Okay, if you turn in your Bibles
to John chapter 12. And John chapter 12 is a significant
passage in John's gospel that marks a turning point in the
ministry of Jesus. Up until this time, he keeps
saying to his mother and others, my time has not yet come. This
is not my time. But now, this is the time. And so, on your notes there,
we can just read together this amazing passage of scripture.
Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship
at the feast. Then they came to Philip, who
was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, Sir, we
wish to see Jesus. Philip came and told Andrew,
and in turn Andrew and Philip told Jesus. But Jesus answered
them, saying, The hour has come that the Son of Man should be
glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it
remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much
grain. He who loves his life will lose
it. and he who hates his life in
this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, let
him follow me, and where I am, there my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, him my father
will honour. Now my soul is troubled, And
what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose I came to
this hour. Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven
saying, I have both glorified it, and I will glorify it again. Therefore the people who stood
by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, an
angel has spoken to him. Jesus answered and said, this
voice did not come because of me, but for your sake. Now is the judgment of this world.
Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted
up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself. This he
said, signifying by what death he would die. The people answered
him, We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say the Son of Man
must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man? Then
Jesus said to them, A little while longer the light is with
you. walk while you have the light,
lest darkness overtake you. He who walks in darkness does
not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe
in the light, that you may become sons of light. These things Jesus
spoke and departed and was hidden from them. But although he had
done so many signs before them, they did not believe in him,
that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which he spoke.
Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the
Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe,
because Isaiah said again, He has blinded their eyes and hardened
their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they
should understand with their hearts, and turn, so that I should
heal them. These things Isaiah said when
he saw His glory and spoke of Him." And of course the passage
that Isaiah is referring to, that John is referring to regarding
Isaiah is when Isaiah saw the Lord. chapter 6 of Isaiah, in the year
the King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high
and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.
Above it stood seraphim, each one had six wings, with two he
covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two
he flew. The one cried to another and said, Holy, holy, Holy is
the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His
glory. And the posts of the door were
shaken by the voice of Him who cried out, and the house was
filled with smoke. So I said, Woe is me, for I am
undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in
the midst of the people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the
King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew
to me, having in his hand a live coal, which he had taken with
tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth with it and
said, Behold, this has touched your lips, Your iniquity is taken
away and your sin purged. Such is the wonder of the Gospel. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven,
as we come to Your Word again this morning, we pray that You
would make it living for us. Heavenly Father, we as Christians
and people who live around Christian things so much of our lives are
so prone to take the things that we hear so commonly for granted,
Heavenly Father. We pray as we look at Your dear
Son on that cross this morning again, that we would not take
it for granted, Heavenly Father. The amazing seriousness of what
was going on, the wonders of what was happening in Heaven
and on Earth and in the life of our Redeemer at that time
were real things that moved the hearts of Your people. We pray,
Heavenly Father, that You would move our hearts this morning.
that we would gaze upon our Redeemer dying and bleeding in our place
on that cross, and that we would stand in wonder and awe, our
Father, of who He is and what He has done, that you would cause
Him to be lifted up in our midst. that we would see Him as the
angels did. Holy, holy, holy. This is our Saviour. We pray
that You'd bless us this morning, our Father. We pray in Jesus'
name. I have a simple purpose this
morning and that is is to raise our eyes to our Saviour on the
cross and to cause us to look with expectation at what He has
done and especially what He will do because of His faithfulness
in the past. and the amazing privilege that
we have and will have in this next week to be gathered with
God's saints. And we just pray that God would
cause us to look excitedly and expectantly at the gathering
that He will bring as God's children are caused to see their King
afresh. So our text is simple. I'm just
going to be looking mostly at that verse, verse 32. And I,
if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all to myself. Our text is a simple and plain
promise. of our great God and Saviour,
our Lord Jesus, regarding His death on the cross. And His promises
fulfilled on the cross are the believers' comfort now. His promises
fulfilled on the cross are the believers' hope for the future. His promises fulfilled on the
cross are the believers' rest eternally. There is a simple
proposition that comes out of this verse. There is in the cross
of our Lord Jesus that saving effectual power that draws sinners
to Him in faith. Christianity is a religion of
the cross. The cross of Christ is the key of knowledge which
gives us understanding of the Scriptures. As Martin Luther
said, there is not a word in the Bible which can be understood
without reference to the cross. There is that ribbon of blood
that flows from Genesis to Revelation. Everything we believe has the
cross for its foundation, its superstructure and its covering. The cross of Christ is the essence
of all biblical doctrine and the motivation for all biblical
precepts. We look to the cross for the
forgiveness of all sin. We look to the cross for justification. We look to the cross for acceptance
with God. We look to the cross for sanctification,
to be made holy before God. We look to the cross for motivation
as our rule of life in this world. And we look to the cross for
our entrance into Heaven's eternal glory as the door of hope regarding
the life to come. So summarised this passage by
our friend Don Fortner. I must needs go home by the way
of the cross. There is no other way but His.
I shall ne'er get sight of the gates of light. if the way of
the cross I miss. For the believer, the cross of
our Lord Jesus is everything to us. God forbid that I should
glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." And obviously
we're not talking about that piece of wood, we're actually
talking, as you will know, about the doctrine of the cross. Behold the Lamb of God is the
cry of John the Baptist and God's prophets throughout the world. Behold the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world. And it has As it says in your
Bulletin article, Charles Spurgeon says, it has a magnetic power. The Gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. The cross for God's children
is not a punishing power, but a forgiving power. It's not a
repelling power, but this verse says that it is a drawing power. And it is not, for God's children,
a harsh and compulsive power, but it's an attractive power. We need to think just for a moment
about what God is doing, what God does here each week, and
what God will be doing here in Nauru next week. He's bringing
His children. God is bringing His children,
purposed from eternity. He's bringing His children, our
brothers and sisters. He's bringing them from the United
States. He's bringing them from Papua New Guinea. He's bringing
them from Tasmania. He's bringing them from the central
coast up north. He's bringing them from the far
south coast. He's bringing them from Canberra
in the west. They are coming, as the scriptures
say, from the north and the south and the east and the west, and
they are coming with one purpose. to see the Lord Jesus lifted
up before our eyes as the crucified Lamb of God. That's what church
is about. That's what heaven sings. That's what we do here each Sunday.
And may God cause it to be something that is living in our lives week
by week. It'll be wonderful. our fellowship
over this coming weekend. But our fellowship that we have
each week is a wonder and a marvel, and in God's eyes, just as marvelous,
because as God is proclaimed, as his Son is lifted up, God
comes here. and meets with people as he has
promised, and deals with the souls of his people as he has
promised. And we come here from that world
that causes us so much travail, and we come to this place, we
come to a person who is a refuge, we come to a person who is a
sanctuary. There's nothing special about
this building, and it's wonderful that there's nothing special
about this building, but there's something remarkably special
about the one who meets with his people here this week. And we stand here as a fellowship
and these people are coming as a fellowship because of what
we proclaim and we know from God's Word what God says about
who the Lord Jesus is and what happened. about 2,000 years ago,
on that day when he was crucified. God's Word makes it clear about
what the Lord Jesus was doing, makes it clear about who was
crucified, and makes it clear about what was happening. As
Simon so rightly said, the Lord Jesus came from heaven because
of an eternal union with his bride. John 6 makes it very clear,
they were given to the Lord Jesus in eternity. They were His. His people were His. They were
His bride. They were the jewels in His crown. They were the ones that He loved
with an everlasting love. And he came because of his union
with them. He came with a purpose in mind
and he perfectly and wonderfully fulfilled that purpose. He came
without one tiny shadow of a doubt about what he was going to do.
He didn't come creating possibilities of salvation. He came to save. He came as the people, our brothers
and sisters in heaven sing, He has redeemed us. The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ
is the centre from which divine omnipotence goes forth in the
saving operations of grace. It is the place from which the
saving power of God goes out to arrest sinners and bring them
to Christ. Let's just listen to what the
Lord said, these amazing promises. And I, if I am lifted up from
the earth, It's not a shadow of doubt about what the Lord
Jesus was intending. We love to proclaim the I wills
and the I shalls and the I musts of this wonderful scripture before
us. I will be lifted up. And it's not without purpose. of Satan and the judgment of
God that the cross of the Lord Jesus and what happened on the
cross is the reason for the existence of this fellowship. We cannot
fellowship in church with people who deny the deity of the Lord
Jesus by denying what he did on the cross. We reach out to
them in every way that the Lord brings to us. We pray for them. We proclaim as widely as we possibly
can the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the fact that he was
God. He came to that cross with all
the characteristics of God and to display all of those characteristics. He came with omnipotence. He came with power. He set his
face like a flint to go to Jerusalem. He came with perfect knowledge. As Simon read to us earlier out
of Isaiah 53, by my knowledge my righteous servant will justify
me. What knowledge does he have? I'm looking at a bunch of sinners
and a sinner is speaking to you, what knowledge does God have
of us? Psalm 147 verse 5 says that the knowledge of God is
infinite. Infinite knowledge He has. And yet proclaimed throughout
this world and throughout this land is that Jesus who tries
to save, a Jesus who died for everyone, a Jesus who loves everyone,
and a loving Jesus. And yet when these people are
taken to the Scriptures to establish what they say from God's Word,
not from the words of men, we find again and again and again
that that cross as promised by God is a stumbling block to people. They will acknowledge so much
about God, and then when we come and deal specifically and clearly
from the Scriptures about what happened on the cross, we find
these people so often in the same situation. O foolish Galatians,
says Paul, who has bewitched you? As promised by God, the
religious world is bewitched. and led astray. Who has bewitched
you that you should not obey the truth? Before his eyes, Jesus
Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified. A Jesus without the cross is
a king without a crown, and a king without a kingdom. A Jesus whose
work on the cross is an attempt to save is a defeated and frustrated
Jesus. And yet Simon read those amazing
verses to us from Isaiah 53. He will see the travail of his
soul and he shall be satisfied. This Hebrews 12.2 says, for the
joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning
its shame. So two emotional characteristics,
for want of a better word, that we can ascribe to the Lord Jesus
now, is one that He sits in heaven satisfied and He sits in heaven
joyful. No matter what this world looks
like to us, Our God reigns. I will be lifted up, I promise
from God." And he said this to signify that death, by what death
he would die. And all that held the people,
his people captive, has been removed now. Satan, their enemy
from the garden, who has held these people captive, has been
defeated. And now, as a defeated enemy
of God's people, he can be robbed of his goods. The law which held
people captive under its curse has been taken out of the way,
fulfilled and honoured as a holy law, as a right law, as a just
law, and it's now been satisfied. Colossians 2 makes this so clear,
isn't it? Colossians 2.13 says that, and
you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your
flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven you
all your trespasses, having wiped out, obliterated the handwriting
of requirements that was against us and which was contrary to
us. and He has taken it out of the
way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities
and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing
over them in the cross. No wonder the centerpiece of
Satan's attacks on the church has always been the cross. What happened on the cross? God's
holiness stood with threatening judgment, on people who cannot
come to God and cannot live with God unless they are as good as
God. This has now been honoured by
us and in us, in our substitute. The Lord and His Bride are one. And 1 John 4, 17 says that we
have boldness on the Day of Judgment. Imagine meeting that awesome
holy God who thundered from Mount Sinai. We have boldness to meet
Him on the Day of Judgment. We have confidence, God's children,
to meet Him on that day. So we have Satan as defeated. The law has been robbed of its
curse for God's people. The holiness of God, which stood
threatening, has been honoured by the Lord Jesus. Our flesh,
which wages war against God continually, has been put to death, buried
in baptism, crucified with the Lord Jesus. What a wonderful,
wonderful verse, Galatians 2, 20 is. It's worth reading again
and again and again. I have been, I have been, says
Paul, crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live. But Christ lives in me, and the
life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of
the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. For those who preach universal
redemption, I don't know how they can possibly think that
the people who were in hell when the Lord Jesus died, and the
multitudes that have gone to hell since, Would any of them
be saying, I have been crucified with Christ,
there is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, the life
which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son
of God who loved me and gave himself for me. He did not give
himself for the world, he gave himself for his people. and our sins which hold us captive. So often our sins weigh us down
and our sense of the weight of them constrains the things that
we know we should do. We feel the burden of them. We
feel the embarrassment of them when we know what we are inside
of ourselves. We know the sin that lives there. We know as God's children how
horrible it is. And it's only by God's grace
that we can believe what God says about those sins, that they've
been taken away. God has cast them behind his
back. He's put them as far away as
he is from the West. He's hidden them in the bottom
of the sea. He will remember them no more. It is finished, said our Lord
Jesus on the cross. And on the cross, he defeated
that other enemy of God's people, this world. It just, day by day,
hour by hour, just perpetually entices us with its promises. that we will have satisfaction
in things, that we will find some satisfaction looking into
ourselves, that we will have some reward by gaining things
in this world. This world has been defeated
by the Lord Jesus. It's been exposed as what it
really is in the hearts of God's children. It's been dethroned. It lives to harass us, but it's
been dethroned by our Saviour. I have overcome the world." As
the psalmist says, you have put gladness in my heart more than
in the season that their grain and wine increased. The gladness
of God's children in fellowship with the Lord Jesus is more than
this world can ever, ever for us. This is why God can draw them. He will draw his people. He will not lose one of them. He is that great shepherd who
goes over hills and dales to rescue his own. He's a good shepherd. and he will draw. That word draw
is a strong, strong word. It's the word regarding Paul
and Silas when they were dragged into the forum in Acts 16.19. And when Simon drew his sword,
striking the high priest's servant and cutting off his right ear,
John 18.10, that is the word to draw. It's a word which is
used with regard to fishing nets. They are drawn in. It's a word
that you can see as I draw this pen out of my pocket. Just like Simon's sword. Who
was in charge of the drawing? Will he draw his people? We look
around and often we see so few. Then we need to keep remembering
what God says, not what our eyes see. We live by faith and not
by sight. Such is the force of the drawing
that no resistance will win, and the one drawn will actually
always get there. We do not preach a possibility
salvation dependent upon man in any way whatsoever. As the Lord Jesus says just a
few chapters prior to this, no one can come to me unless the
Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the
last day. The Father does not just invite,
or persuade, he draws. We all know that verse, Jeremiah
31.3, but listen to all of it. The Lord has appeared of old
to me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love.
Therefore, therefore, with loving kindness, I have drawn you. My friends, have you felt the
drawing of God? It's not a drawing to men. It's not a drawing to creeds,
to doctrine, but a drawing by Him, to Him. Have you felt this drawing as
the Gospel? The real Gospel has been proclaimed. A Gospel that declares in Jesus
Christ and Him crucified a God who is absolutely sovereign. A perfect substitute for particular
people. As Hebrews 1 an amazing opening to this remarkable
letter in Hebrews. God, who at various times and
in various ways spoke in time past to our fathers by the prophets,
has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed
heir of all things, through whom He also made the world, who being
the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person
and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He hit
by Himself, purged our sins, sat down sat down, the work is
finished, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. The one who says, I am God and
there is no other. He reigns in heaven. The one
who will not accept man coming to him with claims of his free
will, claims of his works, or claims of the worth of his person. As we saw in John 12 earlier,
the doctrine of the cross is offensive to people. It offends
human beings' pride. It offends their self-righteousness. It offends their worth. It offends their works. that
when God's people are dethroned from their proud riding to Damascus
and put in their right and proper place in the dust, and they look
up and see with new eyes a Saviour, they are very, very happy with
their place in the dust. People are drawn by a God who
has eternal electing purposes. Electing purposes from the foundation
of the world that are not frustrated by the events that happen in
this world in any way whatsoever. And these purposes centre on
the Lord Jesus and centre on what the Lord Jesus did in particularly
saving His people from their sins. a Gospel that causes God's people
to be a few amongst the many around them. As we have seen
in Mark's Gospel, the Lord Jesus in that last few days of His
life shows us a wonderful picture of the Church of God. He goes
day by day and teaches in the temple. performs mighty deeds
in the temple, confounds all of his enemies in the temple.
He marches into Jerusalem as king. Proclaiming himself to
be king, he marches into the temple and says, this is my house.
I am God. I make the rules around here.
He deals with those people who are going to kill him with absolute
truth and absolute sovereignty. And then each night he goes out
over the hill and down into Bethany and there outside of the camp
is the Church of God gathered where Mary and Martha and Lazarus
and others we read about are gathered together with the apostles. What sweet fellowship there was
in Bethany. What a mass of religion there
was in Jerusalem. And so how are these people drawn?
John 10, 16. Just a simple promise from God,
isn't it? The gospel is the power of God
under salvation. They will hear my voice. They will hear my voice wherever
they are in this world. They will hear my voice. Lance will be coming to speak
to us next week and the following week, and he lives in the jungles
of New Guinea. Why is he in the jungles of New
Guinea? Because God has people in the jungles of New Guinea.
They will hear my voice. And people say, what about those
who have never heard? God's children will hear. God
is with God. Nothing is impossible. They will
hear my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. They will by no means follow
a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the
voice of strangers. God's people are a gathered people
and a fleeing people. They flee from what is false
and they come to a voice from God. And that's what our conference
is about. That's what our church gatherings
are about each week. We're gathered by Him who is
the Great Shepherd of our souls to hear His voice. to have Him
who is all of grace graciously deal with our souls, reminding
us of who He is and what He has done, what He is doing right
now and what He will continue to do throughout eternity. And I, if I am lifted up, will
draw all peoples to myself." And our
translations which I have before you have that in italics, the
peoples, which is a reminder that that word peoples is not
in the original text. I will draw all to myself. Only those who are drawn are
the all. It cannot possibly mean all people
without exception. It hardly ever does in the scriptures
mean all people without exception. When the Lord Jesus said these
words, many were already in hell. There are times in the scriptures,
in Acts 16, verse 6 and 7, remarkable passage where Paul, after great
missionary success and great zeal to proclaim the gospel,
is prevented by the Holy Spirit from going where he wanted to
go. Twice he was prevented. God directs
his people where he will have his people, where the all are. And that wonderful prayer the
Lord Jesus prayed on that last night, you have given him, he
speaks to himself, authority over all flesh, that he should
give eternal life to as many as you have given him. Just a
many. And this is eternal life, that
they, this many, may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ. whom you have sent. And the last word in this verse
is beautiful, isn't it? God's children are drawn to him,
to myself, not to a denomination, not to creeds. They're drawn
to him as the bride in Song of Solomon says, draw me away. We will run after you. The king
has brought me into his chambers. We will be glad and rejoice in
you. We will remember your love more
than wine. Rightly do they love you. For those who have met the Redeemer,
there is no place like it. to experience the comforting
presence of the Lord Jesus in you, to experience the presence
of the Lord Jesus carrying you close to His heart, as Isaiah
40.11 says, to know the Lord Jesus as a refuge for sinners. a place to flee, a place to live. See, our Gospel is a declaration
of a person. As Paul says, we proclaim Him,
and when He is all you have, then He is all you'll ever need. So many live on the shores of
salvation, watching others entering in, but not giving of themselves
entirely to the Lord. The question is, has He drawn
you to Himself? Whom do you love? In 2 Thessalonians, that shocking
passage of judgment, God says that they perish because they
refused to love the truth. People can know a lot of truth. They can know a lot about truth. But there is a vast chasm of
difference between knowing about truth and loving truth. Between knowing about the Lord
Jesus and loving Him. The Song of Solomon 2-3 says,
Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my
Beloved among the sons of men. I sat down in his shade with
great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting
house, and his banner over me was love. Sustain me with cakes
of raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am sick with love. Such is our great saviour. He
comes as a voluntary substitute with absolute sovereignty when
he is lifted up. He will draw all people to Himself. He's a successful Saviour. When He said it is finished,
He really meant what He said. Everything, to take God's children,
to take His Bride home to Heaven, is finished. And God is declared
God is declared in His glory on the cross. He's shown to be
holy and merciful. He's shown to be just and gracious. He's shown to be righteous and
good. He's shown to be immutable, unchangeable
and wise. He's shown to be all-powerful
and yet kind. He's shown to be omnipresent,
all around us, all the time, and compassionate. He's shown
to be all-knowing and forgiving. Such is the great God and Saviour. which these people are coming
both to proclaim and to hear proclaimed in our ministry. Let's
encourage each other with the Gospel. Let's proclaim the Gospel
to each other. Let's proclaim the Gospel again
and again to ourselves. He is lifted up. He has drawn,
He continues to draw until that great day when there will be
the most amazing drawing. When He comes back and all of
His bride will be arrayed before Him in resurrection bodies, holy,
spotless and blameless. Resurrection bodies living with
Him forever. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father
we do thank you and praise you for the one