Where does the Lord Jesus Christ
meet? Where does he meet with his people?
Where does God see the worship as worship in spirit and truth
and is pleased with it? Where's the house where God dwells? Where's the house where God reveals
himself? Where's the house where God gathers
his people together? How can I know that God is with
us? It's a question that we are,
given the wonderful, I believe, circumstances the Lord has put
us in, we're continually asked the question. Has God begun a
good work amongst us? Has God begun a good work in
my life? Why are we here? I want us to be reminded of the
fact that just over the hill from Bethany, just a couple of
few kilometers away, was the most magnificent temple. It was
one of the wonders of the world and the most magnificent Bible
colleges and mission organizations, there was a huge religious activity
going on there and they thought they had this book memorized
and they thought that they were being obedient to God according
to the things of this book. In fact, they were so sure of
their being right with God that they could stand in judgment
of anyone. They could stand in judgment of John the Baptist,
they could stand in judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ himself,
they could stand in judgment of his miracles. They knew so
much that they could declare that his miracles, these remarkable
miracles he performed, were the miracles that Beelzebub performed,
couldn't they? They stood in judgment of him. And yet, in a little place called
Bethany, which means the House of Dates, where those palm fronds
and those extraordinary fruits, which are pictures of the fruit
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the planting of the Lord in the
trees of righteousness, and it's just a picture of where he is.
And he's there in this little place, unseen from Jerusalem. but obviously not unknown in
Jerusalem. John's Gospel answers these questions
so completely and so consistently and so repeatedly that we have
no doubt that the place where God meets is the place, as in
the house of Bethany, where The odour and the savour and the
anointing of the death of the Son of God fills the house. Which is why I trust we, like
Paul, are determined to know nothing among you except Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. And I had a wonderful time on
Friday afternoon with a pastor from Sydney and And we had a
two-hour discussion, and it was all about one topic. It was all
about just one topic. Jesus Christ and him crucified. And if you listen to what he
said, in most of this religious age, the Lord Jesus Christ died
for Judas as he did for Mary. He went to Jerusalem and he was
hung on a tree, bearing the sins of Judas and bearing the sins
of all humanity, they tell us. John's Gospel would have us know
that that is a blasphemy against the name of God. It's a blasphemy
against every single attribute of God. Our God is holy. Our
God is just. Our God, as John chapter 12 says
over and over again, He came. This is my hour. He's come for
this particular hour. He came for this particular purpose.
I lay down my life for my sheep. And here in Bethany is the gathering
of the sheep. And we looked at it a couple
of weeks ago and the odour of the ointment that fills the house
is the death and burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and
where the Lord meets with his people and where he makes his
presence known and where he reveals his love and where he receives
love and where he is worshipped and where he ordains praise for
himself. The odor of that ointment of
him crucified fills the whole house. And the wonder of it is that
in Mary and Martha and Lazarus we have this glorious picture
of the house of God and where he meets with his people. Just
as the Passover lamb, the aroma of that Passover lamb filled
the house of those people and they lived, they lived in their
exodus upon that lamb, and the lamb's blood was on the doorposts
of that house, and the lamb's blood was on the lintels, and
the lamb's blood wasn't on the doorstep of that house. You don't
tread the blood of the Lamb of God underfoot. It's over us and above us, and
God says in Exodus 12, He says, when I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. The Egyptians didn't know that
there was a Passover. And all of Israel knew, all of
Israel went out of there knowing that in a substitute they go
free from Egyptian captivity. The Lord Jesus Christ is a glorious
Passover. He's our Passover sacrifice for
us. And how much of the lamb did
you have to eat? You take the whole Christ. You take all of
him. You take all of him and all of
his attributes and you don't adjust any of them. You take
him whole and not a bone of his were broken. Why not? We are
bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, brothers and sisters.
That's why on the cross not a bone of his was broken. The whole
aroma of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and
his triumphant entry into heaven and taking all of his people,
that aroma fills the house where God meets with his people, where
God is worshipped. And the church is so beautifully
pictured, isn't it? Martha served. Martha served. Lazarus sat. And Mary poured. And we looked at this a couple
of weeks ago. It was so beautiful, isn't it? It's just such a glorious
picture of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, with the aroma
of Him and Him crucified filling the house. Mary served. What a great picture of love
for the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't work for our salvation,
but the saved children of God, after they have rested, say,
what can I do? Don't leave me without things
to do that might honour you in this world. It's extravagant
worship, isn't it, that Mary and Martha and Lazarus had? Lazarus
sat. That's what faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ does, isn't it? True faith rests. When people
come to church, as they do to so many other of the churches
of our brethren, the first thing that people want to do is, what
can I do? What can I do? I've got to do something. I want to do
something. You sit. God will have plenty for you to do. I
want to find out things. I need to know things. You'll
sit. You sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and you gaze
up at him and you'll learn. You'll learn as he speaks to
his people. The religious world is expert at getting people busy. That's why the Lord calls them
you builders, you builders. He's the builder of his church. We rest like Lazarus in the very
presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Mary poured, Mary poured
that glorious ointment. This was extravagant worship,
wasn't it? She poured all that she had, that incredibly expensive
perfume in that remarkable, the alabaster jar would have been
a work of art in itself. It contained a whole year's wages.
You can imagine how beautiful it was, and the spikenard was
brought all the way from those mountainous regions between Tibet
and Nepal, and what an extraordinary effort it was. What a glorious
God. How worthy is the Lord Jesus
Christ. He very, very rarely accepted
anything from anyone, but he accepted this as praise and worship
him. He came to serve and not be served.
But Mary called, which is a great picture of hope, isn't it? We
don't have a hope like the other people have. We're not hoping
on a chance of something happening. Our hope is a confident, confident,
expected end, isn't it? There's no doubt about this Word
being fulfilled. There's no doubt about these
promises being fulfilled. There are hundreds of promises,
hundreds of pictures in the Old Testament. They're all drawn
together in this last week of the Lord Jesus' life. And they're
just glorious pictures of a great and sovereign God and Saviour
who declares the end from the beginning. We don't have, we
don't have a hope like other people have. There's not a chance. Love serves. Faith rests in the glory of His
being. and hope is poured out. Is worship successful? Does it have any meaning? We
sit here in this little hall and across the way is that great
big building over there and they have parties and celebrations
and weddings and huge musical activities over there and the
average person walks past here and they wouldn't know that there's
anything going on in here. And yet, same with Bethany, isn't
it? There was a huge amount of activity,
a million people in Jerusalem. You can imagine the markets and
all the other things going on. And there they were over the
hill. God dwells with his people because God dwells in his people. It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory. And where God dwells with his
people, he's going to reveal himself. in the glory of his
sacrifice. The glory of what was going to
happen just in six days time from these events. I'd really
like you to pray for the fellow I was with on. Pastor Nestor
is his name, and we had a long talk about the Lord Jesus Christ
and him crucified, and it was one of the most fruitful ones
that we had. We just read the scriptures.
We just read the scriptures together for two hours and just talked
about what happened. Just tell me what happened at
the cross. Tell me what was going on in that glorious Passover
in the Lord Jesus Christ. God dwells in his house, and
the children of God, wherever they're gathered, they are living
stones, says Peter, built up into a spiritual house. taking
you to Ephesians 2 on several occasions recently, but I just
love it so much, isn't it? There is just this glorious,
glorious picture of the union of the Lord Jesus Christ with
his people. It says in verse four, God, but
God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved
us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together. We looked at these together some
weeks ago. Together with Christ and he's
raised us up, by grace you are saved, and has raised us up together
and made us sit together in heavenly places. in Christ Jesus, that
in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of
his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For
by grace are you saved through faith. And that's not of yourselves.
It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For
we are his workmanship. That means masterpiece, that
word workmanship. God makes no mistakes, brothers
and sisters. Everything is exactly ordered
as it should be. Created, listen to this, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. We are brought nigh, listen to
it. what he says in verse 13, but
now in Christ Jesus, you who were sometimes far off are made
nigh by the blood of Christ. We're made nigh, we're made nigh
to God, there's nothing between us, nothing between us and God
any longer. No sin, no separation, just love,
no reason, why the Lord Jesus Christ cannot come and take up
residence in the likes of us. That's the glory of the gospel,
isn't it? That he has taken the sins of
his people so completely away, and they're gone forever in the
presence of God. And therefore he draws us to
himself, and therefore he draws us to each other. Go over to
verse... Verse 19, now therefore you no
more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the
saints and of the household of God. This picture in Bethany
is a picture of the house of God. And are built upon the foundation
of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the
chief cornerstone in whom all the building fitly framed together
groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." In his first visit
to Jerusalem, he said, you destroy this temple. What is the temple?
He's the temple. He's the temple. And with the
stones being built into this temple, it's fitly framed together. Are there any mistakes in God's
church ever? What a builder, what a builder
he is. Listen to what he goes on to
say. Grows together unto a temple, a holy temple in the Lord in
whom you also are builded together for an habitation of God through
the spirit. Don't you love how, when we read
the scriptures, we are just blown away by the depth of what is
said and we can go back and look at it again and look at it again
and it becomes more and more amazing. I'm so thankful he just
says, you believe. He doesn't tell us we have to
understand. I can't understand a word of
that, but I can love it and I can see it. And the closest thing
that we have physically to the Lord Jesus Christ is the gathering
of his people together. This is precious, brothers and
sisters. It's precious because God has done the work and God
has done the building. And it's precious and needs to
be precious because where the church is gathered, the tears
will gather. And that's why we need these
reassurances of the perfect, successful work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Look what happens in John 12. The house was filled with the
odour of his ointment. It's the odour of the Lord Jesus
Christ and him Him crucified. It's the odour of His being.
It's the odour of the beauties of His holiness. It's the odour
of the incarnate God. It's the odour of the surety
of the eternal covenant. It's the odour of Him crucified. It's that glorious odour that's
poured out on Him. And what happens when the odour
is poured out and the house is filled? Verse 4 Then saith one
of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray
him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence
and given to the poor? He declares it to be a waste
in Matthew and Mark's God. Why this waste? Why this waste? It's the extravagant worship. Extravagant worship focused on
the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified will be seen by so
many people of this world as a waste. And Satan, it says in
the other accounts, and it will in John chapter 13, Satan entered
into Judas for him to make these statements. And listen to his
hypocrisy, the hypocrisy of Judas. Verse six, he says, This he said,
not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and
had the bag, and bare what was put therein. And this is the title of my message
in verse seven. Let her alone. Let her alone. I just love how the Lord Jesus
Christ throughout the gospel accounts stands between his people
and their enemies. even death, even sin, and says,
you deal with me. As he said in John chapter 18,
in that remarkable movement, Judas led that crowd, that small
army of soldiers into the garden of Gethsemane to arrest the Lord
Jesus Christ. He says, after proving and showing
himself that he is God, and it's God and the King that they're
arresting, and he's going there as a lamb to the slaughter, willingly
in love with his bride. He says, you can have me. He says,
you can have me, but you let these go. That's a glorious picture,
isn't it? He says to the law of God, you
can have me and you let these go. He says to Satan, you can
have me and you let these go. He says to everything that's
required of us from God, he says you can have me and let these
go free. Then she said, Jesus, let her
alone. Against the day of my burying has she kept this. For
the poor always you have with you, but me not always. There
is a precious time when the Lord Jesus Christ is present. in that
there are times that need to be savoured and appreciated. So one of the reasons we need each
other and we need the fellowship of believers is because Where
the Lord Jesus Christ is raised up, the enemies will be seen. They'll be exposed. God's children
are revealed. And when God's glory is revealed,
then Satan's enmity is exposed in the most extraordinary way.
Judas, his name means Judah. And there is, that means praised,
Jehovah be praised. And there was Mary praising him
and Judas acting fully as he saw fit. 100% responsible. He was uncoerced
in free in his actions and he did wanted to do, and he is fully
responsible for doing what he wanted to do. No one will meet
God and be able to declare to God that it's your fault that
I did this. You cannot. It will not happen. God is just, and the God of all
this world must do right. And Judas had heard the Master's
warnings. He'd heard the Lord Jesus Christ
when the thousands and thousands had gone away in John chapter
6. And he said to the Twelve, you can go as well. There's the
door. And then he says, Peter makes that remarkable declaration
of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. We've got nowhere else to
go. I have nowhere else to go. If you've got somewhere else
to go, you've gone. I've got no one else to go to. And he says to them, have I not chosen
you 12, and one of you is a devil. He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the
son of Simon, for it was he who should betray him, being one
of the 12. In John chapter 8, the Lord Jesus
Christ declared that the Pharisees and the chief priests in Jerusalem
were children of the devil. And Judas this night, having
been enraged, and there are many fleshly things that enrage people
and may no doubt enrage Judas. His pride was offended, being
publicly rebuked by the Lord Jesus Christ. His deceit exposed
in a sense, wasn't it? because he had more thoughts
for the 300 pence that he might have in the bag than he did for
the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. But it's extraordinary, isn't
it, that Judas, called a devil, having Satan entered into him,
is now exposed by the aroma of the death of Christ. How do you find out whether someone
is a true teacher or a false teacher? You just have to go
to one place. Just tell me what happened at
the cross. Tell me about the aroma of the
Lord Jesus Christ that reached into heaven and fills the church. Just answer those simple questions
about who put him to death. Why did he die? Who is it that
died? What was the fruit of him dying? If he died for Judas and Judas went to hell, then
the Lord Jesus Christ fails. If he died for Judas and Judas
went to hell, then the justice of God is of none effect. Our God is just, a just God and
a saviour. Judas, like Satan, is exposed
in his enmity against the Lord Jesus Christ and he can't get
to him now, so where can he go? He goes and attacks the Church
of the Lord Jesus Christ by spreading blasphemous notions of the Lord
Jesus Christ being crucified. And you know why? Because the
proudest being of this universe was made a mockery of at the
cross. That's what Colossians chapter
2 says, isn't it? He's having spoiled principalities
and powers. He made a show of them openly,
triumphing over them in it. Because he's blotted out the
handwriting. What's the accusation he brings
against people? You've broken the law of God.
The Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary blotted out
the handwriting, took it out of the way. He has forgiven you,
his bride, all your trespasses, Sir Colossians 2. So in the defeat
of Satan, in the public humiliation of him, it's all about the cross.
So when the children of God are revealed by the blood of the
lamb, the children of the devil are revealed in their enmity
to the blood of the lamb. And it's happened all the way
through the scriptures. So what did Abel bring to the
Lord Jesus Christ? I love what Genesis 4 says, Abel
and his sacrifice were accepted. Abel and his sacrifice. What
was the sacrifice that Abel brought? He'd been well taught by God
and well taught by Adam and Eve. He brought the lamb. He brought
the lamb, he brought a blood sacrifice. Cain brought some
fruits of the field. And what was the result? What
was the result? When Abel is declared righteous
by God, and Cain is fully responsible. If you read Genesis 4, Cain is
absolutely 100% responsible for his wickedness and his evil.
And he rose up and he slew him. Where the acceptable sacrifice
is revealed, the enmity is revealed against it. We looked some time
ago at Genesis chapter 15. In Genesis chapter 15, Abraham
is asked to bring to God. He says, how shall I know? How
am I going to know that all these promises are true? And God said
to Abraham, you bring me the sacrifice. And you cut those
sacrifices and you lay them out there. And Abraham had one task
to do, was to keep the vultures, to keep the unclean birds off
the sacrifice. Because God can only accept a
perfect and complete sacrifice. And that's the attack of Satan. We overcome him, Revelation 12,
by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. And
our testimony is that the Lord Jesus Christ is God Almighty.
The Lord Jesus Christ is a successful sovereign saviour. Worship is revealed as it is
here in this beautiful setting in Bethany. When worship is revealed,
the men who really despise God are revealed. When the fellowship
of the Lord Jesus Christ with his people is revealed, the religious
people who hate God are revealed in their enmity against him.
Judas, in the darkness of that night, Judas left that gathering
where the light of the world was. He left that gathering. And he went all the way down
to Jerusalem and he met with the chief priests. You can read
about it in the other Gospels accounts. And when they met with
Judas and knew that he was going to betray the Lord, there was
gladness. The children of the devil and
this man whom Satan had entered were very happy to join in their
conspiracy against him. They were glad. And I love what
the Lord Jesus Christ does in response to this. They, having been glad and then
having seen these crowds come all the way to Bethany to the
Lord Jesus Christ, and he just, in a sense, pokes their rage,
doesn't he really? He orchestrated all of these
events. While they were plotting in Jerusalem how to put him to
death, and listen to what they say, they say, in verse nine, much people, the
Jews, therefore, when they heard that he was there and they came,
not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also,
whom he had raised from the dead. But the chief priest consulted
that they might put Lazarus to death. Unbelief. is irrational, brothers and sisters
in Christ. Unbelief and enmity against God
is self-destructive. Unbelief and enmity against God
is completely irrational. You cannot understand it except
by spiritual understanding. It is a spiritual thing that
is going on when Satan takes someone captive. Unbelief and
enmity against God is absolutely blind. The evidence was there.
One of the people that went into Jerusalem, and no doubt he had
a great time with the blind man that was healed in John chapter
9, was blind Bartimaeus. And they knew from the scriptures
that there is only one person. This healing of a blind man is
reserved for the Messiah. The Messiah had come. The Messiah
had come and the evidence was in. The scriptures were fulfilled.
Evil hearts are irrational. We're not going to rationalise
people into fellowship with God. There is just one power that
we have and that is the preaching of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We love them. They're not our enemies. We love them and we long for
them to come back. and being fellowship, we're not
in the place of God. Not in the place of God. What
a ridiculous notion for the most intelligent people that Israel
could raise up. Let's kill Lazarus again, boys.
One more time. Oh dear, when men fight against
God, they are made to look like fools again and again and again. I love the description. of the believers in verse 11,
because that by reason of him, Lazarus and the Lord Jesus Christ,
a picture of God and his salvation, a picture of God and his church,
by that reason of him, many of the Jews went away and believed. Believing is going away from
man-made religion of any sort whatsoever. It doesn't matter
what stripe it is. It's going away. They went away.