I wanted to read that passage
from Ezekiel 37 because tonight we've come to the place in John
chapter 11 where the Lord raises Lazarus from the dead. I will
open their graves. I've titled this message, The
Word of Life. The Word of Life. And our text is in John chapter
11 at verse 43. And when he had thus spoken,
he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth. And he that was dead
came forth. We'll reserve the rest of verse
44 for another night. I wanna bring a message on the
grave clothes that Lazarus had to be unbound from. But tonight I want us to look
at the Lord Jesus as the word of life. When John wrote his
epistle, 1 John, he addressed the church by speaking of the
Lord Jesus as the Word of Life. The Word of Life. When Paul spoke of Christ in
Philippians chapter 2, Paul said, under the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit, we handled the Word of Life. When John begins this
gospel account, He begins with, in the beginning was the word
and the word was with God and the word was God. And then in
verse three, he says that this word was life and the life was
the light of men. The Lord Jesus said, I give,
unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
any man be able to pluck them out of my hand." Life. Eternal life. Life from God, given to us by
Christ, as the living word through the means of the spoken word. You remember when that centurion
came to the Lord to have him heal his servant and the Lord
told him that he would come to his house and the centurion said,
oh no. He said, I'm a man of authority
and I know what that means. He said, I have people under
me and I say unto them go and they go and I say come and they
come. And I know that if my word has that power, that your word
has the power to give life. Only speak the word and my servant
will be healed. To have the life of God, we need
God to speak a word of life. We need for him to speak to our
hearts revealing the Lord Jesus in his person and in his work. We need him to do for us what
he does here for Lazarus. Call his sheep by name and they
follow him and he gives unto them eternal life in a loud voice. Why did he, why did he cry in
a loud voice for the people's sake? He already said in the
verse previous, he said, father, I know that you always hear me
but I say this that they might believe. And so the Lord Jesus
is not crying in order to get the attention of his father.
He's crying in order to make sure that everybody around knew
that it was he that was giving life. Because he cried Lazarus. It's been said that had he not
cried Lazarus, all the graves in the world would have been
opened. But he calls his sheep one at
a time. And here's our hope that the Lord would speak to each
of us individually and that he would call us by name and say
to us, come forth, come forth. And immediately, Lazarus came
forth. At the Lord's command, at the
Lord's command and only at his command, the grave had to give
up its prey. All the lies and objections of
Satan were silenced. There was no negotiating, no
hesitancy. There were no arguments to be
made. Lazarus, come forth. And immediately, immediately,
the dead man raised. Oh, the power of his word. Isaiah chapter 43, I will say
to the North, give up, and to the South, keep not back. Bring my sons from afar and my
daughters from the ends of the earth. I will say, wherever God's
people are, wherever his elect are, wherever those for whom
he died are in this world, he knows where they are. And he
will say to them, give up, come. And they'll come, they'll come. In Ezekiel chapter 16, I think
I mentioned this this past Sunday, the illustration is that of a
child that is born grossly deformed and discarded by its mother into
the field, still in its own blood. And the
Lord walks by. And he says, I saw you in your
own blood, and I said unto thee, live, for it is your time of
love, your time of love. When God sees us polluted in
our own sin, And it is a blood problem, isn't
it? We inherited this sin nature from our father, who inherited
from his, who goes all the way back to Adam. The woman that
had an issue of blood, we've all got an issue of blood. And
our blood is polluted. It's sinful. And yet, the Lord
sees us in that condition. That's why the Lord had to be that Mary had to be conceived
of the Holy Ghost, could not trace the bloodline
back to Adam in the Lord. He had to be born with perfect,
sinless blood, and he was. I said, live for your time Your
time was a time of love. It is love that moves the heart
of God to to say to the north, give up and to the south, let
go to find his sons and daughters to to look at that discarded,
helpless infant polluted in its own blood. It is his love that
searches us out and finds us and speaks truth and life, life
to our hearts. That verse in John chapter one
at verse three, in him was life and the life was the light of
men. In order for us to have the light
of the gospel, We have to first be given life. That's what the Lord said to
Nicodemus. You know, I hear people and I read of men and talk to
men who speak as if you have to acquire a certain understanding
before you can believe. And certainly there are some
things that we need to hear but as far as As far as achieving
some level of intellectual understanding, no, not to believe. You believe in order to understand. We get life before we get light. The life was the light of men.
Nicodemus, except you be born of the spirit. You cannot see
the kingdom of God. You really can't understand anything
or see anything for what it is until first you've been given
the new birth, the life of God in regeneration. And Lazarus,
certain, is not gonna be able to see anything until the Lord
first says to him, Lazarus, come forth, come forth. Here's what
we need. We need the voice of God to speak
life to us. And in speaking life to us, the
light will come. Our Lord said in John chapter
five, the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear
the voice of the son of God and they that hear shall live, they
that hear shall live. And we all reminded of what the
Lord said when he said, let him who has an ear to hear, hear
what the Spirit saith unto the churches. The hearing ear and
the seeing eye are both gifts from God. They come as a result
of life. Life comes first. Life comes
first. And that life comes by the power
of the Word of God. All he has to do is say, live. You know, I was thinking about
life and how powerful life is. Everything that is alive does
all that it can to remain alive. We see that in every area of
life. We see it especially in human
life and rightly so we should do all that we can to preserve
life and to avert death and we do. We go to doctors and we take
medication and we submit ourselves to surgeries and we hopefully
do a little dieting and exercising and what are we doing? We're
trying to prolong life. Life has a very strong pursuit
about it. And yet, death is unstoppable. It is relentless. All that we do to try to protect
life and preserve life and avert death, eventually death comes
and life gives way. I'm talking about physical life
now. Life gives way to death. And we know that that's a result
of the curse of the fall. The Lord warned Adam before he
even made Eve. He warned Adam, he said, you
can eat of all the trees, but not of the tree that's in the
midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, for in the day in which you eat of it, you shall surely
die. So, Adam didn't die until he
was 930 years old. But he experienced spiritual
death the moment He agreed with the suggestion of Eve to take
of that forbidden fruit and to eat it. Eve was deceived. Adam took of the fruit with his
eyes wide open. He knew exactly what he was doing.
And the Lord tells us in Romans chapter five, verse 12, wherefore
by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, death
by sin. And so death passed upon all
men for all have sin. So all that we do to try to preserve
physical life, the result of sin is death. And what was it that Satan said
to Eve? Did God say that you should not
eat of any of the trees? No, no, no. Eve corrected him
on that. No, God said we could eat of all the trees, but not
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For the day in
which we eat of it, we shall surely die. And Satan came right
back and said, thou shalt not surely die. You're not gonna
die. God didn't want you to eat of
that tree because he knows that the day in which you eat of it
your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God. No, their eyes were
closed when they ate of that. And separation from God, spiritual
death, the fall was an immediate response to that disobedience. And that sin nature has been
passed down to each one of us. our children come into this world.
We'd be reminded to be faithful in praying for our children.
I know you do, and I do. And I'm so encouraged about how
faithful so many of our young parents are in having their children
under the sound of the gospel. But there's a necessity for that.
Why? Because left to themselves, they
have no interest in the things of God. They're spiritually dead. They have no desire for the things
of God. Not apart from a miracle of grace
and that's why we have them under the sound of the gospel. That
perhaps the Lord be pleased to call them by name. Perhaps they
would be given an ear to hear. and a heart to believe. Perhaps
the word of a God would fall with power on their hearts and
give them life. That's our hope. Because apart
from that miracle of grace, they have no life. They're spiritually
dead just like we were when we came into this world. First John chapter three, verse
eight. The Lord tells us this, for this
purpose, for this purpose, the son of God was manifested that
he might destroy the works of the devil. The works of the devil
have not changed. The works of the devil are still
works of death. And that's why the Lord Jesus
was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. As powerful as life is, physical
life, death is more powerful. Death will overcome life at some
point for each of us as it does in every realm of life. Nothing lives forever. It all
finally succumbs to the power of death. What is our hope? That death gives way to the power
of the word of life. That's our hope. Oh, what did
Paul say? Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
chapter 15. Verse 55, O death, where is thy
sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. That's
Satan's power. The Lord Jesus came, he was manifested
in this world to destroy the works of the devil. The work
of the devil is death brought out by sin. Taken all the way
back to the garden, he hasn't changed. Everything's still the
same. Here's our only hope. The sting of death is sin and
the strength of sin is the law. The law can't save me from my
sin. If I go to the law in order to
try to find deliverance from my sin, all the law does is aggravate
my sin. All the law does is drive me
deeper into my despair. If I'm a hypocrite and I pretend
and convince myself that I'm somehow measuring up to the requirements
of the law and feel as if I've become delivered from my sin
by the law all I'm proving is that the worst sin of all has
gotten a hold of me, self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is the worst
sin of all. That's the sin that besets all men and it's, you
know, the shame and guilt of doing something wrong is easy
to identify, self-righteousness. And so if I go to the law and
I think that the law is helping me and I believe that I'm somehow
satisfying the demands of the law, I've only proved myself
to be the worst sinner of all. If I'm an honest person, I go
to the law. All the law is going to do is
drive me further into my sin. It's going to aggravate my shame
and my sorrow and my guilt and make sin even stronger for me. The strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. As powerful as
life is, death is more powerful, as powerful as death is, Christ,
the word of life, speaks straight to death and says, Lazarus, come
forth. And without objection and without
hesitancy, And without any, any negotiations, Lazarus immediately
had to respond to the word of life. What a powerful word. No man ever spake like this man.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ. which giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren,
be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not vain when
done in the Lord, in the Lord, looking to Christ. He's our life. In him was life. And the life
was the light of man. Physical death is not what we
need to concern ourselves with. That's going to come. The Bible
speaks of a second death. A second death. And it tells
us what that second death is in Revelation chapter 20. Death
and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. This is the second death. The
death from which there can be no return. The death from which
no word from God will ever be spoken. The death of which is
eternal. the lake of fire. The Lord calls
it in Revelation 20, the second death. But listen to what he
says at the beginning of Revelation 20. Blessed and holy is he that
hath part in the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath
part in the first resurrection, for the second death hath no
power over him. When was the first resurrection?
2,000 years ago. It wasn't Lazarus'
resurrection. Lazarus is going to die again. But when the Lord Jesus came
out of that grave, he ever liveth. He ever liveth. He conquered
death. He spoke the word of life directly
into the pit of hell. and conquered death and destroyed
the works of the devil for his people, for his people. Here's our hope. They that have
part in the first resurrection, that's when the Lord Jesus was
raised from the dead. And when he went to the cross,
Paul said, I'm crucified with him. When he raised from the
dead, Paul said, oh, that I might know him. The fellowship of his
suffering, that when he suffered, I fellowshiped in that suffering.
That God was satisfied with the suffering that the Lord Jesus
experienced on Calvary's cross for me. And not only the fellowship of
his suffering, but the power of his resurrection. That when
he's raised from the dead, I was raised from the dead. He's the
firstborn among many brethren. Here's my hope. Here's my hope. Death is coming. Oh, men live
all their lives in fear of it. But what's the Lord tell us?
He's delivered us. He's delivered us from it. We
have no reason to fear the first death for our physical death
will be a graduation. It'll be, oh, oh, graduation
doesn't even begin to speak of of the glory that'll be revealed
in us. But you understand what I'm trying
to say. It'll be our deliverance from this body of death that
we live in now. It'll be that glorious time and
we'll see him as he is and be made like him. In 1 Corinthians
15, we didn't read those verses, but it's where it says in the
mortal must be made immortal and the corruptible must be made
incorruptible. We're gonna have immortal bodies.
We're gonna have incorruptible, sinless bodies. We're gonna be
made like him. We're gonna see him as he is.
Lazarus, come forth. The word of life. Who else? Who else can speak? Satan is a liar. He's the father
of lies, been lying from the beginning. The first thing out
of his mouth was a lie. Christ is the truth. The truth. Satan is a destroyer. All he's about is death and destruction. Christ is a giver of life. Life, eternal life. Satan is
the accuser of the brethren. Like with Job, he accuses us
before God and he accuses us by men to ourselves and by our
own conscience to ourselves. He's the accuser of the brethren,
always trying to bring us back under the law. The Lord Jesus doesn't accuse
us. He says, there is now therefore no condemnation to them that
are in Christ Jesus. The Lord Jesus is our intercessor. He's our mediator. He's not our
accuser. Satan is a thief. He's a thief. He robs God of his glory. He
robs men of their hope, their peace, their comfort. The Lord Jesus gives, that's
all he just gives. He gives the gift of life, he
gives joy, he gives hope, he gives happiness, he gives comfort,
he gives peace. We have peace with God and by
his grace we experience the peace of God. He has come to destroy the works
of the devil. He did this by making himself
an offering for sin and satisfying divine justice. God demanded blood. He demanded death. In
the day in which you eat of this tree, you'll surely die. The
wages of sin is death. And so what God required of the
Lord Jesus was death. He took on him, not in the forms
of an angel, but he took on him a body like unto his brethren,
born like unto Abraham. that he might bear our sins in
his body on that tree and suffer the wrath of God's justice in
order to put our sins away. But he also established for us
a perfect righteousness before God so that we can come before
the throne of grace boldly and find help in our time of need
and know that as he is, so are we and that we have a righteousness
by virtue of our union with him that we could never have. Our best righteousnesses are
as filthy rags. Revelation chapter one, verse
17. The Lord Jesus is seen holding
in his hands the keys to death and hell. He holds in his hands the keys
of death and hell. I mentioned this Sunday and I've
just been, I've been so grieved and, And I just feel so sure
and so convicted that the greatest evil that we ever see in this
world is not the bad things that get reported on the news. It's
what we've had to endure the last couple of weeks and what
we will endure now coming up as the as the mother of all harlots
and that's who she is. You just read Revelation chapter
17, the Catholic church is described perfectly as the mother of harlots,
the whore of Babylon. And there we see the greatest
evil of all anywhere in this world. And as they elect another
pope, we're gonna see more of it. I make no apology for that. I came out of that. I see it
so clearly. And it's so full of evil and
blasphemy. And what does the Pope do? He
wears a key around his neck. As if he's got the key to death
and hell. As if he's the representative
of the Lord Jesus on earth. You know, the whole world sees
that as the epitome of Christianity, when in fact, it's the epitome
of evil. The Lord Jesus said, I have the
keys to death and hell. And then in Matthew chapter 16,
he said, I give unto you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. What has the Lord given unto
us? He's given unto us what we're doing right now. He's given unto
us his word. He's given unto us his gospel.
He's given unto us his spirit. He's doing for us what he did
for the whole house of Israel over there in Ezekiel 37 that
we already read. He's telling us to prophesy,
to dry bones. Can these bones live? Lord, thou
knowest, prophesy to them, son of man, preach the gospel. That's
the key. That's the key. And when the word of life is
spoken and the spirit of God comes and he anoints that word
and gives it power and makes it effectual to the hearts of
God's elect, then he calls his sons from afar and his daughters
from the east and they come, and the dead hear his voice,
and the dead are raised to life, life, eternal life. Lazarus,
come forth. And immediately, immediately,
he came out of that grave. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for giving to us the keys to the kingdom. Lord, enable us. Enable us to
speak these keys with conviction, with simplicity, with clarity, with
compassion. And Lord, anoint your word with life. For we know that in
Christ is life and the life is the light of men. Lord, lighten
our hearts with the life of Christ. We ask it in his name. Amen. 29. Let's stand together. Number
29.