it's hard not to sing the hymns
and yet when one sings the hymns one suffers some little consequence
with the throat but the hymns are so precious aren't they?
well I want us to turn to that portion that we read earlier
in John 11 I'm sure it's a chapter not unfamiliar to you all it's
a great portion of course of the gospel according to St. John
and I want to direct you for a while to words that are very
familiar I'm sure those words that we have in verses 25 and
26 as the Lord addresses himself to Martha verse 25 and verse
26 Jesus said unto 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. Believest thou this? And to say something with regards
to the saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ, here he declares
himself of course to be the resurrection and the life one of those I am statements
God said unto Moses back in Exodus chapter 3 I am that I am and
here is Jehovah Jesus time and again declaring himself to be
that one who is the true God this remarkable gospel according
to Saint John And remember words that he says previously, the
end of chapter 8, Jesus said unto them, that is to the Jews,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am, then
took they up stones to cast at him. But Jesus hid himself and
went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and
so passed by. They took up stones, they would
accuse him of blasphemy, We see it again in the 10th chapter.
In verse 30, he declares, I and my father are one. Then the Jews took up stones
again to stone him. And they answer him there in
verse 33, saying, For a good work we stoned him not, but for
blasphemy. And because of thou being a man,
make us thyself God. Time and again then they see
the significance of his words the truth he is declaring he
is the image of the invisible God and yet though he be God
manifest in the flesh they think him a blasphemer they would stone
him and here in chapter 11 as he goes again into Judea where
I say to his disciples, sound him, Master, the Jews of late
sought to stone thee, and goest thou thither again. But he must
accomplish all the Father's goodwill and pleasure. He must preach
the gospel of the grace of God throughout Judea and Galilee
and all the various parts of Palestine. Well, coming to consider
the words that I've read, these familiar words in verses 25 and
26. As the Lord answers, Martha,
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. Believest thou this? Christ declares then His sovereign
power He declares here the power that belongs to God. We see also
that it is really such a sympathetic power that he possesses. It's
a spiritual power. These are some of the things
that I want us to try to consider from this passage of Scripture.
First of all, his sovereign power. What is he doing? Of course,
he is asserting his deity. He says he is the life. I am
the life. And it reminds us, doesn't it,
of those opening words of the Gospel. In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The
same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by
Him. Without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was
life. In that Word was life. And that
life was the light of men, says John. I am the light, he says. But he also says here, I am the
resurrection. And there that will be demonstrated,
of course, in his own life, after he has given himself, after he
has made that great sacrifice, a voluntary sacrifice, no man
was able to take that life from him. He had authority, he had
power to lay that life down, he had power to take it again. And now in the resurrection how
the Father owns and acknowledges him. He's declared, he's marked
out as the Son of God according to the Spirit of Holiness by
the resurrection from the dead. I am the resurrection, he says. and the life. He is both of these
things. And here of course he is, as
we've said, speaking to a certain person. He's addressing Martha
in particular. And he says to her there at the
end of verse 26, Believest thou this? It's a singular pronoun,
it's so personal. Does she really believe the words
that the Lord is speaking to her? he is there at Bethany remember
how the chapter opens a certain man was sick named Lazarus of
Bethany the town of Mary and her sister Martha and many times
it seems the Lord would be with this family in Matthew 21, 17,
we're told that we went out of the city onto Bethany and lodged
there. He knew these people, he knew
them so well. And again, after the amazing
miracle that he performs here in Chapter 11, when we come to
Chapter 12, we're told that six days before the Passover, Jesus
came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom
he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper,
and Martha served. But Lazarus was one of them that
sat at the table with him. Then took Mary a pound of ointment
of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus. and
wiped his feet with her hair and the house was filled with
the odour of the ointment. How familiar the Lord Jesus was
with these people, with this family. How Mary and Martha were very
different, these sisters, and yet the Lord loves them. We are
told, aren't we, something of the difference between them in
the words that we find in the Gospel according to Saint Luke
and there at the end of that 10th chapter we're told how he entered into
a certain village at verse 38 and we read of a certain woman
named Martha and she received him into her house and she had
a sister called Mary which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard
his words. But Martha was cumbered about
much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not
care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore
that she help me. And Jesus answered and said unto
her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many
things, but one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that good
part which shall not be taken away from her or there's no word
of rebuke for Mary she has chosen the better part to sit at the
feet of the Lord Jesus but the Lord Jesus Christ clearly loves
all of this family we're told here at verse 5 in the chapter
now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, how the Lord
loves them and how they love the Lord and seek to express
it and Mary, Charles Wesley in the hymn says that I could forever
sit with Mary at the Master's feet to choose that better part
to sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus, to hear his words. That
was what Mary chose, and that was not to be taken away from
us, says the Lord Jesus. But it's not just Mary who's
a remarkable character, but Martha also. Martha is one who clearly
had faith. And she's there with the Lord
Jesus. He's coming, you see, and she goes to meet him, as
it were, verse 20. Then Martha, as soon as she heard
that Jesus was coming, went and met him. But Mary sat still in
the house. We were speaking last week of
that woman of Canaan and her coming faith, how she wants to
come where the Lord is, that's what faith wants to do, it wants
to be where the Lord is. It's very much a coming grace,
it's a coming to the Lord. and this is what Martha is doing
she has a very real faith and we see some of the aspects of
her faith she believed in the general resurrection that's what we're told there
at verse 24 Martha says to the Lord I know that he that is Lazarus
shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. She believes
that there will be a resurrection. There is another world beyond
this world and that there will be a great day of reckoning when
there will be the resurrection of the just and of the unjust. She believes that. But more than
that, she had a certain faith in the Lord Jesus. She had faith
in Christ's intercession. Look at what she says at verse
21. Lord, if thou hadst been here,
my brother had not died, but I know that even now whatsoever
thou wouldst ask of God, God will give it thee. She believed
that if the Lord Jesus was to pray and to ask God to raise
her brother again to life that would happen she believed that
Christ was one who could intercede with God but she needed also to believe
in him personally that's the vital thing and that's why that
question is put surely there at the end of verse 26 the Lord
says I am the resurrection and the life Believest thou this? Does she really believe that
this truly is the Christ? Or she must believe in Him. One
thing to believe that there will be a general resurrection, another
thing to believe in the interceding of the Lord Jesus is all to believe
in Him. To trust in Him, in His person,
in His work. that by his own right, through
his own power, he would be able to raise the dead to life again. They could do this very thing
for her brother. She must therefore believe in
him as God. That's what it amounts to. She
should believe in him as God. And isn't this what the Lord
is demonstrating here throughout the chapter? if we go back to the beginning
we read of Lazarus and his sick and his sisters, verse 3, therefore
his sisters sent unto him, unto the Lord and they say behold
he whom thou lovest is sick when Jesus heard that he said this
sickness is not unto death but for the glory of God that the
Son of God might be glorified thereby. There was going to be
a remarkable display of His deity in this particular miracle. He is able to perform many miracles,
of course. He can give sight to the blind. He had given sight to a man born
blind back in chapter 9. He can give ears to the deaf,
feet to the lame, Or this man, he can feed 5,000. He can feed 4,000 with next to
nothing. How remarkable. He contains the
water into wine, but here is one who can actually raise the
dead to life. And this is what's going to be
demonstrated. Look what he says to his own disciples. He tells them plainly in verse
14, Lazarus is dead. And then He says, And I am glad
for your sakes that I was not there to the intent that ye may
believe. All they are to believe in Him,
you see, is that One who truly is the Great I Am, that One who
is the resurrection and the life. He is sovereign over all things. There is nothing that is not
under His power. He is sovereign even over death
itself. Or do we really believe that?
That's what the Lord is saying, not just to Martha, but surely
even to us this evening. 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. Believest thou this? And see how personal it is? It's
that personal pronoun, the great beauty of our authorized version,
the these and the those, it's a singular pronoun. Yes, it's
a word addressed to a certain individual, to Martha, but does
it not come to us, not just as a congregation, but individually?
Do we personally believe these truths? The words that the Lord
speaks, the exalted, glorified Christ, there in the book of
the Revelation where John sees a glorious vision I am he that
liveth and was dead and behold I am alive forevermore amen and
have the keys of hell and of death oh do we believe do we
believe in the sovereign power then of this Lord Jesus Christ
he is what he says I am the resurrection and the life but it's not just
the sovereignty of the power that he has as God what we see
in this passage is his ability to empathize he's such a sympathetic
Savior and how touching it is as we read the account how he
wept, he bled, he died for you. What more, ye saints, could Jesus
do? When we read about the Lord,
He's so moved at the scene when He sees the grieving sisters. There at verse 33, when Jesus
therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came
with her, He groans in spirit and was troubled. and said, where
have you laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come
and see Jesus wept. Oh, we knew what it was to weep
tears, real tears. This is that one, you see, we
have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. And oh, how precious the Word
of God is at that double negative there. We have not a high priest
which cannot be touched it's so emphatic the double negative
it makes it such a certain positive he is touched he is touched with
the feeling of our infirmities he was tempted in all points
like as we are yet without sin he knew all the trials and all
the troubles of this earthly life although there was no sin
in him For as much then as the children
were made partakers of flesh and blood, we are told he took
part of the same. Verily he took not on him the
nature of the Abrahams, he took upon him the seed of Abraham. He comes for Abraham's seed.
Abraham's seed, those are the true believers. Not the Jews. Not ethnic Israel. It's spiritual Israel. Those
who are circumcised in their hearts, those who believe as
in the Lord Jesus, they are the seed. Verily he took not on him
the nature of the angels, he took upon him the seed of Abraham. He identifies with his people,
and how he identifies, those great words that we have there
in Hebrews 5, 7, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered
up prayer and supplication with strong crying and tears, unto
him that was able to save him from the death and was heard
in that he feared though he were a son yet learned
the obedience by the things that he suffered how he suffered how
he learned in his human life he was heard in that he feared
you know he lived his life in the fear of God there was real
piety in the man Christ Jesus And here is one, you see, who
has a life to live. It's a life of faith, he lives
as a man. And it's a life in which he will
commune with other men and feel for other men and women. All
that lovely hymn of Bedolm's that we sang, just a few verses
really, three verses. So fairer face, bejewed with
tears. What beauty in, in grief appears. He wept, he bled, he died for
you. What more, ye saints, could Jesus
do? He's a sympathetic Saviour. And
we see it in this passage. Jesus wept. It's a remarkable
statement of Holy Scripture, isn't it? Again, it reminds us
of the blessed reality of the human nature. We rightly make
much of the truth of his divine nature, his deity, that he is
God. We know there are those who deny
that. And there have been, of course, through all the centuries,
even in the early church, there were those heresies that soon
became apparent. The Arians, they denied the truth
of his deity. But then through the centuries,
the time of the Reformation, the Sassanians, they also denied
the truth of his deity. In fact they were worse really
than the Aryans. The Aryans did seem to think
that he was some sort of lesser god. And then of course when
we come to more recent days we're aware of the activities of the
cults. The JWs, 1890. And there are
those who would claim to be orthodox Christians. The liberals, the
modernists, they deny him. They deny the truth of his deity.
They don't really believe that he is God. We are right then
to continually assert that blessed truth that he is God. But when
we do that, let us not lose sight of the other nature that is there
in that remarkable person, or the person of Jesus Christ. He
is God and He is man. There are two natures, two natures
in one person. That is the mystery of godliness. That God was manifest in the
flesh. It's not dissimilar really to
the mystery of the Godhead, is it? The doctrine of the Trinity,
that God is one God and yet God is three persons. And the Lord
Jesus is one person, and yet in that one person there are
two distinct natures God-man and in everything he does he's
God-man we can't divide the two natures in that person
in every action he's God-man and here we see him and we see
how he is one who is able to sympathize and weep because he
feels he's touched with the feeling of all our human infirmities
and seeing these grieving ones it moves him to tears oh he has
sympathetic power but also here surely we must recognize that
he's that one who has spiritual saving power He is the resurrection
and He is the life. He is the resurrection in the
sense that He must first give life to those who are dead in
trespasses and sins. And that's what the Apostle is
saying, isn't it? In those words that we have in
the opening verses of Ephesians 2. who were dead in trespasses and
sins. When in time past he walked according
to the cause of this world, according to the prince of the power of
the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,
among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in
the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as
others. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
ye are saved. Oh, see what he is saying. Where
are we by nature? We are children of disobedience.
By nature we are the children of wrath as others. We are dead
in trespasses and in sins. But in Christ there is life.
You hath He quickened, He says. Even when we were dead in sins,
hath quickened us together with Christ. Oh, Christ is that One
who is the resurrection. When we think of what we are
by nature, there is none that understand us. There is none
that seeketh after God. Remember how the Apostle quotes
there in Romans 3, those verses from the Psalms, Psalms 14 and
53. None that understand us. None that seeketh after God.
Who seeks after God? Nobody seeks after God. The carnal
minds, the natural minds, the mind that we're born with into
this world, it's enmity against God. It's not subject to the
law of God. Neither indeed can be. Oh, but
what remarkable power, what spiritual power we see in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And doesn't the state of Lazarus
there in the tomb serve in a certain sense as an illustration of what
our souls are by nature? The language that we find used
here. Verse 39, Jesus says, Take ye
away the stone martyr, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto
him, Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead for days
while we're born dead in trespasses and sins and we live our lives
by nature dead in trespasses and sins oh we must stink and
we cannot release ourselves it's interesting when the Lord calls
him forth from the grave we're told how He came forth bound
hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was bound about
with a napkin. Jesus said unto them, Loose him
and let him go. Isn't that what we're like? We're
bound up by our sins. We cannot loose ourselves. We
cannot release ourselves. Our sad condition. It's an illustration
that we have there of what we are by nature. There's a hymn, it's not in God's
Beselection, it's one of Berridge's hymns. But he speaks of Lazarus,
and this is what he says in this particular hymn. In Lazarus we
view a sinner's sad case, bound hand and foot too, and bound
on his face. No arm may release him, and give
a new birth till Jesus says, Loose him. And then he comes
forth. Oh, it's the word of the Lord
Jesus, you see. It's what the Lord Jesus Christ
says. Oh, we remarked on it this morning. He speaks to Lazarus, the dead
man, and says, Lazarus, come forth. And when he comes forth,
still bound in his grave clothes, he says unto them, Lucif, and
let him go. This is the power of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the resurrection power that's in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Verily, verily, the hour is coming,
and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of
God, and they that hear shall live. I am the resurrection,
he says. We have to have that resurrection
power that's in Christ, the exceeding greatness of God's power towards
us which us who believe which is according to the working of
His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him
from the dead or to believe to experience to know in any
sense a positive response to those words, believe us thou
this, how can we believe? Well it's the same power, according
to that same power that was there in the Lord Jesus Christ when
he was raised from the dead. The exceeding greatness of his
power, to us who do believe. What does the Lord say, because
I live? He says, ye shall live also.
but we must first give life to those dead in sins but he who
first gives that life in spiritual resurrection is the one who must
continually sustain that life he's not only the resurrection
he is the life also I am the resurrection and the life he
says now what is this life that he is speaking of? well this
is what we might term is his mediatorial life He says, for
as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to
have life in himself. Now, of course when we think
of the life that is in God, well that life is in God the Father,
and in God the Son, and in God the Holy Spirit. And it belongs
to them as individual persons in all the fullness of the Godhead.
but it's not that life that he is speaking of here he is speaking
here in terms of that that is mediated to sinners in the covenant
of grace and he is the mediator of that covenant as the father
hath life in himself so hath he given to the son to have life
that the son might communicate that life to those who are dead
in sins and although Believers experience
in time a physical death. It is appointed unto men once
to die. There's a time to be born, there's
a time to die. We experience physical death,
but that spiritual life that is from the Lord Jesus Christ,
that life is never destroyed, is it? That's what the Lord is
saying. He that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. That spiritual life, that new
life that comes into the soul of the sinner, that spiritual
life takes the believer even through death itself. Oh, that's
the wonder, you see, of the life that the Lord has given his people.
He sustains it. When they die, what is it? It's
absent from the body. It's present with the Lord. He says there in chapter 10 at
verse 28, I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. my father which
gave them me is greater than all no man can no man is able
to pluck them out of my father's hand it's that mediatorial life
it's the outworking of the great covenant of grace that's the
eternal purpose of God to save a multitude of sinners all Christ
is their life Because it's the life of Christ
in the soul of the sinner. As Paul says, 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. That's the life
that the Lord is speaking of. Gatsby says Christ is their life. Nor can they die. For how can their life be destroyed? It cannot be destroyed. It's
eternal life. That spiritual life that comes
into the soul of those who trust in believing in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And so the Lord puts that question
at the end of verse 26. Believers say this. Do we believe
these truths? or consider again Martha and
some of the marks of the faith of this woman when we read the Gospels we might
feel that Mary is the one who's more spiritual she certainly
has chosen the better part there's no disputing that or let us not
put Martha down what do we see here? what was her guide? in all the circumstances that
she's in, well her guide is the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. What does she say to him? What's
her response to the words that we're considering as our text? We have verses 25 and 26 and
then verse 27 we see her response, she says unto him, Yea, Lord. What have the Lord 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. Believest thou this? And she says, Yea, Lord. All she believes is words. She believes what the Lord has
just been saying to her, but she's more than that really. because we see that she grounds
her faith not just in His words, but in Christ Himself. She says,
Yea, Lord, I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God,
which should come into the world. She does more than just respond,
you see, to the words that He has spoken. But she makes her
own confession of faith. And that confession of faith
is the real grounds of her faith. Oh, she truly believes who this
man is. We were thinking this morning
those words in Mark 4. What manner of man is this? Oh,
what manner of man is this? This is the one that Martha believes
in. is this the one that we believe
in, we look to him, we trust in him, the resurrection and
the life that one who is able to minister to us, meet us in
all the different vicissitudes of life he's able to bear us
through, he's able to carry us through, he's able to sustain
us he's not only that one who has given us new life, spiritual
life, eternal life but how he sustains that life and strengthens
that life And so He brings us again and again to His Word,
and it's the same old story, isn't it? It's the same old story. I sometimes think that they must
weary of it. It's the same week in, week out,
week in, week out. But it's Jesus. It's Jesus, the
power of God. And it's Jesus, the wisdom of
God. Jesus said unto 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. Believest thou this, let the
Lord grant grace that you might be able to respond even as Martha
responds. Yea, Lord, I believe that Thou
art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world. May the Lord bless to us His
Word. Amen.