Turn with me in your Bibles back
to John chapter 11. What a remarkable story these
people had as they, the sum of them as they came back to, it
was only three kilometers so it didn't take long. probably
get there in half an hour or so. But anyway, so the news was
traveling backwards and forwards from Bethany to Jerusalem with
some rapidity, I'm sure. And so no doubt, it wasn't very
long after the raising of Lazarus that there were people sent scurrying
back to. And what a message they brought
back. What a story they had to say. What a story, what remarkable
words they had witnessed. What remarkable events they had
witnessed. A man dead, rotting in a tomb. wrapped up in grave clothes and
the stone rolled away and they all would have smelt the smell
and the Lord Jesus Christ says to Lazarus, you come here. How
did he get out? He can't walk and the napkin
is bound so tight around his face that he can't see and his
hands are bound so he can't crawl and he can't see and he can't
walk. The Lord brought him out of there and it's a picture of
salvation. Isn't it wonderful that we have
such a mighty and sovereign God? Isn't it wonderful that we have
such a Word of God made flesh and dwelling amongst us? The
Lord Jesus Christ did God-like miracles again and again and
again. He not only did God-like miracles,
he did the one miracle in all of the Old Testament which was
reserved for the Messiah, which was the healing of the blind,
and he did it on innumerable occasions. The first lesson I
want us to see as we look at Caiaphas and his response to
all of this, what are we going to do? This gathering here is,
of course, the gathered chief priests and the Pharisees of
council. It is the great Sanhedrin that was gathered. This is the
ruling council of the Jews, headed by the high priest, Sadducees
and Pharisees. with all of the power of all
of that religion there. And they say in verse 47, what
shall we do? For this man does many miracles. They're not denying the miracles.
They don't deny the miracles. First thing I want us to see
is that despite what multitudes are saying around the world these
days, faith does not come from seeing and weighing evidences. These men had the most extraordinary
evidence. They'd had them for three and
a half years at this stage. This is only possibly a month or six
weeks before the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith,
saving faith is the gift of God. Saving faith is the operation
of God. Saving faith is the revelation
of God in the Lord Jesus Christ in you. It is a supernatural
act to believe. It's a very natural act to not
believe. But nevertheless, in verse 48,
They say, if we let him alone, all men will believe on him,
and the Romans will come and take away our place and our nation. The other thing I want us to
know, firstly, is that faith comes as a gift from God. Secondly,
unbelief has always an immoral motive behind it. As Hebrews
4 says, it's an evil heart of unbelief. Unbelief is always
holding on to something, something for us, something of this world. Status, position, power, prestige,
the honour of men in this world. Unbelief always has something
to hold and cling on to. There's a story told of a maid
on a ship in the days when ships were far more precarious and
she was a maid in a wealthy person's cabin and the ship was sinking
and everyone was fleeing to the lifeboats and she just couldn't
believe the jewels and the gold coins that were scattered around
in the room of the people that she was caring for. So she bundled
them all up and held them tight to herself and then she jumped
overboard. And the very jewels that she
was hanging on to were the cause of her sinking beneath the waves. Evil, unbelief is always holding
on to something. Unbelief always has an arrogance
about it. Listen to Caiaphas. Then one
of them, verse 49, one of them named Caiaphas, being high priest
that same year, said, Under them you know nothing at all. Unbelief has an extraordinary
confidence about it, has an extraordinary arrogance about it. How often
have you been in the presence of someone who is completely
ignorant of the Gospel and completely ignorant of the Bible, but they
know so much about God? Caiaphas is a picture of terrible
unbelief. There's hardly a more wicked
man in all of the scriptures revealed than Caiaphas. And his
reasoning is wonderful, isn't it? The only way Israel can be
saved is if we kill Jesus. This is political Israel he was
talking about. This nation that gives me my
wealth and my status in this world But I want us to consider the
absolute sovereignty of God. Our God is infinitely and absolutely
sovereign. There's Caiaphas plotting the
most evil thing that man could possibly do against the best
evidence he could ever wish to have, against all of his self-interest
and all of the interest of all of the people in his nation.
No one else was raising the dead. No one else was healing the blind.
No one else was feeding thousands of people. And yet Caiaphas'
approach to the Lord Jesus Christ is to put him to death. But verse
51 is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful declaration of the
absolute sovereignty of God over the thoughts and the words of
men. And he spake this not of himself,
He said it's expedient, isn't it? Expedient for us that one
man should die for the people, verse 15, that the whole nation
should perish not. And he spoke this not of himself,
but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should
die for the nation. It's expedient that Jesus should
die for the Jews, the believers amongst the Jews, and not only
for that nation only, but also he should gather together in
one the children of God, that were scattered abroad. Prophecy
is spiritual isn't it? God is absolutely sovereign over
everything that goes on. Don't you love to think of the
sovereignty of God? Turn with me to Proverbs 16 and
we'll just have a look at a few instances of the absolute sovereignty
of God. He says in verse 1, The preparations
of the heart, the thoughts, what prepares the heart to speak,
in a man, and the answer of the tongue, the words that come out,
where are they from? They are from the Lord. All the ways of a man are clean
in his own eyes. Caiaphas was as clean as a hound's
tooth, wasn't he? But the Lord weigheth the spirits. The Lord has made all things
for himself, yea, even the wicked, for the day of evil. A man's
heart devises his ways. A man plans where he's going
to go in his own mind, doesn't he? But the Lord directeth his steps. The Lord determines your footfall. I've got a thing on my phone
that tells me how many steps I've done every day. And somewhere between
sort of seven and 15 is sort of where I hover. I'd rather
be much less than seven. But anyway, every one of those
steps. We're completely oblivious, aren't
we, to the absolute solitude of God. Isn't it wonderful that
that's how sovereign he is? Isn't it wonderful that that's
how absolutely sovereign our God is? In verse 33, people talk
about luck. I pray that Christians banish
it from their vocabulary. It's just a meaningless word
when you're speaking about God and his universe. The lot, that's
the dice. Whether it's one or two or a
million of them, they're cast into the lamp. And where do they
all end up? From one to sixes, you can put
any number you like in there. Where do they all end up? exactly
where the Lord says. The whole disposing of is the
Lord. There is no such thing as luck. Not in God's economy. This passage of scripture is
just a glorious description. The Lord Jesus Christ has made
these extraordinary promises. And how do we know that the promises
are going to be fulfilled? The only way the promises can
be fulfilled is if God is absolutely sovereign and He rules and controls
absolutely everything, even evil. Even the evil heart of men. You will come to love Psalm 76
verse 10 as you go through this world. He says, Surely the wrath
of men shall praise thee. And the remainder of wrath thou
shalt restrain. There's only two things happening
with the wrath of men in this world, isn't it? He's going to
praise God, or he's going to restrain it. And this is just
a glorious picture of the absolute sovereignty of God. He is able. God is faithful, 1 Thessalonians
chapter one. He is faithful. He will do it. That's why in these verses we
have that glorious word, should. It's should, it's absolutely
necessary, it's expedient. To gather together in one. To gather together in one. The Lord Jesus Christ came with
a purpose, and his death has a purpose, doesn't it? And this
is what Caiaphas was saying without having any notion of what he
was thinking about. He had in his mind the death
and the extermination of the Lord Jesus Christ and the shutting
up of his word altogether, and yet God says this is what he
was saying. I love the fact that God rules
over evil people. I'm really so thankful that he
rules over evil, evil people. It's expedient for us. It's expedient
for us. It's necessary. It's profitable. It's essential. Together, together
in one. Don't you love that? The purpose
of the Lord Jesus Christ is to gather all of his people together
in one. He said as much over in John
chapter 7, isn't he? He said, Other sheep have I,
verse 16, which are not of this fold. So this is the nation,
isn't it? That's the nation Israel. They're the sheep in nation Israel,
not all of nation Israel. Caiaphas has spent the last 2,000
years in his sin, according to the Lord Jesus Christ. When did he have them? He had
them before the foundation of the world. They're not of this
fold, them also I must bring in, and they shall hear my voice,
and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. That's the great
gathering, isn't it? The great gathering, and the
great gathering, as we saw in Psalm 40 earlier, the great gathering
is the gathering of those people being gathered at the cross of
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the great gathering, isn't
it? The great gathering is that gathering of God and His people. An absolutely holy, infinitely
holy, infinitely righteous, infinitely just God. And man, who is as
sinful as Caiaphas. What a description, what a depiction
of the sinfulness, the natural sinfulness of the human man.
It's expedient for us. They must be gathered together
in one. What happened on the cross? It's the whole issue, isn't it?
It's the whole issue of why this creation exists. It's the whole
issue of why men are saved. We have in John's Gospel and
we have in all the other Gospels accounts, we have again and again,
we have a stark contrast given between the children of God and
the children of the devil. The common thinking of this day
and age is that God loves everyone. God loves everyone and he loves
them all the same and he has a thing called unconditional
love. And his proof of that unconditional love is that Jesus died for all. And God wishes for all men to
be saved. You spend some time with someone
in religion these days and you'll find that they'll go back to
those places and they'll have their four or five Bible verses
that hold all that together. If God loves everyone, then what
does his love have to do with my salvation? He loved Mary and
Martha and Lazarus and that's why he did the things he did
for them. But if God loves everyone, what's his love got to do with
my salvation? If Jesus died for everyone exactly the same, then
what does his death have to do with my salvation? What's his
blood got to do with my salvation? If God wills the salvation of
all people, what's his will got to do with it? It means you've
taken away all of the glory of God and you've taken away all
of the hope and you've taken away all of the scriptures, haven't
you? If I can't rely on the love of God, which he says is infinite
and eternal and unchanging and stronger than death, if I can't
rely on that love and if I can't rely on the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ to wash my sins away and to bear them in his
own body on the tree until they're gone under the justice of God,
If I can't rely on his love, and I can't rely on his blood,
and I can't rely on the will of God, what have I got left? Where do you go? Caiaphas spoke
about it, didn't he? my place and my nation, my status
and my well-being and my prestige. You only have one place to go
and that's yourself and your own resources. You see how evil it is, brothers
and sisters, how evil it is to say that the Lord Jesus Christ
died for all the sheep and he died for all the goats at the
same time. Turn back with me to John chapter 8. He says of these people, you
are children of the devil. Verse 19, if you were Abraham's
children you would do the works of Abraham, but now you seek
to kill me, a man that has told you the truth which I have heard
of God. Abraham didn't do that. They
wanted to defend themselves. We weren't born of fornication.
We had one father even. God, they were as religious as
you could get out, and they could prove it by their devotion and
their knowledge of the Bible. Jesus said unto them, If God
were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and
came from God, neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do
you not understand my speech? Even because you cannot hear
my word. You are of your father the devil. The word of means origin. That's
where you've come from. You are of your father the devil. Did the Lord Jesus Christ die
for them? He didn't. John's Gospel and
all of the Bible accounts present to us a glorious sovereign God. And even evil men who want to
turn His Word upside down and make lies of His Word will end
up causing God to still be glorified. Our God reigns. He rules and
reigns over all things as he rules and reigns over Caiaphas'
thoughts and his words and rules and reigns over Caiaphas' actions.
Caiaphas was going to put this into practice, wasn't he? And
a great multitude of soldiers will come down to that garden
of Gethsemane and they'll go and they will arrest the Lord
Jesus Christ. He will give himself into their
hands. and Caiaphas and all these others,
while the Lord Jesus Christ is praying, and He's sweating His
blood, and He's praying for His people in the Garden of Gethsemane,
and He's bearing, and He's looking in that cup, and He sees in that
cup all of the sins of all of God's elect people, and He's
horrified, and His heart breaks, and blood from His broken veins
falls on the ground of the Garden of Gethsemane, as the weight,
the weight of all those sins crushes Him. And while they were doing that,
Judas, together with this man and a bunch of others, were plotting
the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they go down to that garden.
They go down to that garden, and he comes out and he declares,
he says, I am God. And they all fall backward, a
crowd of hundreds of them with their lanterns and this big,
and they all fall backwards, and then he gives himself into
their hands. He gives himself into their hands. He gave himself
into the will of men. brothers and sisters, he went
to Calvary as a sovereign, reigning, supreme God Almighty who knew
exactly what he was doing and knew exactly why he was there.
What was he doing? He was gathering together in
one. Turn with me to John Chapter
17. It's remarkable isn't it that people want to say that
Jesus died for people on Friday morning, in Friday afternoon
I'm sorry, and wouldn't pray for them on Thursday. What do
they do with John chapter 17? I was asking a friend of mine
who has been part of an Anglican church and he said three times
in the last few months they've preached on, people have come
to this church's visits and they've preached on John chapter 17 and
what do they have to do? They skip over the verses. They can't read them in church. Caiaphas is around as thick as
thieves. He says, this gathering together,
and now, verse 11, now I am no more in the world, but these
are in the world, and I come to thee, Holy Father, keep through
thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may
be one, as we are one. Verse 9, he says, I'm praying
for them. I'm praying for them. I'm not praying for the world.
Isn't it remarkable? He won't pray for them on Thursday
night, and yet they say that he's dying for them on Friday
afternoon. Dear, oh dear, our God is sovereign. He's not trying to do anything.
He acts powerfully. Listen to verse 22. He says,
and the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them that they
may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that
thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. How necessary, brothers and sisters,
how expedient is it for us that the Lord Jesus Christ be made
sin? That verse in 2 Corinthians is
just so, so significant. If you want to find out whether
you've been lied to, in church, go and ask the simple questions
that are asked and answered in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21. For he, who's the he? God Almighty,
hath made him, who's the him? The Lord Jesus Christ. Sin. Was he really made sin? Well
we read it in Psalm 40, he calls them mine iniquities. For us,
who is the us? The us are the sheep of God,
aren't they? They're the flock, they're the
fold, they're the ones that are gathered together in one. He
knew no sin. The Lord Jesus Christ never sinned.
He could never sin. It was impossible for the Lord
Jesus Christ to sin. He had a holy nature which was
impossible. He couldn't be our substitute
and he couldn't be an acceptable sacrifice if he had sinned or
had the ability to sin. We have to keep declaring he
was made sin who knew no sin that we might be made. We might
be made. There are two maids in that verse.
The first one is a divine sort of creative activity that God
is a God to God activity that we might be made. by a divine
activity with an ongoing effect in the lives of all of God's
people, we might be made worth the righteousness of God in Him. Did it happen? Is it true? If you're going to be in that
place that Graeme read of in Revelation Chapter 21 and 22,
that glorious destiny that everyone thinks they're going to now,
you'll never go to a funeral where everyone doesn't think
the person's gone to heaven. But who's cast out? Verse 27 of Revelation
21. You shall no wise enter into
it anything that defile, of whatever worketh abomination or maketh
a lie. If there are lies made about
the Lord Jesus Christ, they're lies that are made about the
cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't get in. according to
God and he repeats it over in verse 15 of Revelation 22. For outside are the dogs, the
legalists and sorcerers and whoremongers and murderers and idolaters,
all those who have spiritual pictures, and whosoever loves
and makes a lie. The lies about God are not trivial. There is no such thing as a trivial
sin. And there is no such thing as
a trivial lie about God. How does God deal with the most
trivial sin that you have ever done? The tiniest sin that no one ever
notices, the only possible way for you to be in the presence
of a holy God is for God Almighty to put that sin on His Son and
punish that sin with the infinite, eternal justice of God until
His holiness and His justice is satisfied and He says it is
finished. There are no little sins and
there are no little lies, brothers and sisters. We must, if God
will give us the grace, to stand for him in this world and to
magnify his name. We have to magnify his name regarding
what happened on the cross. They'll gather together in one. There's one shepherd and there's
one fold, one sheepfold. There is just one. If you turn
back, there are so many of these ones in the scriptures that I
pray you might go and look at some of them, but there is. It
says, you endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond
of peace, Ephesians 4.4. There is one body. There is just
one body. There is one spirit. Even as
you are called into one hope of your calling, there is one
Lord, there is one faith, there is only one baptism. A baptism
that reflects what the Lord Jesus Christ did on the cross at Calvary.
That's the only baptism that's a baptism. All the other baptisms
aren't baptisms. No matter how much water's involved,
there is one God and one Father above all who is Don't you love
it? Above all and through all and
in you all. Our God, our great God came into
this universe with a purpose because of a coven that was made
before the foundation of the world. What's the will of the
Father? This is the Father's will which
has sent me, that of all of which he has given me I should lose
nothing. Don't you love that? Everyone
that was given to the Lord Jesus Christ, everyone that is given
faith to look to the Lord Jesus Christ, everyone that hears his
cry, hears his words come, whosoever believeth on him, whosoever calls
on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, We call on him in his
character as God Almighty, his character as absolutely sovereign,
his character as just, his character as faithful and true. That's
to call on his name. What goes around in this world
pretending to be Christianity preaches another Jesus and another
gospel and has another spirit. They say that the Lord Jesus
Christ made salvation available. They say it's an offer. They
say that the death of the Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient for
all and sufficient for the elect. And all it does is leave sinners
in the worst possible place they could ever be, preaching peace
to themselves and still sitting on the throne where their decision
and their activities are the things that determine their salvation. Oh brothers and sisters, you
who are saved just love the covenant of grace. You love the fact that
the Lord Jesus Christ came as a successful sovereign saviour,
as a substitute for his people. And that's exactly what Caiaphas
is saying, isn't it? It's expedient. It's expedient
for us. It's necessary, it's profitable
for us that this man die. This man should die so that we
can go free. All our hope is in a finished
salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ at the
other great gathering at the end of this age is going to gather
all of humanity together. Everyone that's died, you'll
see them. When the Son of Man shall come in his glory and all
the holy angels with him. Then he shall sit on the throne
of his glory, Matthew 25, 31. And before him shall be gathered
all nations and he shall separate them one from another as the
sheep divided his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the
sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. And if you
keep on reading down there, the defining characteristic of the
goats is that they believe they've done something. They've done
something good. They're able to do and fulfil
the commands of God and the sheep on Christ's right hand. When
they've spoken about what they do, they say, when did we ever
do that? I have nothing in my hand I bring. I cannot contemplate
one good thing I have ever done which earns me any favor in your
sight. I am utterly and totally dependent
upon everything that the Lord Jesus Christ did and is doing
to gather me. The only hope a believer has
is that the Lord Jesus Christ died for him. The only hope that
a believer has is that the Lord Jesus Christ loved him with an
everlasting love and with that love he drew him to himself. The only hope that a believer
has is that our God is absolutely sovereign and his will is done. Gather together in one. If anything in our salvation
is up to us. I just speak for myself. If any of my salvation is up
to my doing, I'm lost. I'm lost. I'm not anywhere near
aware of how weak I am. I'm not anywhere near aware of
how sinful I am. But I know one thing, that if
the Lord Jesus Christ didn't do it all, if he didn't bear
my sins on that cross at Calvary, if he didn't cause me to be crucified with
him, and buried with him, and raised
with him, and he did it all, then I'm lost. He'll gather together. There is just one shepherd. I
said a few weeks ago how many wild sheep there are, how many
feral goats there are in Australia, and the answer is about 2.3 million.
How many sheep are there in Australia? There's nearly 79 they've been
breeding at the moment. There's nearly, probably nearly
80 million sheep. How many wild sheep, how many
feral sheep are there in Australia? They're famous, all of them.
Zero is the answer pretty much, isn't it? There's none. All of
the sheep are in a fold. That's what he's doing, isn't
it? He's gathering together all of his. He's gathering together
in one. The Lord Jesus Christ is one
with the Father. The Lord Jesus Christ is one
with his bride. The Lord Jesus Christ makes his
people to be one with him. He is our righteousness before
God. We are made the very righteousness
of God in him. He's one with the Father. What's
the Lord Jesus Christ like now? What was he always like? He's holy and spotless and unblameable
and unapprovable and so We come to God the Father in
the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't come with any of our
own merits at all. We don't come with any of our
works at all. That's where the great gathering
is. It's on the cross. He made us
to be what he is. And he became what I am. He became, don't you love the
description of Jacob? He says, God says to Jacob, a
worm, Jacob, a worm. The Lord Jesus Christ, in Psalm
22, as he prayed that remarkable prayer and led Caiaphas, as he
mocked him and mocked his faith, he led Caiaphas in this glorious
psalm. He said, my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? And he answers the question,
why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my Lord?
Oh my God, I cry in the daytime in thou, but thou hearest not
in the night season, but am not silent. Why? The answer is in verse three,
isn't it? You are holy. When the Holy God saw sin on
his son, the very sun itself turned out its light. And God
Almighty turned his back on his son and he poured out his infinite
wrath on him. Oh brothers and sisters, I can't
understand what happened at the cross. I'm just so thankful that
God explains it. And I'm so thankful that it was
done in the dark. So the only light we have on
it is what God says happened. They mock him. Verse 6 he says
what he was on the cross. He says, I am a worm. He had to become what we are so
that we could become what he is. I am a worm and no man, a
reproach of men and despised of the people. That's what happened
on the cross, brothers and sisters. That's what he says. They're
his words to us in the darkness. I'll close by telling you, reading
you the story, and I remember reading it some years ago a few
times to you. But that word worm is a word
for scarlet. You might remember we often sing
that song when it comes out of Isaiah chapter one, they your
sins be as scarlet. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow. They be red like crimson, they
shall be as wool. That word worm often means maggot,
something that lives on something which is dead. But there's another
word for that word, crimson. There is a thing called a scarlet
worm. Just let me read you the story
of the scarlet worm. When the female of the scarlet
worm species was ready to give birth to her young, she would
attach her body to the trunk of a tree, fixing herself so
firmly and permanently that she would never leave again. The eggs deposited beneath her
body were thus protected until the larvae were hatched and able
to enter their own life cycle. As the mother died, the crimson
fluid stained her body and the surrounding wood. From the dead
bodies of such scarlet worms as commercial scarlet dyes of
antiquity were extracted. of Christ dying on the tree,
shed in his precious blood, that he might bring many sons to glory. He died for us, that we might
live through him. He gathers together in one. He is the one. He gathers all
of his own Did he do it? The glorious resurrection proves
it. The absolute sovereign hand of
God caused this to be written. These promises to be written.
How do we know the promises are true? God, give us the faith to see,
like Martha, you believe and you'll see the glory of God.
If you see the glory of God, you'll see the glory of God in
a crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, the successful
Sovereign Saviour. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we thank you for the cry of the Lord Jesus Christ. with Him and in Him, Heavenly
Father. It is finished. All of our debt
is paid in full. We thank you and praise you,
Heavenly Father, that from all eternity you look to your Son
for everything that you require of us. That we might, Heavenly
Father, find our rest and our peace in Him and our comfort
and our joy in believing, Heavenly Father. And we do thank you,
Heavenly Father, that that which glorifies your holy name and
your dear and precious Son the most is what brings the greatest
comfort to your people. Call on us, Heavenly Father,
to call on his name. Lord, save us. Lord, save us. Lord, don't let us live in this
world believing lies about your dear and precious son and what
happened on the cross, but we pray in his name and for his
glory and for the good and comfort of all your people, Heavenly
Father. We thank you. We thank you for
that great gathering. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.