Good evening. Let's start this
evening's service by standing together and singing hymn 509
in the hardback hymnal. 509. The sands of time are sinking,
the dawn of heaven breaks. The summer morn I've sighed for,
the fair sweet morn awakes. Dark, dark hath been the midnight,
? The day spring is at hand ? And glory, glory dwelleth ? In Emmanuel's
land ? O Christ, He is the fountain ? The deep sweet well of love
The streams on earth I've tasted, more deep I'll drink above. There to an ocean fullness His
mercy doth expand. And glory, glory dwelleth in
Emmanuel's land. Oh, I am my Beloved's, and my
Beloved's mine. He brings a poor vile sinner
into his house of wine. I stand upon His merit, I know
no other stand, Not even where glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's
land. The bride eyes not her garment,
but her dear bridegroom's face. I will not gaze at glory, but
on my King of Grace. Not at the crown he giveth, but
on his pierced hand. The Lamb is all the glory of
Emmanuel's land. Be seated. Thank you, Adam. Good evening.
That's a wonderful hymn. I was blessed to be able to sing
that. Let's open our Bibles together
to Psalm 66. Psalm 66. We'll begin reading at verse
eight. Oh, bless our God, ye people,
and make the voice of his praise to be heard, which holdeth our
soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved. For thou,
O God, hast proved us, thou hast tried us, as silver is tried. Thou broughtest us into the net. Thou laidest affliction upon
our loins. Thou hast caused men to ride
over our heads. We went through fire and through
water, but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy way, wealthy
place. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, thank you
for giving us a taste of Emmanuel's land here in this world, where
we can come together and open our mouths and songs of
praise. And Lord, trust you to open our
hearts and the eyes of our understanding enable us to worship. Lord, we pray that you would
lead us tonight in a wealthy way, that we would find the riches
of your grace to be sufficient for all of our needs. Lord, we
know that whatever afflictions we suffer in this life, You've
sent them for our good. And you've tried our faith as
silver has tried. And Lord, we know that a faith
not tried is not proven. Lord, we pray that you would
prove our faith to be God-given, to be genuine, sincere, that
you would cause us, Lord, in this hour to set our affections
on Christ and to find him to be our all and to find him to
be in all. We ask it in his name. Amen. Let's stand again and sing from
the hardback hymnal 485, 485. We praise thee, O God, for the
Son of thy love, for Jesus who died and is now gone above. Hallelujah, thine the glory Hallelujah,
amen Hallelujah, thine the glory Revive us again ? We praise thee,
O God, for thy spirit of light ? ? Who has shown us our Savior
and scattered our night ? ? Hallelujah, thine the glory, hallelujah,
amen ? ? Hallelujah, thine the glory, revive us again ? All
glory and praise to the Lamb that was slain, who has borne
all our sins and has cleansed every stain. Hallelujah, thine
the glory. Hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again. Revive us again. Fill each heart with thy love. May each soul be rekindled with
fire from above. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Alleluia, amen. Alleluia, thine the glory. Revive us again. Be seated, please. All right, let's open our Bibles
to John chapter 11. John chapter 11. We've been looking on Wednesday
nights at the miracles our Lord performed that are recorded in
the Gospels. And I mentioned last Wednesday
night that we would probably spend a few weeks here in John
chapter 11 in the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus.
And we looked last Wednesday night at what the message that
Martha and Mary sent to our Lord was when they said, Lord, the
one whom thou lovest is sick. And they laid all their needs
at the feet of Christ. They didn't demand anything from
him or even suggest what he should do. And they didn't bring their
need based on Lazarus' love for Christ, but everything was in
his hands. And I thought about moving on to
some other verses but then I got to thinking about Bethany and
I want us to go back to verse 1. Now a certain man was sick named
Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. Bethany. Translated, it means
the house of the poor. And what I want us to see tonight
is the contrast that the Lord gives us between the city of
Jerusalem and this little village called Bethany. There's many
references in the New Testament where the Lord spent the night
in Bethany. whether it be here at Mary and
Martha and Lazarus' house or whether it be at Simon the leper's
house, he lived in Bethany as well, we don't know. But Bethany was two miles from
Jerusalem and between Bethany and Jerusalem is the Mount of
Olives. And there's no reference in the
gospel accounts where our Lord ever spent the night in Jerusalem
except, except that night when they arrested him on the Mount
of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane and took him back to Jerusalem
and that entire night being scourge and interrogated and then of
course the next day going to the cross, the only night he
spent in Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the Lord tells us
in Galatians chapter 4, is a city in bondage to the law. Jerusalem represents the The
popularity of legalistic man-made free will works religion. Even the apostles were impressed. One time they were on the Mount
of Olives looking, on the top of the Mount of Olives you can
look down to the east and see this little town of Bethany,
or you can look to the west and see the city of Jerusalem with
the dome of the temple. A temple was the crown jewel
of Jerusalem. And they thought that that temple
represented the presence and the power of God. But even the
disciples were impressed. They asked the Lord, you know,
they pointed out the beauty of the temple. The Lord told them
not one stone would be left upon another. In 70 AD, that's exactly what
happened. That entire city was destroyed. Bethany, however, there's some
sweet, sweet appearances and references to
what the Lord did in this little village. As I mentioned, the translation
of Bethany is house of the poor, house of the poor. And the Lord,
you remember in Matthew chapter five in the Sermon on the Mount,
when he begins that sermon with the beatitudes, the very first
beatitude is blessed of God are the poor in spirit, for they
shall inherit the kingdom of God. What a blessing it is to stand
before God Almighty and have nothing to offer, only to receive,
and all our needs are met in the Lord Jesus. That's what it
means to be poor in spirit. You know, I was thinking about
wealth in a worldly sense is relative. A man might be poor
in one country and take what he has to another country and
be wealthy. But before God, and we may refer
to some people as poor and some people as rich, before God to
be poor in spirit, to be in abject poverty before God is to have
nothing. Nothing. I have nothing to recommend
me to God, I have no righteousness, I have no way to satisfy God's
law, I have no way to justify my sin, I have Nothing. That's pretty poor. I know nothing. I can't know myself. I can't
know God. I can't know the means of grace
that he has revealed, that he must reveal in the person of
his son if I'm going to be saved. I don't know anything unless
God teaches me. I've got to be taught of God.
I can learn some things from men, but as we saw Sunday, that
would be hearsay. I may be an eyewitness. We learn doctrine and history
and Bible verses and all sorts of things from another man, and
recite those things. But to learn them to the saving
of our souls, to learn them to the profit of our salvation,
God's got to teach us and I know nothing unless he teaches me.
He may use the voice of a man, the audible voice of another
man to teach me but it's got to go far beyond just the hearing
of the ear. Otherwise, well that dreadful
prophecy that Isaiah gives in Isaiah chapter 6, ears they will
have but they will not hear. eyes they will have, but they
will not see. That will be the outcome of my condition if God
doesn't teach me. I can see a lot of things and
I can hear a lot of things and I can recite a lot of things,
but Lord, I don't know anything, not really know them, unless
you teach them to me. And here's the promise of God,
they shall all be taught of God. Father, I thank Thee that Thou
hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent and revealed
them unto babes, poor people, needy people. Not only is my poverty reflected
in not having anything and not knowing anything, but my poverty
is also reflected in my inability to do anything. no decision I make, no work that
I perform, no pursuit of knowledge that I can
possibly achieve. I can't do anything. God has
to do something for me. I'm on the receiving end. That's
what it means to me. This is the house of the poor.
Bethany is where Lazarus is raised from the dead. Bethany is where
Mary anoints the feet and the head of the Lord Jesus with that
alabaster jar of ointment and fills the room with the aroma
of that perfume. In contrast to that, the Pharisees
in Jerusalem weren't poor. They were proud. They were rich
in their own righteousness. They were rich in what they thought
was their knowledge. They were rich in what they thought
they could do. They had need of nothing. Bethany. Oh, that we would find
ourselves in Bethany. The Lord Jesus came for the poor
and for the needy. The well need not a physician
but they that are sick. And it is a blessing. We've looked at this before,
the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall
see the kingdom of God. And We used to think, well, if
I can just put myself in a place where I can be poor in spirit,
then that'll guarantee me to see the kingdom of God. Being
poor in spirit is the blessing of God. We can't put ourselves
in that place. The Lord must make us poor in
spirit. And that's why I wanted to read
those verses over there in Psalm 66, because he sends oftentimes
afflictions to show us our need. and to make us poor. He shows
us our sin, surely, and if the Lord ever shows us a glimpse
of that, we'll become poor. Look with me at, just turn your
Bibles one page over to John chapter 12. Look at verse one. Then Jesus, six days before the
Passover, came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead,
whom he raised from the dead. And they made him a supper, and
Martha served, but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table
with him. Oh, to sit at the table with
the Lord Jesus Christ and to feast on him, the bread of life. To be raised spiritually from
our spiritual, excuse me, dead condition. We're dead in our
trespasses and sins and the Lord has to quicken us together with
Christ. He has to make us alive. This
is what we see in Lazarus. Then took Mary a pound of ointment
of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and
wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with
the odor of the ointment." And reading those three verses,
we might think because it's right on the heels of chapter 11 that
this took place at Mary's Martha and Lazarus' house, but Matthew
tells us it took place at Simon the leper's house. So there was
more homes in Bethany that were open to the Lord than just Mary,
Martha and Lazarus. It was a place that he often
resorted to spend the night. He never stayed in Jerusalem.
Every time he was in Jerusalem, he went to Bethany. in Matthew chapter 21 after his
triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Remember when he told the disciples
to go loose a colt and he would ride that, that colt was in Bethany.
And the Lord Jesus is now riding that colt into Jerusalem and
And the crowd is crying, Hosanna, Hosanna. And they were praising
God and the Lord Jesus knew that less than a week from that very
day, that same crowd would be crying, crucify him, crucify
him. He wasn't impressed with their
enthusiasm. And after the scripture says, after that, he went out of the
city to Bethany and he lodged there. I suspect they took the
colt back to its owner and went back to the town of Bethany. Turn with me to Luke chapter
24. I don't know if I've ever thought
about this before because There's one reference in the gospel accounts,
or in Acts actually, where the scripture says that the Lord
took the disciples to the Mount of Olives and there it was that
they asked him, is it now time to establish your kingdom? And the Lord said to you back
into Jerusalem and the Holy Ghost to come upon you. And he ascended
into heaven from the Mount of Olives. But the Mount of Olives, as I
mentioned earlier, separates the city of Jerusalem from Bethany,
and Bethany actually touches the eastern side of the Mount
of Olives, this little town. And so Luke tells us in Luke
24, if you will look down at verse 50, And he led them out as far as
to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. And
it came to pass, while he blessed them, he parted from them and
was carried up into heaven, and they worshiped him. The ascension
of the Lord Jesus back into heaven took place at Bethany. Yeah,
it was the Mount of Olives, but it was Bethany. It was that little
town of Bethany. So many. sweet and gracious appearances
and works and evidences of our Lord's grace taking place in
this house of the poor. Sometimes words in the Bible
can have more than one meaning and so it is with the word Bethany.
Not only can it be translated house of the poor but it can
also be translated house of the afflicted. House of the afflicted. The Lord Jesus saw the affliction
of his people in Egypt. He heard their cry by reason
of the taskmasters God's people who reside in Bethany, reside
in the house of the afflicted, they're afflicted over their
sin, they're afflicted over their need to have their sin taken
away and the law represented by those taskmasters of Egypt
only gives them affliction. Don't tell me how to fix my sin
problem by teaching me how to do better. Don't put me under
the law to fix my... The quota keeps going up. Every
time the Israelites would meet their quota of bricks, the Egyptians
would just add to them. Maybe you've had that experience
at work. And then they took away the straw.
He just never could satisfy. And the only thing that the Israelites
had from the Egyptians was the whip. And the Lord heard their cry
by reason of the affliction of the taskmasters. And he sent
Moses and he delivered them. He brought
them out. The Lord showed, as he shows
here in our text, a distinction between Bethany and Jerusalem.
The Lord showed a difference between the Israelites and the
Egyptians. He brought them out. Not one
of them died when the death angel came through and not a hoof of
an animal was left behind in Egypt. He brought them all out.
I will raise up a prophet like unto thee, Moses. Moses is a
picture of Christ. It's the Lord Jesus that comes
into the house of affliction where we struggle with sin and
we can't satisfy the requirements of righteousness by the law.
And the Lord Jesus comes and he, by the death of the lamb,
the shed blood of the lamb, brings us out. You remember the story of Naomi
in the book of Ruth. Naomi suffers great affliction.
Her husband, Elimelech, takes her to Moab, her sons die, he
dies, she's left with two daughter-in-laws, one of which will stay behind
in Moab, and Ruth. Ruth will go with Naomi back
to Bethlehem, the house of bread, Another picture of the church,
isn't it? Another picture of Christ meeting with his people.
And when Naomi shows up in Bethlehem where she was from, however long
she was in Moab, her outward appearances had changed. And the people when they saw
her said, is that Naomi? Is that Naomi? Naomi's name translated
means my delight. She was obviously a very fair,
beautiful woman when she left. When she came back, she said,
don't call me Naomi, call me Mara. For the Almighty, the Almighty
has afflicted me. Mara translated means bitter.
What a bitter experience Naomi suffered. but she comes back
with Ruth and she meets Boaz and she becomes the great, great
grandmother of King David and in the lineage of the Messiah. Oh, what a blessing God gave
to her through all that affliction and all the afflictions that
David said, before I was afflicted, I would have gone astray, but
now I've kept thy word, Lord. It's good that I've been afflicted.
Afflictions are never easy, they're always hard. And yet God hears
the cry of his children when they're afflicted. They're afflicted
by his hand, they cry out to him. 2 Samuel chapter 22 verse 28 says,
the afflicted people thou wilt save. But thine eyes are upon
the haughty, that thou may bring them down. Job chapter 34, verse 28. Preacher tells Job, God hears the cry of the afflicted. Cry. Heavy laden, burdened, come
unto me. Come unto me, I'll give you rest.
My burden is light, my yoke is easy. Learn of me. Oh, is that not the reason of
our afflictions? To learn of God. To learn of Christ. Turn with me to Psalm 25. Verse 15, mine eyes are ever
toward the Lord, for he shall pluck my feet out of the net. Turn thee unto me and have mercy
upon me, for I am desolate and afflicted. The troubles of my
heart are enlarged. Oh, bring thou me out of my distresses. Look upon mine affliction and
my pain and forgive all my sins. Consider my enemies, for they
are many. And they hate me with a cruel
hatred. Oh, keep my soul and deliver
me. Let me not be ashamed, for I
put my trust in thee. Let integrity and uprightness
preserve me, for I wait on thee. Redeem Israel, O God, out of
all his troubles." The house of the poor and the
house of affliction. Bethany. What a glorious city Jerusalem
was. It's called the Holy City. in several places in the Bible. It was holy because God had set
it apart. It was where, you remember, even long before it became the
city of David, long before Joshua came in and conquered the promised
land and put out the Jebusites and took that city, and then
David later would make it the capital city of Israel and it
became the city of David and the temple would be built there.
Long before that, we meet a man called Melchizedek. Melchizedek. And he's called
the King of Salem. Peace. The King of Salem. Jerusalem. But this city that God had made
holy and set apart, the city that The pre-incarnate Lord Jesus
in the person of Melchizedek came out of to whom Abraham paid
tithes. The city that David established,
the city that Solomon built the temple in had deteriorated. It was no longer a holy city, it
was no longer set apart. Our Lord stood on the Mount of
Olives once and looked over the city of Jerusalem and said, oh,
Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How often I would have taken
you in, you would not. He knew the whole history of
that city. He knew, he was there when, he was Melchizedek that
came out of Salem and met with Abraham. He was there when Joshua
conquered it. He was there when David made
it the city of Israel. And now he's looking at this
city. And this temple wasn't Solomon's
temple. It was Herod's temple. Herod
had funded the building of this temple. Around the time of the
birth of Christ, Herod the Great, yes, the one that wanted to kill
the Lord out of fear that he might become king. He was the one that funded this
temple. And what a picture of the compromise
of religion that we see in Herod. The Herodians, the scripture
tells us were Edomites. The Edomites were the descendants
of Esau. Esau, the contrast of Jacob. Esau, the works gospel. Esau, the one whom God hates. And Herod. Because of his connection
with Abraham, they say, well, he was part Jew, but he was an
Edomite, and he wanted to be friendly with the Jews, and so
he funded the building of this temple. And it's so fitting. Think about the word compromise,
because that's what this temple was. It was a compromise. And
the Jews and the Pharisees and the Sadducees always were careful
not to offend the Herodians because they were all working together
in politics to make sure that all their beds were feathered. What a deterioration of what
that city once was. But it's a picture of religion
today. The word compromise, the prefix of that word, com, means
together. And the latter part of that word
means promise. And the compromise of religion,
the compromise of Jerusalem in the times of Christ, when he
always went to Bethany, he would not compromise. You see, religion
is based on a compromise between God's promise and our promise.
I'm going to do my part. God's going to do his part. We're
going to come together and we're going to agree. And that's how
we're going to secure our salvation. And the Lord Jesus said, no,
that city's in bondage. You can't compromise with grace.
You can't, you can't put together the promise of man with a promise
of God in order to achieve salvation. Turn with me to Galatians chapter
five. Oh, Galatians 4, I'm sorry, Galatians
4. Look at verse 21. Tell me you that desire
to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written
that Abraham had two sons, the one of a bond woman and the other
of a free woman. Ishmael, Isaac. But he who was of the bondwoman
was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise. Here's the compromise. Abraham
and Sarah get together, you know, God needs our help. He can't
do it by himself. We've got to put our effort into
this thing. And Ishmael is the product of
that. But the other one. born of a 90-year-old woman was
a child of promise. It was a miracle birth. Verse
24, which things are an allegory for these are the two covenants,
the two promises. You can't mix the two. You can't
compromise the promise of man with the promise of God. All
of our hope is based on his promise to me. The one from Mount Sinai, which
gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. And this Hagar is Mount
Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is, and
is in bondage with her children." That's what the Lord's looking
at. That's why he wouldn't stay in Jerusalem. That's why he didn't
spend the night there. that when he went to Jerusalem,
they crucified him. He's exposing this works religion
that's in bondage and has compromised everything. But Jerusalem which is above,
Bethany is free. She's free. This is the new Jerusalem
that comes down from heaven. It comes down from heaven. It's
a work of God's grace. And so our salvation is a work
of God's grace. And the Lord makes us poor and
afflicts us that we might bow before him and come to this place
where the Lord gets all the glory. He gets all the glory. Lord,
I don't know anything, I can't do anything, I don't have anything. I'm completely dependent upon
you. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
six, Matthew six. Verse 22, verse 22, the light
of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single,
thy whole body shall be full of light. If Christ be the only
light you have, then the whole body is full of light. if thine eye be evil. And you
look up that word evil. It means full of labor. That's
what the word evil here means. It means full of labor. If you have a Herodian temple,
if you have made compromise between what God can, and we all do it,
we try to do it until the Lord just continues to pursue us until
we just bow. I try to fix it, the more I try
to fix it, the worse it got. Lord, you're going to have to do this. That's when the eye is evil,
it's full of labor. Thy whole body shall be full
of darkness. If therefore the light that is
in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. The light of
the religion of the Pharisees and the Jews in Jerusalem was
a works gospel full of labor. And yet they thought they could
see. Are you telling us that we're blind? Oh, if you were
blind, you'd be able to see. But because you say you can see,
therefore your sins remain. There is no blindness so great
as the one who thinks he can see when he can't. No worse place to be than to have the written Word
of God without the living Word of God. And yet, does that not
describe not only the religion of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago
but the religion of our day? Have the Bible without Christ? Now in closing, I want you to
turn with me to... Second to the last book of the
Old Testament. Zechariah, chapter 14. And a few years ago I preached
through Zechariah and I don't think, I know I didn't see this
when I preached through Zechariah a few years ago. But I see it
so clearly now. Look with me at Zechariah 14,
verse four. And his feet, the Lord Jesus,
shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is
before Jerusalem on the east. Mount of Olives, east side, you
got the city, the old city of Jerusalem, the Kidron Valley,
the Mount of Olives, Bethany. Here's the prophecy, Zechariah
makes. The Lord Jesus will stand on
the Mount of Olives, which is just east of Jerusalem, and shall cleave in the midst
thereof towards the east and towards the west, and there shall
be a great valley, and half the mountain shall remove toward
the north and the other half toward the south. I hope that's what the Lord's
doing right now. I hope we see him standing on
the Mount of Olives, looking down at Bethany with
affection, grace, and mercy, looking over at Jerusalem with righteous indignation, and cleaving the mountain. Because we will end up, each
one of us, either in Bethany or in Jerusalem. The gospel can never be compromised. The mountain will be split in
half by the feet of the Lord. Some will go to the north, and
some will go to the south, and there will be a great valley,
a great gulf fixed between the rich man and Lazarus. A great gulf was fixed. There's
no place to meet, no common ground between the gospel of God's free
grace and the finished work of the Lord Jesus and the self-righteous
works religion of man. No place for them to meet. Bethany is for the poor and it's
for the afflicted. Jerusalem for the rich, the self-righteous,
the proud. Our Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for making a difference. Thank you for cleaving that mountain Creating a valley. Lord, might
we be found always in Bethany. For it's in Christ's name we
ask it. Amen. Adam? You'll have to come up here.
I can't hear you. Sorry. We'll sing number five in the
spiral-bound hymnal, number five. Come ye sinners poor and wretched,
weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus ready stands to save you,
full of pity, joined with power. He is able, He is able, He is
willing, doubt no more. He is able, He is able, He is
willing, doubt no more. Come, ye needy, come and welcome,
God's free bounty glorify. True belief and true repentance
? Every grace that brings us nigh ? Without money, without
money ? Come to Jesus Christ and buy ? Without money, without
money ? Come to Jesus Christ and buy Christ and by. Let not conscience make you linger,
nor of fitness fondly dream. All the fitness he requireth
is to have a need of him. This he gives you, this he gives
you, this the Spirit's glimmering beam. This he gives you, this
he gives you, tis the Spirit's glimmering beam. Come ye weary,
heavy laden, bruised and broken by the fall. If you tarry till you're better,
you will never come at all. Not the righteous, not the righteous,
sinners Jesus came to call. Not the righteous, not the righteous,
sinners Jesus came to call. Mm.