Alright brethren, let's go there
to John 11. I just want to focus on one verse. When the Lord heard that Lazarus
was sick, we read there in verse 4, when Jesus heard, He said, this
sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the
Son of God might be glorified thereby." Now, let's read that
again. He said, this sickness is not
unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might
be glorified thereby. Now, we know Lazarus died. He physically died. And he lay
in the grave four days. And so if we judge by carnal
sight and carnal reason, what our Lord said does not appear
to be true, does it? It doesn't appear to be true
at all. But our Savior declared, this
sickness is not unto death. And then He told them, just a
few verses later, Lazarus is dead. But that didn't change the truth
that Christ declared. This sickness is not unto death,
but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified
thereby. Very often things that happen
in our lives seem to contradict the Word of God. And if we judge
by carnal reason, that's what we'll think, but our Lord's Word
is true and everything He says is so. Now somebody might say,
but Lazarus died. Yes, he died, but it was not
unto death. He died, but it was not unto
death. Christ is the resurrection and the life of His people. He's
the resurrection and the life of His people. The same way Christ
spoke and raised Lazarus from the tomb, Our Lord Jesus speaks
through His gospel and resurrects His child. He makes His child
arise from the dead, a dead sinner, regenerating us and giving us
life and brings us to believe on Christ. Just as powerfully
as He spoke and said, Lazarus, come forth, and Lazarus came
from that tomb. He speaks into the heart and
creates life where there was no life. Resurrects us. And the
scripture tells us that's the first resurrection. It's when
you're brought to behold, you're resurrected and a new life is
created within you, and you're brought to behold, you were resurrected
when Christ was raised. You were quickened when Christ
was raised, and you're sat down with Him in glory. This is the
first resurrection, when we're brought into union experimentally
to know Christ. And the Scripture tells us that
those that have partaken of that first resurrection, the second
death has no power. See, there's a death after we
physically die. That's the death of condemnation.
That's the death we would come into if we met God without Christ. But if you've partaken of that
first resurrection, have been born again of God, and He's come
to your tomb where you're dead in sins and trespasses, and He's
spoken to your heart, and He said, come forth, He's made you
alive. And because He's done that, Whatever
befalls you in this life, even your physical death, it's not
unto death. It's not unto death. That's what
Christ declared to Martha. Look down there. Look down there
in verse... Verse 25, he said to her, I am
the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. He's saying that and it's true
of her brother Lazarus whose body is dead in the tomb. Lazarus
didn't die. This was not unto death. This
was not unto death. This is why Christ said Lazarus'
physical death was not unto death. It was not unto the second death.
It was not unto separation from Christ. The reason I read Romans
8 was to remind us that nothing God's elect face is unto death. Nothing. Nothing. We know all
things work together for good to them that love God, to them
who are called according to His purpose. And here's His purpose.
Whom He did foreknow, whom He foreordained, whom He elected
unto salvation in Christ. He predestinated to be conformed
to the image of Christ. And who He predestinated, He
called. And who He called, He justified.
And who He justified, He glorified. And so Paul says, what shall
we say then to these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? And then here's what I want you
to get. Paul said in Romans 8.38, I am persuaded that neither death... Lazarus died. No, he didn't. Neither death nor life. We don't think of life being
an enemy. Neither death nor life, nor angels,
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things
to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall
be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord. Not only was it not unto death,
our Lord declares it's for the glory of God that the Son of
God might be glorified thereby. That's true of everything that
comes to pass in this world from the first tick of the time that
ever was until the last tick of time. Everything that takes
place in this world is for the glory of God that the Son of
God might be glorified. And that's true of you, Carol,
and me as God's people. Everything He's doing in our
life is for the glory of God that the Son of God might be
glorified. God rules everything. He works
them all together, the good, the bad, and the ugly. He works
them all together for the good of His people and His glory.
This is the great end for which God our Savior created this world. Colossians 1 says, by Him were
all things created. that are in heaven, that are
in the earth, visible and invisible, whether they're thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers, all things were created by Him
and for Him. That means to bring Him glory.
To bring Him glory. And He's before all things and
by Him all things consist. He's the head of the body and
this is what's even a greater blessing to you and me. And He
is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have
the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that
in Him should all fullness dwell. You sometimes sit down and read
the book of Colossians and read how many times it says all things. This is the all things letter
to Colossians. And all things are in Him. All
things are in Him. It's all to glorify Him. So here's
what we're seeing. For God's elect, for those that
God chose in Christ before this world was made, for God's elect,
whatever comes to pass in this world, it's all by the hand of
God, and it's all for the good of His elect, and it's all for
the glory of God that the Son of God might be glorified there
by everything. everything. Now, I want to look
at this in three ways. First, I want to consider this
of the fall. I want to consider this of the
cross. And seeing it true in those two regards, then we have
to understand and be confident that everything else in our lives,
this is true of it. If it's true of the fall and
it's true of the cross, then we can rest assured everything
else God's doing in our life is is not unto death for His
people, and it's for the glory of God that the Son of God might
be glorified thereby. Now if we could get this and
remember this at the outset of everything that we come into,
anything we face that is contrary to us, that's hard, that's perplexing,
anything, it would settle us and give us the right spirit
and the comfort we need and to look to Him. It really would.
Now let's see it concerning the fall. The fall of the first Adam
was for the glory of the last Adam. The fall of the first Adam
was for the glory of the last Adam. It could be said this fall
is not unto death. but for the glory of God that
the Son of God might be glorified thereby. But in Adam, Adam died
and all died in Adam. Yes, that's true. Adam died and
all died in Adam. In Adam all sinned, all became
guilty, and all died spiritually. Everybody that shall be born
of Adam that have been and shall be, we died. We became guilty
and we died. As by one man sin entered into
the world, Romans 5.12 says, by one man sin entered the world
and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that,
and the margin says, in whom all have sinned. Yes, we all
died in Adam. Adam was the head of all his
people. God made him so. God made him so. Every son of
Adam, every child ever born into this world, was in Adam. This is what representation really
is. We were really in Adam. Every
one of us. And we really did what Adam did.
We sinned. We broke the law in the garden.
And we really were guilty. And we really died. And we died
spiritually. Every one of us did in the garden.
Because Adam was our head. And we were in Adam. And what
he did, we did. We did. That's how God sees it and that's
how it is. We sinned in Adam. We became
guilty and we died. You just think about how horrified
Adam had to have been the first time he ever got a fever and
got sick. He'd never known sin, he'd never
been sick. Don't you know the first time
he got a fever and got sick he thought, oh, when he got the
flu. He thought, I have sinned and
done this to my children. I've done this to my whole race. We all died in him. We all get
sick and sickness, this whole COVID thing, all of this is first,
it's because of sin. That's what it's because of,
is sin. But Adam's sin, it was unto death. But for God's elect, it was not
unto death. It was not unto that second death.
It was not unto eternal death. It was not unto eternal condemnation. Because we were in Christ. We
were in Christ. Adam was the figure of Christ
that was to come. That's what Romans 5.14 says
at the very end. Adam was the figure of Christ
that was to come. What does that mean? It means
before God said, let there be light, before He created anything
that exists, God chose His Son and chose a people in His Son
and foreordained for His Son to come forth and redeem us from
our sin. And that tells us, brethren,
that when Adam sinned in the garden, God knew Adam was going
to sin in the garden. What do you see in that? Well,
we see what we're capable of. If God put a perfect man that
He created in a perfect garden and let him have his will, what
did he do? He sinned. What do you think
we'll do? But by that, we see this too. We see the glory of God in His
wisdom. We see the glory of God in His
righteousness because before God ever permitted sin to enter
this world, God had chosen the Savior, and He had foreordained
who He would redeem, and He had set Him up from everlasting,
so that before there was a sinner, there was a Savior, and the Lord
Jesus Christ was that Redeemer. And we see in that God's wisdom,
we see His sovereignty, so that when Adam sinned in the garden,
it fulfilled God's purpose to bring glory to His name and glorify
His Son. That makes God's children fall
down at His feet and see what wisdom He is and what sovereign
power He has so that in every time of need and every time of
trouble we can flee to Him because He is the Savior. He is God and
we need Him. We need Him. It was not unto
death, it was for the glory of God that the Son of God might
be glorified thereby. As in Adam all died, even so
in Christ shall all be made alive. All who Adam represented died
and all who Christ represented shall be made alive. And it was
so that we see that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might
grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord. It was to glorify Him. So that's
true of the fall. So then secondly, we know it's
true of Christ on the cross. The whole purpose for Christ
to go to the cross was not unto death. It was for the glory of
God that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. Indeed,
our Savior died on the cross just like Lazarus died. There
was a difference though. Christ laid down his life of
himself. Lazarus couldn't help that he
went into the grave. Christ laid down his life of
himself and something else is different too. Christ conquered
sin, death, and hell for his people and that's why we don't
have to worry about the second death. That's the whole purpose
of what He was doing on the cross. Lazarus was raised by our Lord.
Our Lord raised Himself from the grave. Why? Because He conquered death. He
conquered death. How did He conquer death? There's
one thing, there's one sting that caused death. That's sin.
And He took out the sting of death when He took away the sin
of His people. So death has no more sting. There's
nothing else that can inflict the venom to cause His people
to die the second death. Christ has put away the sin of
His people on the cross when He bore the sin of His people.
That's what He went to the cross for. And He told His disciples
repeatedly when He walked this earth that His cross was not
going to be unto death. He said, this cross is not going
to be the end. He told them that repeatedly.
He said, the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected
of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be slain
and be raised the third day. He told them that repeatedly.
He was saying to them, this cross is not unto death. It's not going
to be my eternal end. It's going to be for the glory
of God that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. The cross
was to manifest God's glory in that everything
God purposes, everything He's willed from eternity, God brings
it to pass. God brings it to pass. Yes, men
did exactly what was in their heart to do. Men did exactly
what they wanted to do. Every man does exactly what they
want to do in this life. But it's all ordained by God
and it's all worked together by God to glorify God, to glorify
the Son of God. The kings of the earth stood
up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and
against His Christ. For of a truth against the Holy
Child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate,
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, they were gathered
together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined
before to be done." That's what they did. That's what they did.
You see the glory of God in the cross? Even in the wicked hands
that nailed Him to the cross, they only did what God purposed
before to be done. And that's all that's going to
come to pass in this life, is whatever God has purposed before
to be done. And what He has not purposed
to be done, It's not going to be done. He's God. That's who God is. And if it
comes to pass in this life, if we don't see good in it, if we
see wickedness in it, or if we do see good in it, we still don't
really understand fully how God is working it all together and
he's doing it for his glory and the glory of his son and for
the good of his people. is to show that the death of
our substitute on the cross glorified God's wisdom and his righteousness
and his mercy. God justified his people, but
he did it fulfilling his law and honoring his law and saving
his people justly. He made mercy and truth meet
together in Christ, and he is fully, that's what Paul said
in Romans 8, he has totally satisfied himself so that God himself,
the judge says, no fury is in me towards you. You know how
the only way God can say that? Is if you don't have any sin.
If you don't have any sin, because that's the only way God can be
at peace with us. And in Christ we don't have any
sin, his people. The cross was so that the Son
of God might be glorified. He raised Him to His right hand
and sends the gospel forth because God will have His Son glorified.
He's going to have His Son exalted. He's going to be exalted in the
hearts of His people. He's going to be exalted in the gospel we
preach, in the songs we sing, in the prayers we pray, in every
aspect of our life. He's going to have His Son glorified.
And He's going to keep Him glorified in our heart. Why? Because the
Son of God bore the sin and the curse of His people and He put
it away. He put it away. And God's satisfied
with Him. He saw the travail of His soul
and He's satisfied and God is pleased and it pleased God that
all fullness dwell in His Son and that His Son have all the
preeminence. So He's going to keep glorifying
Him before His people. Now, knowing this is true, Seeing
the fall and seeing that our Lord's death on the cross was
for God's glory and for the good of his people, we can be sure
that everything we face in this life, everything we face in this
life, every trouble, every sickness, every sorrow, even death, everything
for God's children is for our good and for God's glory, everything. This sickness is not unto death,
but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified
thereby. Sickness and trouble, sorrow,
are a message from God, especially for His child. That's what they
are. That's what they are. We sometimes get to thinking
that trials and troubles and setbacks and sickness and a pandemic
and all these things, all these things are getting in our way
of serving God. Nope. No. It's God teaching us
through every one of them. Through everything he's bringing
to pass, making us see his glory and teaching us teaching us by
it, every bit of it. Lazarus' sickness and death was
to this end the glory of God. That's the ultimate end for everything
that befalls us as the sheep of His pasture is the glory of
God. He shows us His glory just like He did here. He's going
to show us His glory just like He did right here. Now, when
you see our Lord doing things in this earth, just know He's
doing these things just as real right now. And if you know Him,
you know this is so. You've experienced this. He's
not coming to you in person, He's not coming to you in bodily
form, but He does come and make Himself known in our hearts as
real as when He stood there before them that day in Bethany. What does He make you to know?
Well, He came there and when He approached and saw them weeping
and He heard their words and there was a lot of unbelief in
some of the things they said. And he said in verse 33, he says
he groaned in spirit and was troubled. The margin says he
troubled himself. He troubled himself. And then in verse 35 it says
Jesus wept. He wept. That's his glory. You see his glory in that? This
one who was standing there, is God, but he's a real man. He is a real man. He'd grown within himself. He's
the son of David after the flesh. He's the firstborn among many
brethren. He is the elder brother of all
his people. That's who he is. And it's just
like our elder brother to grow within himself and be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities. And he was. When we mourn, especially
over the loss of loved ones, He makes us remember this sort
of thing comes to your heart. This is what I say when I say
He comes to you and makes you see His glory. He makes you remember
a scripture like this where Jesus wept. while you're crying, and
you're crying real tears, and you see those real tears falling
down your face, and they're on your hands, and he brings to
your heart to remember the Lord Jesus wept. He knows. He said he puts the tears of
his saints in his bottle and remembers. He knows. He's touched
with the feeling of our infirmities. But not only that, we see His
glory as the Son of God. We see His glory, and He makes
us see this too. The same one that wept turned
right around in verse 43 and said, Lazarus, come forth! And
he that had been dead in the grave for four days came out.
He's the Son of God. He's a real man who's cried real
tears, but He's the God of glory who made all things. So brethren,
not only does he know the feeling of our infirmities and is touched
with them, but as God, he's able to do something about it. Nobody
else can, because he's God. He can comfort you like nobody
else can. He makes us behold the glory
of his infinite, infallible, unerring wisdom. He keeps doing
this through all the things he brings us through. We see it
here, his wisdom and his tenderness in our Lord's tender dealing
with Mary and Martha. The Lord was troubled at their
unbelief, he was troubled at their weeping, he was troubled
They had seen Him, they had seen His glory, they had seen He had
declared the Gospel to them, He had revealed Himself to them,
and He comes there and His love, the ones He loves, they're weeping
like it's the end of the world. They're weeping like everything
has happened out of His control, and they're weeping like there's
nothing that can be done. I will say this though, and I
think I'm going to look at this. Martha, do you see this statement
Martha made? Martha said, verse 22, she said, you know,
if you'd have been here, my brother hadn't died, she said, but I
know that even now, this is faith, even now, whatsoever thou will
ask of God, God will give it to thee. But then she turned
right around and just like we are, but Lord, don't take the
stone off the grave. And that's how we want to throw
it in His hands and trust it to Him, but then we want to take
it back and say, but now do it the way we want to do it. We're
not sure that's the way it ought to be done. And our Lord, just
think of how tender He was. They're weeping. Their hearts
are broke. They are crushed in their soul
that they've lost their brother. He's God perfect in wisdom, perfect
in understanding, perfect in power. And you know because He
is that, He wasn't hard on them. The more perfect in power and
wisdom and truth and righteousness one is, the more tender and merciful
and kind and gentle he'll be. That's our Savior. That's our
Savior. It would have been hard and callous
to deal with them any other way because their hearts are breaking. He knows we're dust. He knows
what we are. And he's not going to crush his
people. He's going to deal with us tenderly.
Aren't you thankful? Don't you see his glory in that? The Song of Solomon, the bride
says, His left hand is under my head and His right hand doth
embrace me. He makes you know that. Mary
and Martha and Lazarus were made to behold the glory of God's
love in Christ for them more by this. They beheld His love
for them more by this. The glory of God's everlasting,
unchanging, never-ending love by what He did for them here.
And that many a believer, it's made to know our adoption of
God by Christ through suffering. Now, when He calls you and gives
you faith, you believe the Lord, and you read these things, and
you know that you're His, and you believe you're His, and you
believe He's the Son of God, and He's your Savior, and you
believe these things. But we know a lot and believe
a lot of what we know in theory. until he brings us to experience
it. And then we know better. It's
not that we didn't know before, but then we know better. We know
because we've experienced it. We experienced Him and His presence
and His grace and His love more and more by His keeping grace. When you have no strength, when
you're at a place like Mary was and Martha was, they didn't have
any strength to do anything for Lazarus. They didn't have any
strength to do anything for themselves. Their brethren that came there,
they wanted to comfort them, but they weren't comforted. They
couldn't comfort them. They didn't have any power to
comfort them. But our Lord keeps us and makes us know Him and
makes us know His strength. He makes you know the security
you have in Christ by His electing grace. He makes you know the
security of Christ's blood who redeemed us so He won't let you
go. He makes you know the security of the presence of His Spirit
who is keeping you looking to Christ, and He makes us know
this when we just don't have any strength to do anything but
weep and mourn and can't even lift up our head. And He makes
you know. He's keeping you as the apple
of His eye. He makes you know, see His glory
and His ability to wean you from the things of this world. Martha,
she was cumbered about much serving at another time. And here, right
here, she was cumbered by all of this. But as soon as she heard
the Lord was coming, He gave her this need, and as soon as
she heard He was coming, she went straight to Christ. Straight
to Him. And nothing else mattered now
but Him. Her serving didn't matter now.
He mattered. And all she's thinking about
is Him. We get to holding too tightly
to perishing things, and we have to be weaned from the perishing
things, and we have to be made to see more fully that Christ
really is the one thing needful. This is how He does it. It's
not unto death. It feels like it's going to be
unto death, and you think it's going to be unto death, but it's
not unto death. It's for the glory of God that the Son of
God might be glorified thereby. And He makes you know this in
your heart. Sickness and bitter trouble, bring to us some of
the most valuable riches of God's grace that there are. They really
do. We behold the glory of God in
the face of Christ Jesus in His patience and His long-suffering
to us, just like Christ was with them in this passage. His glory
in strengthening us. His glory in giving us more faith
and patience to wait on the Lord. His glory in making us know that
it's not unto death, He's doing it for our good. His glory in
making us glorify the Son of God, bringing you nearer to Him,
making you want to honor Him more. This is all His glory. Everything that He puts in the
heart of a child, we can't take credit for it. When a dear brother or sister
recovers from sickness or they're brought out of the fiery trial,
It's to the praise of the glory of God. Just like Him sending
the Gospel and calling you out of darkness into His light. When
He brings you through sickness and trouble and the fire, it's
to the praise of the glory of His grace. But now get this, or when we lay them in the grave,
it's to the praise of the glory of His grace. is to the praise
of the glory of His grace. Why? It's not unto death. It's
for the glory of God that the Son of God might be glorified
thereby. And those He leaves behind, He's
going to continue to work these things in us and give us grace
and consolation and strength in Christ. He's going to make
us know that. Make us know that. The sweetest
grace, the sweetest glory we behold is that Christ really
is our consolation. He really is our consolation.
Cling to Him tighter. So brethren, sickness and trouble
is school for the soul. That's what it is. It's school
for the soul. God shows His glory more in times
of distress than most other times. Now we see His glory in joyous
times too. But you see His glory most when
you just don't have any goodness in you or strength in you or
anybody but Him. That's when you find His glory,
see His glory. We knew Him by the hearing of
the ear. Then we know Him by experience. We loathe ourselves. We repent in dust and ashes.
Don't you know, Martha, after the Lord raised her brother and
brought him out of that grave, don't you know, Martha, thought,
why did I say what I said? Why did I even doubt? Oh, the glory of our Father's
promises are more precious. The glory of Christ's redeeming
sin atoning blood is more precious. The glory of the Spirit's constraining
us by His love to want to honor Him more is more precious. It's
all more precious. humility of mind, meekness of
spirit, self-renunciation, all from a new, fresh view of Christ's
glory. We go into the trial proud and
strong, and we come out of it a little child just looking to
our Father. We go in wise and covetous and
wanting some glory, and we come out just a baby wanting to lay
on his breast. Let me end with this. Brethren,
knowing how Christ works this for us now in these light afflictions,
right now, how wonderful it must be for our brethren who have
departed and who behold His glory face to face. You know, when
He's done this for us, and there's been times when you You just
see it. You see his glory. And we see
through a glass dimly. I mean, we don't see much, but
we do. We experience it. It's just overwhelming
sometimes. Just imagine those brethren who
are standing before him face to face, face to face. You know what they know? They
know perfectly every sickness, every trouble, Every fire, every
coldness, every hill, every valley, everything they went through,
they know this perfectly. It was not unto death. It was
for the glory of God that the Son of God might be glorified
thereby. I pray in the face of trouble,
in the face of every providence, in the face of good time, whatever
it is. to remember, especially when
you feel like you're going to die. Because it's not unto death. Even if we die physically, it's
not unto death. It's for the glory of God that
the Son of God might be glorified thereby. And I want to give Him
the glory. I want to give Him the glory
by believing this is so and waiting and resting and submitting to
Him And then, by taking Christ my
consolation and telling others about him. That's what Paul said. That's why we try to do that.
We might console others with the same consolation wherever
that he's consoled us. He's that consolation. It's all
for his glory. Amen.