All right, good morning. It's
good to be here, brethren. Thank you, Joe, for that. We're going to open with John,
and John 11 will be our text. John 11. And we come to this passage,
and it's the only time Lazarus is being raised from the dead.
It's the only place in scripture where it's captured in all the
Gospels. It's the only place where it's
recorded is in the Gospel of John. And so public and undeniable
this miracle is that when you look at it, it seems to be the
actual catalyst that would cause the chief priests and the scribes
and the Pharisees to take counsel to deliberate putting Christ
to death. It was this very miracle that caused them to say, we've
got to put this man to death. And I know this because in John
11, verse 46, at the end of the chapter, It says, Some of them
went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus
had done. Then gathered the chief priests
and Pharisees a council, and said, What do we do? For this
man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all
men will believe on him, and the Romans shall come and take
away both our place and nation. And one of them, named Caiaphas,
being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know
nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that
one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish
not. And this spake he not of himself,
but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should
die for that nation, and not for that nation only, but that
also he should gather together and one the children of God that
were scattered abroad. because this is what Christ's
death would accomplish, the gathering of his people to himself. So from that day forth, they
took counsel together for to put him to death, so that in
giving life to Lazarus, in raising Lazarus from the dead, it spelled
the death of Christ. This was it. When he raised Lazarus
from the dead, it was determined that he was now going to die. And this is the testimony of
scripture. In Hebrews 2, 9 through 13, we read, We see Jesus, who
was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering
of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace
of God, should taste death for every man. and that every man
being those from every tongue, tribe, and nation whom Christ
represented and died for, not for the Jews only, but also for
the Gentiles. For it became him for whom are
all things, and by whom are all things, and bring many sons unto
glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
sufferings. So in this miracle, we behold
that truth that is so precious to us, substitution, that Christ
died as our substitute, right? Because in giving life to Lazarus
and raising him from the dead, it spelled his sentence of death
in the minds of the Jews there. So I titled this message, The
Miracle of Life and Death. The Miracle of Life and Death.
Now when I looked at John 11, I see five sections. We just
read the last, the fifth section there at the end. But Christ
speaks to four different groups of people. He speaks to his disciples
first, and then we see him speaking to Martha, and then we see him
speaking to Mary, and then we finally see him speak to Lazarus. So we'll look at these four divisions. They'll be our divisions for
the text. It's a picture of our salvation
in Christ. So when Christ raises Lazarus
from the dead, that's more of a picture of how the Lord raises
us from our spiritual death and gives us life in himself, more
so than it is a picture of our resurrection that we'll receive
one day when the Lord raises us from the grave. So in raising
Lazarus, it's more of a picture of how the Lord saves his people
and giving them spiritual life because we're all born, we all
come forth, All right, so let's look in John chapter 11, verse
1. This is Christ speaking to his
disciples. Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus of Bethany,
the town of Mary and her sister Martha. And it was that Mary
which anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with
her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore his sisters
sent unto Christ, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is
sick. And 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. so that Lazarus was going to
die, but he wasn't going to remain dead. Christ would raise him
from the dead. But what's important here, again, is that this would
produce that utter contempt of the Pharisees when Christ works
this miracle in raising Lazarus from the dead. He said, this
sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God that the
Son of God might be glorified thereby. And Christ was glorified
in his death as he prayed that high priestly prayer in John
17 when Christ spake these words, lifting his eyes up to heaven
and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son that thy
son also may glorify thee. So this miracle would lead to
the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ in his own crucifixion
there on the cross when he would come and do that work which God
sent him to do. Now, back in our text, John 11,
5. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. When
he had heard, therefore, that he was sick, he abode two days
still in the same place where he was. So that in delaying his
coming there, there would be absolutely no doubt that Lazarus
was really, really dead. By the time Christ would get
there, he would be stinking because his body, his flesh would be
rotting off his bones. The thing is, is that just like
Lazarus, and I can't emphasize this enough, that's us in our
fleshly nature. That's how we come forth dead
and corrupt and stinking to our God. We're just like Lazarus
here lying in the grave. This is our flesh. This is us in our flesh. This
is us in our works. The best that we can do, it stinks
to God. It's corrupt. Our works are corrupt.
Anything that we touch is corrupt. It doesn't produce anything that
is good or pleasing to the Lord. So just like Lazarus can't save
himself, neither can we save ourselves. Just as Lazarus can't
do anything to ask or seek the Lord to do some work or miracle
of grace for him, so we too, without the work, before the
moving of the Spirit upon us, we don't seek the Lord, we have
no desire for the Lord, we're shut up in darkness, we're shut
up in the tomb of death, and we have no desire for the Lord
and we don't seek Him and we don't cry out to Him for help.
We might cry out to God, the God of our imagination, but it's
not the true and living God until the true and living God first
comes to us and gives us life in Himself. In Romans 8, 5 it
says, They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the
flesh, but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the
Spirit. Now there's Some here, and there's
certainly many in the world, who aren't so sure about Christ. They don't know what they think
of Christ. He's not their Lord, so they think. They don't claim
Him as their Lord. They don't call Him God. They
don't even know if He's the Savior or if He ever even really existed.
They doubt whether God exists. They don't know these things.
And all they think of are their minding the things of the flesh.
That's all that they think of and all that they put their minds
or set their minds on. They think of their jobs. They
think of their homes. They think of their friends and
what they're going to do and when they're going to meet up with their friends.
They think of how they might entertain themselves and what
movie they're going to see, what TV shows they're going to watch.
And we do those things too. But that's all that the carnal
man thinks of. That's all that the carnal mind
dwells on, that's all that the carnal mind is interested in.
The carnal mind doesn't think of the Lord and who they are
and what they are before the Lord and how the Lord deals with
his people and how the Lord saves his people. It's all they ever
think of. They mind the things of the flesh. There's no thought of Christ.
And to be carnally minded like that is death. But to be spiritually
minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity
against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, that is, the
law of faith, neither indeed can be, because it's flesh, and
the flesh hates God. That's the testimony of Scripture.
You might think, well, I don't think I hate God. Yes, you do. In the flesh, you hate God. Every
one of us, I hate God, you hate God, in the flesh until the Lord
rises and gives us the new man. And in the new man, we love the
Lord and we delight in the Lord. The flesh continues to be rotten
and stinking and lusting after the things that the flesh lusts
for. That doesn't change. Not on this side of glory. It's
in the new man that we delight now in the Lord. But those that
are passed by the Lord, those that have no spiritual life,
they don't have the new man. All they have is the flesh. And
there's nothing good in the flesh. And there's nothing that the
flesh desires of from the Lord. So it says there in Romans 8,
8, so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. And even we When walking in the
flesh, not in the spirit, just minding the things of the flesh,
we're not even pleasing to the Lord. But in Christ, in Christ,
in the new man, we are pleasing to the Lord. Always the Lord
has accomplished our salvation. Now John 11, 7. Then after that,
saith he to his disciples, let us go into Judea again. And his
disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone
thee, and goest thou thither again? And the occasion that
he's referring to is in John 8 and John 10, the crime being
that he made himself equal with God. Because you don't get any
higher than God. You either are God or you're
not God. And he made himself equal with God. And our Lord
answers the disciples in a peculiar way. He says in verse 9, John
11, 9, Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in the day? If any
man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeeth the light
of this world. But if a man walk in the night,
he stumbleth because there is no light in him. And Christ is
saying, I've done nothing wrong. I've got no reason to hide out
in the darkness and to scurry behind in dark places. All I've
done is speak the truth. And if I hide myself away, Christ
is saying, what shall they who dwell in darkness do? For Christ
himself is the light of men. And we need to see Christ and
we need to know him And he needs to reveal himself to us that
we might know him, that we might be called and brought out of
the darkness of the kingdom that we're under, left in this flesh.
So Christ must go out into the light. He must do this very work.
Because again, he knows that this is going to lead to his
glory. It's going to lead to our good
and our salvation. If he tries to hide away and
protect his life, we all die. But if he gives up his life and
goes out into the light and reveals himself as the light of men,
then we who hope in him have hope and have life in the Lord
Jesus Christ. As John 1, 4-5 says, In him was
life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth
in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. Verse 18,
No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. So Christ must go forth and do
this miracle as it will be the catalyst for his being for those
the chief priests finally saying this is it we've had enough this
man must be put to death so that they would do that very thing
that would lead to his glory and ultimately our glory in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now In John 11, 11, these things
said he, and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus
sleepeth, but I go that I may wake him out of sleep. And that's
exactly what every sinner needs, is to be woken out of the sleep
of our death of nature. Christ must come to us and give
us life from the dead. As Psalm 65, verse 4 says, blessed
is the man whom thou choosest and causes to approach unto thee,
that he may dwell in thy courts, we shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. And that holy
temple that we are satisfied with is the Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom we now worship holy God. by whom now we are accepted to
come before the throne of God and worship him. It's in the
Lord Jesus Christ. He is our temple. He is our hope. He is the reason why we can approach
unto holy God. John 11, 12. Then said his disciples,
Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. How be it Jesus spake of
his death, but they thought that he had spoken of taking rest
and sleep. Then Jesus said unto them plainly,
Lazarus is dead. And we need to hear and understand
that we are dead, just like Lazarus. There's, you know, we move around,
we think, well, I'm not, you know, we probably know somebody
who's died, people that have passed away. And we think, well,
I'm not as bad off as they are. They're dead in the grave. And
the reality is we're no different. We're not better off than they
are. We're dead in trespasses and sins. We are dead and we
need to hear the voice of the Son of God declare that to us
in our hearts and understand that we can produce no good thing. We are dead, dead, dead in trespasses
and in sins and we need the power of Christ, the glory of Christ
to give us life, to wake us up out of our sleep, to wake us
up out of our death by nature, and give us life in himself.
As Romans 3.23 says, all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. There is none accepted in that. John 11.15 now, And I am glad,
Christ said, for your sakes, that I was not there, to the
intent that ye may believe. Nevertheless, let us go unto
him. Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow
disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him. And I see
these words as actually gracious words. Thomas had been listening
to what his Lord had said many times before, where Christ said,
if any man will come unto me, let him deny himself and take
up his cross and follow me. That's a fruit born of the Spirit
in the child of God, that willingness to sacrifice their life, to lay
down their life for their brethren, for the Lord and to do that which
he bids them to do, to lay down their life, to take up that cross
and lay down their lives. For whosoever will save his life,
right? You say, I don't know that I
want to make sacrifices for the Lord and sacrifices for the Lord's
people. Whosoever will save his life
shall lose his life. But whosoever will lose his life
for my sake, the same shall save it." So it's completely contrary
to the flesh, because the flesh is always looking out for itself,
right? I mean, if I'm being honest with
you, my flesh is looking out for me. I'm thinking of things
and always tempted to think, well, wait a minute, if I don't
do this, who's going to do it for me? But to remember that
we're the Lord's, and that the Lord provides for his people,
and he takes care of his people. And there's nothing that we can
do that the Lord is going to be outdone by us, that He can't
do for us. And we know, we who know the
Lord and have experienced His grace and His comfort, know that
every time we just trusted the Lord and did that which He was
calling us to do and moving us to do, did we ever suffer wrong? Did we ever come out short? No,
not at all. Maybe the flesh wanted some other
thing and didn't get it. But in the new man, you were
made to rejoice in Christ and to be settled in him and to be
glad in Christ because it drew you near to him and blessed your
heart in the Lord Jesus Christ. So the Lord knows his people
and he knows how to save his people and how to stir up their
heart and cause them to follow him. All right, now let's look
at our second point. Christ speaks to Martha. In John
11, 17, then when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had lain
in the grave four days already. Now Bethany was nine to Jerusalem,
about 15 furlongs off, which is like two miles. And many of
the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their
brother. And Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming,
went and met him. But Mary sat still in the house.
Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here,
my brother had not died. But I know that even now, whatsoever
thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. And Jesus saith
unto her, thy brother shall rise again. Now, Christ is speaking
of raising Lazarus physically, but Martha... not understanding
exactly what he means. She replies in verse 24, I know
that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
So she does believe and it does demonstrate that she has faith
and trust God, but she doesn't know all things in the same way
that we don't know all things. And so the Lord teaches us and
grows us in grace and in the knowledge of our savior and what
he does for us, what he does for his people. Verse 25, 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 she said unto him, Yea, Lord,
I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should
come into the world. And what we see in this is that
the Lord teaches us that he is the Lord, that he is the Son
of God. He's not a pattern of good works.
He's not a good man. He's not a prophet that we should
follow and try and pattern our lives after him. Christ is the
Son of God. He is very God. And as God, he
has life in himself, for he is life. And he is the one who gives
life to every man. Now, turn over to John 6. John 6 in verse 39. John 6, 39, And this is the Father's
will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me
I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last
day. And this is the will of him that
sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth
on him, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up
at the last day. Now here's where all men and
women get offended in Christ, because that's what we do in
our nature. We get offended. We grow tired
and weary of hearing the words of Christ and what he says, because
our flesh doesn't understand it. We don't get it. And what
we do understand, we hate. And it repulses us, because we
are very enmity against God. We're not enemies with God or
against God. We are enmity against God. We do not like God. We hate him. And the Lord hates our flesh. There is no fellowship there. And it says, the Jews then murmured
at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from
heaven. And they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph,
whose father and mother we know? How is it then that he saith,
I came down from heaven? All they saw was just another
man likened to themselves. another man, nothing impressive
about him. Jesus therefore answered and
said unto them, murmur not among yourselves, no man can come to
me except the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will
raise him up at the last day. The Jews understood what Christ
was saying about himself. But do you, who hear me now,
do you understand what Christ is saying? That you and me, we're
dead sinners, unable to save ourselves, unable to do a work
for ourselves, unable to bring ourselves to Christ, unable to
bring ourselves to be pleasing to the Lord. We need a Savior. We need a substitute. And Christ
is that very substitute whom the Father sent into the world
to lay down His life, to shed His blood, and put away the sins
of His people. So you who are looking to your
own works to make yourselves acceptable with God, stop. Because God doesn't call us to
make ourselves accepted with Him. He gave the law to show
us that we can't make ourselves acceptable to God. The law was
given to shut our mouths so that we would see, I can't do this. I can't make myself pleasing
to the Lord. I need the Lord's grace and the
Lord's mercy. And that's where we see the Lord
Jesus Christ, who was made like unto us at the seed of Abraham
and fulfilled all righteousness. And He did that work, which we
could never do for ourselves, in fulfilling all righteousness,
in fulfilling the prophets, in fulfilling Moses, what was written
in Moses' Law, in fulfilling the Psalms, Christ did it all,
because we can't do it. And so He laid down His life,
a perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God, which takes away the
sins of the world, the sins of His people who hope and trust
in Him. And the Lord Himself must do
this work for us, to bring us to see our need of Him. It's
written in the Prophets, and they shall be all taught of God.
Every man, therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of the
Father cometh unto Me. So the Lord will teach His people
this. He doesn't leave them in darkness.
He's going to teach them. He's going to bring them to Himself. When it pleases Him, as it pleases
Him, whatever means He brings us through, Whatever trials or
tribulations to come to the end of ourselves, the Lord will do
it. And the flesh may hate it, the flesh may not like it at
all, but the Lord does what is good and profitable for his people. Look at Lazarus, how he used
Lazarus in his life. He allowed Lazarus to die, corrupt,
go into the grave, all to bring about this miracle, not just
of life, because Lazarus would die again, but to bring about
the death of Christ. I mean, wow, I just thought of
that. I mean, what a way to be used
of the Lord, that you would actually go to the point of death and
be brought back to life by the Lord Jesus Christ, all to show
us this picture of how the Lord saves his people, and to be a
testimony in that way. Romans 9.15 says, He saith to
Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will
have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is
not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy. So the child of God will be brought
to see, Lord, you're merciful to whom you will be merciful.
And Lord, you are merciful to me, an undeserving sinner. We're going to know what we are.
We're not going to be left to cling and hang on to our self-righteousness
and Christ and go before the throne of God and think that
we're going to enter into heaven. The Lord's going to strip us
of all that. He's going to take that away
so that we don't hope in those things, but that our hope is
left in one, the Lord Jesus Christ. That way is narrow, and it's
as narrow as Christ. You're not getting in shoulder
to shoulder with Christ. You're going in through Christ.
That's the only way to God the Father. Christ said, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but 3 Christ speaks to Mary. John 11.28
When Martha had so said, she went her way, and called Mary
her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth
for thee. 29 As soon as she had heard that, she rose quickly
and came unto him. Now Jesus was not yet come into
the town, but was in that place where Martha met him. The Jews
then, which were with her in the house, and comforted her
when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out,
followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there.
Then when Mary was come, where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell
down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been
here, my brother had not died. And when Jesus therefore saw
her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her,
he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where
have ye laid him? And they said unto him, Lord,
come and see. Now these are the first words
that we have recorded by John when he was with Mary, and these
are the first things he said to her or in her presence. And
he asks, Where have ye laid him? You know, we put away that which
is dead, right? We hide it. We bury it. We bury
it away in darkness, in a cave, or in the ground. We hide it.
And our sin and our iniquity is called death in the scripture.
And so, naturally, we hide it. We bury it away in darkness.
We don't want people to see or know because we don't want to
be judged, and we don't want to hear that this is wrong. We
want to be able to do and justify what we do, and we don't want
it to be out and plain before everyone to see, because, you
know, once you say the thing out loud, it's pretty obvious
that it's wrong. Usually, you see it. So we treat our sin like a dead
body, and we bury it. We put it out of the way. But
Christ declares our love of sin to us, and he shows it plainly
what we are by nature. He shows us what we're doing,
how we're hiding our sin, and how we're trying to prevent the
Lord from seeing it, like we protect it, like it's some precious
thing to us. And our Lord said to Nicodemus
in John 3, 19, he said, this is the condemnation that light,
and the light is the Lord Jesus Christ, light is coming to the
world, and men love darkness rather than light because their
deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds
should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh
to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they
are wrought in God. And, you know, we see that very
behavior of hiding from the Lord and hiding our sin in our first
parents, Adam and Eve, right? When they were in the garden,
what did they do? But they ran off. When their
eyes were open, they ran off and they hid themselves, right?
They knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together
and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the
Lord God walking in the garden. in the cool of the day, and Adam
and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst
the trees of the garden." You know, it's interesting how for
a moment they thought their fig leaves were sufficient to cover
them, but as soon as they heard the voice of God, they recognized
these things are not a sufficient covering for us, and they ran
off deeper into the woods. And the Lord God called unto
Adam and said unto him, where art thou? And so Christ, like
that, It says, where have you laid Lazarus? Where have you
put him? Where have you put him away? And we're all just like
Lazarus. And the Lord is the one who comes
and seeks us out. Where have you laid the body?
Where are you? Where are you? When we hear his
voice with power and authority, he breaks open that dead, hard,
cold, stony heart of ours. And finally, we're brought and
we're wilted and brought to nothing in ourselves, and that proud,
arrogant spirit that we have by nature is broken, and we see
that we're in darkness, and that we love that darkness, and we
see our need of Christ, and that God has provided a sufficient
and perfect, full sacrifice in His Son, Jesus Christ. The Lord
does that. No man can do that. I can't do
it. My words are nothing. but the Lord can take his gospel,
his word, and take the blood of Christ and apply it to our
hearts and cover our guilty conscience and wash us of our sins, wash
us of our guilt and our corruption so that we're broken and we say,
Lord, you did this. Everything you did in bringing
me here to this point was all your work, and it was on purpose,
and it's good for me to be here, and it's good that you brought
me here to this. Although my flesh has been broken
and hates it, it's good. I heard my dad having a conversation
the other day. I think most of you know that
he is battling cancer and it's basically gone now, but I heard
him say on the phone to somebody, no, it was good. It was good. It was a blessing that I had
this cancer because it brought him to see that he's nothing,
that he has no strength, and that he needs the Lord Jesus
Christ. So the Lord is able to take our afflictions, to bring
us to the end of ourselves, to break us of our proud, stony
heart, and show us our need of the Lord Jesus Christ. So not
even nature's death and darkness can hide us from Christ. When
he comes seeking us, he's going to find us, and he'll deal with
us in a way that we'll hear his voice, we'll hear his word. He seeks out his own sheep. You
know, he came to Zacchaeus, and he said to him as he was going
by, and Zacchaeus is up in a tree, and he said, this day is salvation
come to thy house for so much as he also was a son of Abraham.
For the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was
lost. And so here we see Christ coming
to seek out Lazarus in the way that he seeks us out, hidden
away in darkness and in sin, and he brings us out of that
death. Now in John 11, 35, we see, I
think the shortest verse in all the Bible, Jesus wept. And though it's a short verse,
it says as much as any other verse for it shows and communicates
the love of Christ that he has for his people and the empathy
and the care that he shows to us. And he's very tender with
us. God isn't harsh. With those that are harsh, God
will be harsh. And with those that are froward,
God will show himself to be froward. I think that's in Psalm 18. But
with those that are broken and tender and of a contrite spirit,
whom he's broken and made tender and contrite, he shows himself
very tender and very loving and very kind to us. And Jesus wept. And the Jews seeing that said,
behold, how he loved him. 1 John 4, 9-10 In this was manifested
the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten
Son into the world, that we might live through him, here in his
love, Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent
his son to be the propitiation for our sins. So Christ's love
is a love of purpose. His love isn't meaningless like
the many so-called churches all around us where they speak of
the love of God. And it sounds nice, but it's
an ineffectual love. It doesn't do anything for anybody.
It's as if you have love for your grandchild and you see them
running out to a street, but you say, well, I'm going to have
to just let him. I'll call him. But if he doesn't
answer me, there's nothing I can do because I love him and I'm
not going to offend his will and what he wants to do. I'm
going to let him do what he wants to do. That's not love. Letting
him run into the street and get hit by a car isn't love. But
you're going to go out there and you're going to prevent him
and stop him and turn him from his pursuit of running off into
the street because he doesn't know that his end is death. So
our Savior's love is like that. It's powerful. It quickens us.
It turns us from our pursuit of death and brings us to himself. It's an effectual love. All right,
now. Let's look at our last point. Christ speaks to Lazarus. John
11, 37. And some of them said, could
not this man which opened the eyes of the blind have caused
that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again,
groaning in himself, cometh to the grave, and it was a cave
and a stone lay upon it. Again, another good picture of
our hard heart, which is just a stone laying on it. Here we're
in darkness, shut up to the things of God. In verse 39, Jesus said,
take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that
was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh, for
he hath been dead four days. And so it is with us by nature,
we stink to the Lord God, having no righteousness and no holiness
of our own. But the Lord must give us a new
heart, and that He does, just like He said in Ezekiel 36, 26,
a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I
put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your
flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit
within you and cause you to walk on my statutes, and ye shall
keep my judgments and do them. All right, John 11, 40, Jesus
said unto her, Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst believe,
thou shouldest see the glory of God. And we can only hear
the voice of Christ and believe what Christ says if we're born
again by his spirit. The spirit must regenerate us,
making us alive in the Lord Jesus Christ. As Christ said, verily,
verily, I say unto you, unto thee, except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now in John 11, 41, Then
they took away the stone from the place where the dead was
laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes
and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And
I knew that thou hearest me always, but because of the people which
stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent
me. And the Lord's not, again, he's
not gonna leave us in the dark. He's gonna, it pleases the Father
to teach us. As Paul wrote to the Thessalonians,
we are bound to give thanks all the way to God for you, brethren,
beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation and believeth, yeah, through the sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth. Whereunto he called you
by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. So we're going to know him. And
when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come
forth. And so it is with us all in the
day of his choosing. The Lord will call us out of
our darkness, out of our death, out of that grave, out of that
stinking corruption that we are by nature. He'll call us from
that grave to life in himself. And so we read of Lazarus, The
dead came forth, in verse 44, bound hand and foot with grave
clothes, and his face was bound about with a napkin. And Jesus
saith unto him, Loose him, and let him go. And again, another
picture of how the Lord rose us in the grace and knowledge
of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We come forth, being awakened
by Him, having grave clothes, having a napkin about our face
so that we don't see him. Our movements are restricted.
We don't understand things very well. But the Lord, through that
gospel, strips away those grave clothes, taking them off, teaching
us over time, you know, don't be upset and angry and be quick
to be angered with your brethren. Should they know better? Perhaps,
you know, when they offend you, but be patient with one another. love one another, pray for one
another. Before you say anything, pray
about it. Maybe the Lord will turn your
heart and, you know, prevent you from saying something else
and offending one another even more. But we all have grave clues
and we say things foolishly and sometimes even, you know, we
don't say things the way they should be said even concerning
the gospel or the Lord, but be patient with one another. Trust
that the Lord has gathered his people here for a reason, that
he'll teach them. In his time, he'll teach them. Those vain things of religion
and the foolish things that we say, the Lord will remove them. He'll take them off. I've heard of people going into
the services and wearing crosses around their necks for a time.
No one had to say anything. They just sat there listening
to the gospel, hearing a faithful preacher preach the pastor, preach
that gospel. And the Lord taught them and
they removed that cross and never wore it again. You know, like
nobody had to say anything. So be patient with one another
in that way. The Lord knows how to teach us
and instruct us and grow us. If they're coming to hear the
gospel, I mean, what more could you want? What more can you say,
you know, out in the parking lot to them? That's going to
be more effective than them hearing the gospel. It's the same way
the Lord taught you and me, right? It was Him teaching us, not another
man telling us what we need to do or stop doing and things like
that. So many of the Jews which came
to Mary and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on
Him. They'll see what the Lord does.
So my time is out, but basically, You know, the Lord, we need to
hear the Lord's voice. The Lord needs to call us out
of darkness into his marvelous light. And he does that for his
people. So, you know, it's good that we're here and gathered
together under the gospel of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and
pray and trust that he'll grow us and he'll grow his people
as it pleases him. He'll grow his pastor, you know,
and we'll grow together. We just rejoice in what the Lord
has done, and I'm thankful for that. So, all right, let's pray.
Our gracious Lord, we thank you for your mercy and your grace
in giving us life from the dead. Lord, even as you raised up Lazarus,
Lord, so you raised us up and gave us life in yourself. And we're thankful for that,
Lord. For we know, and you've shown us, that we can do no good
thing in this flesh. Lord, keep us looking to Christ.
Keep us rejoicing in Him and trusting Him. And Lord, help
us indeed to be patient and loving to one another and to serve one
another gladly. We pray this in Jesus' name,
our Lord and Savior. Amen.