the Lord speaks to us and calls on us to come forth The call
is irresistible and that which is dead. The Lord said that and
the day will come when the dead shall hear his voice and they
that are dead shall live. And that's what happens in the
new birth. But we have another picture here
as well. As I said, a sign is pointing to something. So the
Lord is pointing us to remember what he did in the miracle of
regeneration. but he's also pointing us to
the miracle of glorification. When all the corruption of this
old man will be left behind, when that which is corruptible
as was Lazarus' body will be made incorruptible and will be
loosed once and for all. from all the troubles that sin
has caused in this world and in our lives. How it is that we need to be
pointed away from ourselves, we need to be pointed away from
our circumstances, we need to be pointed to Christ. And so
whether we see this miracle as a sign pointing us to what the
Lord has done in the new birth or what the Lord will do in calling
us to glory, this sign causes us to look to Him. We look up. As we saw Sunday in Hebrews chapter
12, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith. I know that's my greatest need
is to be able to look to Christ. I know how easy it is to have
our attention drawn away from him. I know how how this world
can cause us to find so many concerns and so many fears and
so many good things that would occupy our time. To be loosed from our grave clothes
is the is the liberty that every believer longs for. We've tasted
of it. We've tasted of the heavenly
gift. We've had glorious moments of comfort and peace and joy
and yet we find ourselves looking away and and having to be brought
again and again and again, always coming to Christ. To whom? Coming. We're dependent upon the Holy
Spirit for that. The Lord tells us where the spirit
of the Lord is, there is liberty. It is the Holy Spirit that inspired
the Apostle John to write these words. It is the Holy Spirit
that empowered the Lord Jesus Christ as the anointed one. He
was the Christ, he was the Messiah, came in the full power of the
Spirit of God. The scripture says that he was
anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows. All the prophets
of scripture had an anointing of the Spirit of God. All of
God's people have a portion of the Spirit of God. The Lord Jesus
came in the full power of the Holy Spirit. And the Lord tells
us where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. What we long for is to be free. is to be set at liberty. In another place, the Lord says,
if the Son therefore shall make you free, you are free indeed. How we need to have our hearts
turned to Christ. that we might, in the midst of
whatever might bind us, whatever grave clothes we might have,
whatever fears we might go through as a result of the unknown in
this life, when our hearts are turned to Christ, the Son shall
make you free. You shall be free indeed. The
Lord tells us in Galatians chapter five, verse one, that we're to
stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and not
be entangled again with the yoke of bondage. The children of Israel
were in bondage in Egypt. They were under the harsh, control
of the taskmasters, a picture of the law and how the Lord sent
Moses to bring them out. And what the Lord is telling
us is don't go back to Egypt. Don't go back to the leeks and
the garlics and the melons. There's bread from heaven. There's manna. The unbeliever
looks at the man and says, what is it? That's what manna means.
But the child of God knows that this is the bread of life. This
is none other than the Lord Jesus himself that came down from heaven. He is that sweet manna that we
must gather. We must gather on a daily basis.
Yesterday's manna will rot and stink and collect worms Lord,
give us this day our daily bread. Lord, I need to be set free again
and again and again. I need to have the grave clothes
of my old man loosed so that I can walk. Lord, my feet are
bound, my hands are bound, my face is covered. Here's our life. We're Lazarus. And the Lord has spoken the powerful word of life and he's
raised us from the dead. And now we spend our entire life
in this world being loosed from our grave clothes that we might
be set free. The Lord Jesus said, you shall
know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Satan is
a liar and he's also the accuser of the brethren. And the Lord
Jesus stands in such stark contrast, but Satan is the liar and the
father of lies and the Lord Jesus is called the truth. Satan is
our accuser and the Lord Jesus is our mediator. And we contend with this evil
spirit in this world. And so our need is to know Christ,
to know the truth. And in knowing him, in knowing
him, The Lord gives us freedom, he gives us liberty. Romans chapter
8 verse 1 says, there is now therefore no condemnation to
them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh
but after the spirit. This is a spiritual walk. We
walk by faith, not by sight. And then verse two says, the
law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free
from the law of sin and death. The law of the spirit of life
in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Lazarus, this miracle is a sign,
brethren. It's pointing us to Christ. It's
showing us our need to be loosed on a daily basis that we might
be able to walk. That's what, Lazarus is bound
in his feet, he's bound in his hands, he's bound in, and he
had a napkin over his eyes. What are hands a picture of? Work. And we oftentimes refer
to the dead works that men perform with their hands in hopes of
being able to earn favor with God. And the Lord Jesus was wounded
for those transgressions. But the Bible also speaks of
good works. And it is every believer's desire
to be zealous unto good works. And yet our hands are bound.
They're bound with grave clothes. It is every believer's desire
to walk after Christ. But our feet are bound with grave
clothes and we must have them loosed. We look through a glass darkly. We strain to see Christ, to set
our affections on things above where Christ is seated at the
right hand of God. We look to God's word. We're
here worshiping right now, desiring to see him and to look to him. And yet, there's still somewhat
of a veil over our face, isn't there? And we long for that day
when when we'll be completely loosed and we'll see him as he
is and be made like him. This miracle is for us. It's for us to see the glory
of Christ in our regeneration and ultimately in our glorification. The Lord tells us in Galatians
chapter four, you remember Galatians four is that chapter that speaks
of Abraham and Sarah going to Hagar and Hagar bringing forth
Ishmael. And Ishmael was the child of
the bond woman. And the bond woman was, a picture
of Abraham and Sarah thinking that they had to do something
in order to help God out so that God could fulfill his promises.
And how often times we put our hands to stuff that we ought
not to. But the child of promise is Isaac.
And in Galatians chapter 4 verse 30 The Lord tells us this, we
are not the children of the bondwoman, but children of the free woman,
the free woman. How oftentimes the Lord points
us to Christ to find our liberty, to find our freedom, to be set
free from our bond. Grave clothes. Free. This freedom is from some things
and this freedom is to some things. Every believer has in his heart
by the spirit of God and by the presence of Christ, a desire
to be free. We've come forth out of the grave,
Lord, I need to be loosed. I need to be set free. I need
to be free from the penalty of sin. I need to know, I need to
have my affection set on Christ and know by faith, that's the
only way we're gonna know it, I need to know that the Lord
Jesus was successful in putting away all my sins and satisfying
God's demand for justice, that the sacrifice that he made on
Calvary's cross was sufficient, that the payment for sin is full
and finished. and that I fear not the wrath
of God. There's such liberty in that.
There's such rest in that. There's such the loosing of grave
clothes in that because our old man is, oh, he's so sinful. And he's always concert with this world and with
the forces of evil, with Satan himself accusing us and drawing
us away and taking us back to Egypt,
taking us back to the taskmasters, taking us back to the law. What
are the thoughts that we have Oftentimes, when sin rears its
ugly head, what do we think? Well, you know, I'm going to
do this and do that. And we find ourselves trying
to fix the problem with the law. But the law can't do it. We've got to flee to Christ. That's the only way that the
grave clothes can be taken off. That's the only way that we can
be set free. Free from the penalty of sin. What is the penalty of sin? It's
the wrath of God, it's death, it's judgment, it's eternal condemnation. And the believer, in looking
to Christ, finds their liberty in him, finds that God is satisfied
with what the Lord Jesus did. And I can rest in the promises
of God for the penalty, all the penalty of my sin. God requires
nothing more and will settle for nothing less than what the
Lord Jesus offered him for the payment of my sin. Secondly,
we're free from the power of sin. We are. There's Romans chapter 6 that the Lord tells us that though
we have this old man or we have this sin nature we're going to
look at that a moment in Romans 7 and he's always there And the
amazing thing is, I'm getting ahead of myself, but the more
we grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ, the more of our sin
we see. But Romans chapter 6 speaks of
the power, the dominion of sin in terms of the members of our
bodies. And... And the Lord tells us
in that chapter that we don't have to obey the desires of sin
in yielding the members of our bodies to unrighteousness. And that's every believer's desire. Lord, I would never sin again
if I could. And when sin is there, where
do we find deliverance from that. Where
do we find the power of sin broken? Only one place. Only one place. And that's in Christ. Loose Him. Loose Him. And let Him go. We are often reminded of what
Rebecca said to Jacob when, or to the Lord actually, she went
to Jacob and complained and asked him, you know, anyway, Rebekah
finally cries out to the Lord and she says, why am I thus? And what does the Lord say to
Rebekah? He said, because you have two manner of people in
you, not Jacob, Isaac. you have two nations within you. And these two nations are always
gonna be struggling with one another. And so it is with the
child of God. We've got an old man and a new
man, and we're in this constant need of having those grave clothes
loosed that we might be set free. We long for that day in our glorification
when that struggle will be over. No longer, no longer will the
presence of sin bother us. We won't have it. We won't have
it. Sin will be gone. What a hopeful
thought, what a hopeful faith we have in knowing that when
this corruptible body is made incorruptible as Lazarus's was, that sin will be no more. So that not only the penalty
of sin and the power of sin, but the very presence of sin
will be gone. That's every believer's desire. Not only does the Lord set us
free from some things, but he sets us free to some things. Before our new birth, we can't
believe. We're not free, we're bound by
sin. We're blinded by sin, we're dead
by sin. We absolutely are not free to
believe. And in the resurrection, we're
given faith to believe. So that now not only are we free
to believe, but this liberty to believe is so great that we
can't not believe. The Lord causes us to have a
belief in Christ that we never could have had before. We find ourselves being irresistibly
drawn to Him, to bow to Him and to praise Him, to worship Him.
We're free to do that now. We're free to come before the
throne of grace and to make our petitions known with thanksgiving.
We're free to call on Him. We're free to love him. We weren't free to love him before.
We had no love for the truth, had no love for Christ, had no
love for his people, no love for his word. And now the things
that we were, that we had no love for now, that's our life. Oh Lord. This is the love of
my life. This is my heart's desire. When I'm able to look to Christ,
the freedom of being able to believe, the freedom of being
able to worship, the freedom of loving that which God loves. To be able to love God's people.
And it's an unfeigned love, the love that God gives for us, for
one another. We don't have anything in common
with the unbeliever. And we, you know, we try to do
our best to be, you know, to be kind and to be cordial and
to have some sort of relationship, but what a fellowship. When the Lord knits our hearts
together in Christ And we love the same thing and we hate the
same thing and we're able to rejoice in Christ together. That's a freedom that we didn't
have. All these things we're talking
about are what happens when the Lord looses us from our grave
clothes and enables us to see and to walk and to serve and
to believe. And it's a lifelong process. It's never gonna end as long
as we're in this body. You know, one of the things that
I see in this miracle is that the Lord employs his people to do some things. He uses means. He could have
caused all the grave clothes of Lazarus to fall off miraculously. He could have caused the stone
to be moved miraculously. So many things the Lord could
do, but instead he uses his people to accomplish what he's doing. We see that all throughout scripture. Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter six,
when Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up and the Lord says,
you know, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. That's
the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And they're communing with one
another in heaven and giving Isaiah the opportunity to overhear
what they're saying. Who shall go for us? Isn't that
what the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? And what did
Isaiah say? Here am I, here am I, send me. And the Lord sends Isaiah. When
he calls his disciples, he sends them out two by two. In the beginning of the Gospel
of John, it was John the Baptist that announced the Lord Jesus
Christ as his forerunner. It was Andrew that went and got
his brother Phillip. It was Peter, I'm sorry, it was
Phillip that went and got his brother Nathanael. It was the
servants that went to the well in John chapter four at the wedding
feast or John chapter two at the wedding feast of Canaan.
and brought the water that was miraculously turned into wine.
The Lord uses his feet. He said, you loose them. You
loose them and you let them go. Hebrews chapter three. The scripture
tells us to exhort one another daily. Exhort one another daily. And that word exhort doesn't
mean to rebuke or to correct or to offer your advice. It means
to encourage one another. You loose them, you let them
go. Oh, we've got to be taught of
God. There's no question. It's only
He that can speak to our hearts. But He uses the means of the
preaching of the gospel. He uses the means of our prayers
for one another. He uses the means of our exhorting
one another, encouraging one another, reminding one another
who the Lord is and what He's done and what grace He's bestowed
upon us. What a blessing it is when believers
have an opportunity to loose each other. Why does the Lord use means to
accomplish the freedom that he gives to his children. I think a couple of reasons.
The Lord hides behind those means, first of all. Lord, why do you
speak to them in parables? Because it's not for them to
know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven. It's been given for
you to know. You see the child of God, reads
the newspaper to see what the Lord's doing. We know that everything
that's happening is a secondary cause, that there's a primary
means behind everything, and that the Lord is the first cause
of all things. And so, we see God behind the
means, but the natural man doesn't see that. All he sees is the
means. All he sees, God is hiding behind the means. and he reveals himself in that
place through the eye of faith to his children. The natural
man, all he sees is the means and tries to explain everything
by the appearance of the secondary causes. We know that our God
is behind every means and he's hiding behind those things and
it's only through the eye of faith that we can look through
the outward evidences and see that
God is behind it all. Secondly, I think the reason
that the Lord told these people to loose Lazarus and let him
go is that The Lord gets more glory when he uses natural means
to accomplish his purpose. God performed things that are clearly inexplicable. Men would see those things, they'd
look for an outward evidence of miracles, what sign will you
give us? And the Lord's glorified in the
hearts of his people. Now the natural man might be
awed by a outward manifestation that is inexplicable, a miracle. But the believer is awed when
he realizes that God uses earthen vessels. That the treasure of his grace is in a sinful vessel
and that that the Lord would use something like that to get
glory to himself. He's more glorified in the hearts
of his children when they see him using these natural means
to accomplish his end. And thirdly, I believe the reason
why is that the Lord blesses us by allowing us to join him in what he's doing. Let's be encouraged to be mindful
of one another's need because your brother has just as your
sister had just as much need to be loosed from their grave
clothes as you do. And and so let us exhort one another daily
encourage each other daily as we as we seek to have our hands
and our feet and our faces uncovered and loosed because liberty in
Christ and freedom is what we need and what we want. I've heard, I want to spend just
a moment identifying what these great flows are because I've
heard People refer to a works doctrine as grave clothes. Well, you know, they're new believers
and so they're still holding on to
Sabbath laws or they're still... think that man has this ability
or that ability, or I heard a preacher recently say that the gospel
was a free offer to man. And I've heard people take these
doctrines that are contrary to the gospel and call them gray
clothes. I don't believe that. When Paul rebuked the church
at Galatia, He didn't call the works doctrine that was coming
into the church, grave clothes. He didn't say, well, you know,
these Judaizers have been under the law for 1500 years and let's
just give them some time and be patient with them and help
them to get these grave clothes off. No, no, he called them false
brethren. He called what they were doing
another gospel. As a matter of fact, he said,
let them be accursed. That's not a doctrine that's
contrary to the gospel of God's free grace in the glorious person
and accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ is not grave
clothes. That's a false gospel. Paul told the church at Galatia,
He said, these men are trying to bring you back into bondage.
They're trying to put you back under the law. They're false brethren. And if
you follow them, if you follow them, you will only prove that
all my labors there were completely in vain and that you never really
heard the gospel if you follow them. I've heard other men refer to
grave clothes as the remaining corruption of sin. The remaining
corruption of sin. And if you listen to those who
use that phrase, the remaining corruption of sin, they believe that their sinful
nature is getting better. And there's just a little bit
of... There's just a little bit of corruption remaining. But
the corruption's getting better and we're becoming less sinful. And the corruption is now harder
to find because it's less than it used to be. And they call
it progressive sanctification. That's not grave clothes. That's
self-righteousness. That's all that is. Now I suppose that if sin was
just a behavioral problem then maybe that would be an okay way
to understand grave clothes because I hope, I do hope that believers,
as they grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ, as they
mature, I hope that they're less subject to the desires of the
old man to fulfill the lust of the flesh in their behavior. I hope that's true for me. As soon as I try to look there
to find out if it is, I lose all hope. I lose all comfort. I lose all peace. Because when
I look at myself, I see the corruption of sin worse than it ever was
before. I find it more Well, I told you earlier we were
gonna go to Romans chapter seven. Let's go there for just a moment.
Romans chapter seven. The more a child of God grows
in grace and in the knowledge of Christ, the more pervasive and insidious
they find their sin to be. They see more of their self-righteousness,
they see more of their pride, they see more of their self-promotion,
they see more of their impatience and more of their... Oh, Paul at the end of his life,
said this, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I am chief. I am chief. Now was Paul saying that he's
living his life in such a shameful manner? He didn't do that before
he was a believer. Certainly he's not talking about
his outward lifestyle. He's talking about As he sees
more and more of Christ and more and more of his glory, he sees
more and more of how much unlike the Lord Jesus he is. And how
much more in need of God's grace he is. And I believe that's what
he's talking about in Romans chapter 7. Look at verse 18.
For I know I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth
no good thing. To will is present with me, but
how to perform that which is good, I find not. I would love to be able to be
without sin, but when I look at my flesh, You know, there's a real sense.
As I said, let me make sure that we understand what I'm saying
here. Because I believe that as a believer
grows in grace, they seek to honor the Lord and the Lord gives
them more grace to not yield the members
of their bodies to unrighteousness. The more he looses them of those
grave clothes, the more their hands are free to serve, the
more their feet are free to walk, the more their eyes are open
to see. And at the very same time, at
the very same time, they see that their flesh is actually
worse than they thought it was. It's worse than they thought
it was. When you first are converted,
you think, you know, you're experiencing this, oh, I'm never gonna sin
again. That doesn't last long. And you
find yourself as you grow in grace, doing what the apostle
Paul said here. Look at verse 22. For I delight
in the law of God after the inward man, but I see something now. He didn't say I saw, he said
I see. Another law in my members warring
against the law of my mind. I have the mind of Christ, I
want to will His presence with me, to be without sin, I wish
I could. And this, this other law. brings me into captivity to the
law of sin which is in my members. Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? Who's going to
set me free? This is the grave clothes. It's not bad doctrine. It's not the remaining corruption
of sin as if I'm getting better and I just got to root out what's
left. The grave clothes that have to
be loosed from us is this sin nature. It's this old man, it's
this body of death that becomes more and more corrupt in a very
real sense in the believer's life as he finds his greater
need for Christ now than I ever had before. I see more of my
sin now than I ever saw before. I have more need for grace now
than I ever needed before. And that's why when believers
grow in grace, you know, they get a little more humble. They
get a little less critical. They get a little less judgmental. They're a little quieter. They're
a little slower to give unsolicited advice and to correct people. Why? Because they've had experience
with their own sin enough. and these grave clothes that
they've been wearing all their lives and their need to be set
free and to be set at liberty that they might walk and serve
and see. That's their desire. Their desire
is to be made free. Every grace And this grace, this
grace of being set free grows. But you know, believers, believers
are like a tree, aren't they? They really are. And there's
a, in the growth of a tree, there's a symbiotic relationship between
the roots and the leaves. The leaves are converting the
sunlight into energy through photosynthesis and sending that
down to the roots and the roots are taking the nourishment out
of the ground and feeding the leaves and this, you can't have
one without the other. Matter of fact, I've got a a
citrus tree right now that I'm struggling to keep alive and
I noticed recently that there's some new sprouts coming out underneath
the graph. Normally I would break those
off and cut them off right away but I'm leaving them on there
because I know this tree's got a problem with root rot and I'm
hoping that the new growth, it'll eventually get cut off but I'm
hoping right now it's going to feed the roots with some nourishment. My point being That as we grow
up, we grow down, and the way up is down. And as we seek and
do, know the Lord, we come to see more and more of ourselves,
don't we? We come to see more and more of our need to be loosed
and to be let go. It's dark down there in the ground
where those roots are. But just like with Jacob and
Esau, I mentioned Rebekah earlier, just like with Jacob and Esau,
what'd the Lord say to Rebekah? The older, that's Esau, he is
firstborn, shall serve the younger, that's Jacob, that's the new
man. And here's our two natures. That old man, this body of death
that we bear, it's gonna be loosed. We find more and more of our
need to be loosed and let go. Let us loose one another. Let
us encourage one another. I pray that the Lord will enable
us to do that for one another. All right, our Heavenly Father,
thank you for your word Lord, speak truth
and hope and peace and comfort and grace to our hearts as we
are brought by your spirit to look to Christ. For it's in his
name we ask, amen. 290, let's stand together, 290.