Come back to John chapter 11. John chapter 11. The verse that caught my attention is verse 14, "...then said Jesus
unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead." They thought he was asleep. They said, Lord, he'll do all
right. And that's how, like, religious people today and religious
organizations, they think men just need to be woke up. We just
need to wake them up and direct them, you know, give them some
direction, some leadership. They're dead. And that's what
I entitled this, Plain Preaching. Lazarus is dead. That's why I
entitled this message. And what I want to do this morning,
I want to speak plainly, I want to preach plainly on our condition
by nature. That's what I want to preach
in Our Only Hope. And I want to use Lazarus as an allegory. I want to try to draw some things
from Lazarus here to apply them to ourselves and to our day.
That's what I want to do with this portion of Scripture this
morning. It's evident that men today are not preaching the gospel. If you know the gospel, if you
know it, and you listen to other men preach, and you listen to
those who are on television and radio, you know they're not preaching
Christ. They're not exalting the Lord
Jesus Christ. My son asked me one time, he
said, How do I know that we're preaching the gospel and they're
not? I said, Who's giving the glory? I said, That's all you
can judge it by, son. I said, you judge it by God's
word, what his word says, but when you walk away from there,
and when you quit listening to him, who's gotten the glory? Who received the glory from that
message? And it's evident men today are
not preaching the gospel. They're not telling people the
truth about God. They're not telling people the
truth about our spiritual condition. They're not telling the truth
at all about that. We are dead. The Scripture says in Ephesians
2, 1 that we are dead in trespasses and sins. That's what we are
by nature. That's how we come into this
world, dead in trespasses and sins. And they're not telling
the truth about Jesus Christ. They use his name. They abuse
his name, what they do. But they're not telling the truth
about him, who he is, what he did. They're not telling the
truth. They want to preach on issues concerning morality and
immorality. I had a church ask me one time
if I preached on the issues of the day. I said, no, I preach
Christ. They said, well, we know that.
We mean, do you preach on abortion? Do you preach against rock and
roll? I said, no, I preach Christ. And then the guy looked at me
kind of funny, and I said, I can tell them not to listen to rock
and roll, and I can tell them to quit having abortions, and
they'll all still go straight to hell. I usually have a bunch
of Pharisees on your hands. That's what you have. You see,
that's what they want to deal with, morality and immorality.
When they should be dealing with mortality and immortality, that's
what they ought to be dealing with. Life and death, eternity
and judgment, those are the things that need to be dealt with. How
am I going to have life? The life of God, not this fleshly
life, but I'm talking about the life of God. I've got to spend
eternity. You know, when a person is born
into this world, he's not going to die like an animal and not
exist anymore. You're going to exist forever somewhere, either
with Christ or in hell, one place, either place. And so I want to preach plainly. And I want to start out here
with Lazarus, and I want us to look here. There was a time when
Adam—well, there was a time here, I mean, when Lazarus There was
a time when Lazarus was alive. If you read through the Gospels
here, there was a time when the Lord visited his house. The Lord
had supper with him. He had fellowship with the Lord.
He had communion with him. But not now, he's dead. Not now,
he's dead. Something happened. Something
entered his body and he died. He got sick. Something entered
into his body and it took his life. He died. There was a time when Adam was
spiritually alive and had communion with God in the Garden of Eden.
There was a time that that happened. Adam had life, and he had communion
with God in the Garden of Eden, but something happened. Something
happened. Sin entered into his heart. Sin
entered in, and he died spiritually. Later, he died physically, as
we all die. But he died spiritually, and we died in him. When sin
is conceived, it says in the scripture, when sin is conceived,
it brings forth death. That's what it brings forth,
and that's what happens, spiritual death. And we die spiritually
in Adam. In Adam, it says in 1 Corinthians
15, in Adam all die. All that he represented die,
which is every man and woman born into this world. They all
die. And we must teach men, we must
teach men what happened in the garden. You can't teach them
what happened at the cross until you teach them what happened
in the garden. You can't get to second until
you go to first. And you've got to teach them what happened in
the spiritual death happened in the garden. We have not the
life of God in us by nature, not one iota at all. By nature, we are enmity with
God. We are enemies of God. By nature. The scripture says in one place,
we were children of wrath even as others. By nature. We see Lazarus now as a dead
man. Before he was a living man. Now
we see him as a dead man. He could not call for help. Dead
men don't speak. He's not going to call for help
where he can get help. Dead men don't speak. Men who
are dead in sin, dead to God, will not call upon the Lord for
help. They won't do it. They don't know they need help.
That's the reason people, you don't see people calling upon
the Lord all over the place. They don't know they need help.
They're dead. They're dead. That's the reason
why. Only the living know that they are in trouble. You know,
it's not until God gives a man life that he knows he's lost. It's not until God gives a man
life that he knows he was dead. God must give life. You
see, only the living know that they're in trouble. Not until
God gives life do we realize we're lost and dead. Not until
then. You see, because of our fleshly
life, we think we can commune with God. We think because we
can talk to each other and communicate with each other, we can do the
same with God. There's got to be spiritual life. You see, we
communicate with each other, but we have the same fleshly
life. But God is spirit. God dwells on another realm that
we don't dwell on by nature. God's spirit, he's got to give
us spiritual life. And not only could he not call for help, he
would not seek for help. When he died, his will died with
him. His will died, everything died with him. Died with him. Our Lord said this, men, you
will not come to me that you might have life. Men will not
seek the Lord for help. They will not seek the Lord for
life until he gives them life, because they're dead, and their
will died with them. We have not the will to seek
the Lord because of our spiritual deadness. That does away with
this freewillism. Talk about freewillism, our will
is dead. Our will is controlled by our
nature. That's what it's controlled by. Our Lord said this, I was found
of them that sought me not. I wasn't looking for him. When
he revealed himself to me, I wasn't looking for him. When he stopped
me on my way to hell, I wasn't looking for him. I was on my
way to hell, doing my own thing. I was found of them that sought
me not, I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me."
I wasn't asking, have you seen him whom my soul loves? I wasn't
asking that. He made himself known, and he
gave life, and then made himself known. We were just like lost
sheep going astray, not realizing we're lost. I've never seen a
sheep going astray that knew he was lost. Then Lazarus couldn't
do anything by way of giving himself life, because only life
begets life. See, he couldn't do anything
to give himself life. He couldn't do anything that
would raise him up off that bed of death. He was helpless. Helpless. He couldn't do anything.
Oh, they said, if you take the first step, God will do the rest.
Well, Lazarus, if you get up, Christ will heal you. That's
kind of silly, isn't it? He doesn't need Him to heal him
if he can get up, if he's all right. Well, that's exactly what
religious men are saying. If you take the first step, God
will do the rest. My greatest need is taking that
first step. But Lazarus couldn't do anything but way of giving
himself life, because life comes from life. Life comes from life. There is nothing that we can
do personally to give ourselves life. Life must come from life,
and Christ is life, and spiritual life must come from Him. Adam,
when God created him, lay on the ground with no life in him
until God breathed in him the breath of life. And we will be
dead and stay dead spiritually until Christ brings into us the
spirit of life. He must command life. He must
give life if we're going to live. Life is not a choice we make,
it's the gifts of God. It's the gifts of God. That's
why Joseph said, salvation is of the Lord. That's why he said
it's of the Lord. He'll have to save me if I'm
going to be saved. He'll have to give me life if
I'm going to have life. God will have to give it to me
if I'm going to have it. And then Lazarus didn't know that
he was dead. Why? Because he was dead. Now, I know that sounds like
very simple preaching. He didn't know he was dead because
he's dead. A dead man doesn't know that. A dead man doesn't
know any of those things. He doesn't know. We don't know
that we are spiritually dead. Our spiritual deadness has us
blinded to the fact that we're dead. I know that sounds like a play
on words, but it's not. We're spiritually dead. Don't
get so frustrated when lost people look confused and upset when
you talk to them about the gospel. If there was a dead man laying
here in a casket and I spoke to him, I wouldn't get upset
if he didn't speak back. I wouldn't get upset if he didn't say the
right things back to me dead. And that's what I realize when
I preach. You know, there are those whom the Lord has given
life, and there are those who are dead who have no interest in
what's being said. They have no interest in Christ.
They have no interest in these things. And I'm not going to
live my life all frustrated, being unshapable. We're dead
men. Because they're dead. They don't
have the spiritual life of God. We have this natural life. We
have this fleshly life. But we don't have this spiritual
life unless God gives it. Then Lazarus had no more discernment.
He didn't know right from wrong anymore. He's dead. He's dead. Fallen man lacks the power of
spiritual discernment. The Scripture says he caused
evil good and good evil. Boy, do we see that today. We
see that today. Taking the things which are the
most vilest immoral things and saying it's all right. They don't know it. They are
dead. They had no spiritual discernment. They don't know good and evil.
They don't know what is really good and what is really evil.
They don't know. See, they call a Pharisee a good
man. God said, they're snakes. He
said, you're vipers. That's what he said. He said,
you make people two-folded children of hell. We can't discern those
things, see? Those who are spiritually dead.
They're called bitter sweet and sweet bitter. The natural man,
the scripture says in 1 Corinthians, discerns not the things of the
spirit. He can't discern them. He's confused.
He's confused. You tell him, talk to him about
the gospel, he gets confused. That's why the Greeks said it's
foolishness. He said it's foolishness because he's confused. He's confused
about it and he can't put it together, so he calls it foolishness.
And a religious man, he's not going to bow to Christ's righteousness,
because he wants his own. He wants his own bragging rights,
is what he wants. That's what he wants. Lazarus couldn't hear any longer.
He could not hear the weeping and sorrow that was going on
around him. He couldn't hear it. A fallen man cannot hear
the words of God anymore. Our Lord said this in John 8.
Why do you not hear my speech? Even because you cannot hear
my words." You can't hear the message because you can't hear
the words. Spiritual death, which comes
from being spiritually dead. God speaks once, it says this
in the Scripture. God speaks once, he ain't twice,
yet man perceives it not. He doesn't know that God is speaking.
God's in sin. I watched a thing on TV the other
day, an eyewitness video where some of these guys were faced
with a fire out in Wyoming. And I mean, this thing was coming
down on them, and some of them, they escaped it. And this one
guy said, Boy, we were lucky. God speaks once, twice. How many times has God brought
a man back from destruction? How many times has God delivered
a man from being absolutely put away, and he says, I'm lucky? The man perceives it not. Brings him back from the grave,
and he doesn't perceive what's going on. He's dead. He's dead. He can't perceive God speaking.
Then Landis was dead for four days when our Lord came to him,
and he's stinking. He's stinking. He's none the
better. You know, this thing started
out living 900 years, Adam and Methuselah, 900 and some years.
It didn't get any better. Then it went down about 120 years,
and it went down about 70 years, and it keeps going down. But
one day it'll be over with. Time doesn't make us better.
Time does not make us better. It makes us older and weaker.
And we can't do some of the things we used to do, but it sure doesn't
make us better. old heart is still that old heart.
It never changes. Never changes. Then Lazarus lost
all that he had, plus all the knowledge he had acquired. He
lost it all. He did. In Adam, we lost the knowledge
of God, the way to God, and the life of God. We lost it all.
We did not retain any of it. You watch You watch the news
and even the weather we were talking about last night, you
watch and you say, they don't give God the glory of any of it. God's
name is never mentioned. They don't know who he is. We
lost the knowledge of God. As far as this world is concerned,
God is non-existent. As far as this world is concerned,
we lost the knowledge of God, who he is. And we don't give
God the glory for anything. Now, look at Lazarus's place.
Lazarus used to live in a comfortable home. He used to have a pretty
comfortable home, be able to rest, have some peace and comfort.
But now he lies in a grave among the dead. They put him out there
among the dead now. You see, we used to live in God's
Eden. with excellent surroundings, but now we dwell in sin and corruption
and death. Death all around. Corruption
all around. Sin all around. All around. If it wasn't for sin, we wouldn't
even have news channels. Wouldn't even need them. It's all around. Then Lazarus
used to have a place in Bethany. You know what that means, Bethany?
House of Obedience. It means house of obedience.
He used to live in a house of obedience, but he's now cast
forth out of the city. They said, get him out of here.
He stinks. He's dead. Take him out of here.
You see, we used to have a place in God's heaven, but we in Lazarus
were cast out. What did our Lord say in John
14? I go and prepare a place for you. We don't have a place
anymore by nature. When our Lord said, I'm going
to prepare a place for you, he said, I'm going to prepare a
place of acceptance for you. We lost it. We lost it in Adam. We used to have it, then we lost
it. But Christ said, I'm going to prepare a place for you. And
after I've prepared a place, I'm coming for you again and
take you back to that place. We lost our place in Adam. We
used to have that place, but we lost it in Adam. Then notice in verse 4, Christ
allowed Lazarus, and this one really caught my attention too.
Look at verse 4, 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. He allowed Lazarus to die on
purpose. Now, he could have commanded
that he not die right there. He didn't have to go. But he
let him die. He let Martha and Mary go through
that sorrow and heartache, and he stayed on purpose away and
let him die. And he said this death is not
eternal. It is for the glory of Christ. It is for the glory of the Son
of God. God allowed Adam to die on purpose. He let her down. He could have stopped that. But
you know, we would never know the fullness of God's love, God's
mercy, God's grace. We'd never know it. There'd be
a side of God we wouldn't know. Not in His fullness. Christ would not be exalted in
His fullness as He's going to be when it's all said and done. God allowed this to happen on
purpose that those of his children are going to know him in the
fullest sense of the word in every attribute he has. In every
attribute. And the Son of God is going to
be glorified. I mean glorified, better by it.
We're going to sing, Worthy is the Lamb, and we're going to
mean it. And we're going to sing it with heart, and we're going
to sing it with expression. Worthy is the Lamb. Now let's
look at Lazarus' hope and our hope. Let's look at his hope.
We've worked on his death and how bad he is now and his condition
and our condition by nature. Let's look at his hope and our
hope. One word, Christ. One word, Christ. Our hope is a person. That's
what Paul said there in 1 Timothy 1, Jesus Christ, our hope. He's
our hope. There was no hope for Lazarus
in the ordinances. He's dead. A dead man's hope
is not in baptism. You can baptize him all you want,
and all you'll have is a wet dead man. He will not give life. He won't be any better. He won't. He'll just be dead. There was
no hope for Lazarus in the church. All they could do was mourn.
They just stood around and cried. That's all they could do was
cry. They couldn't do anything for him. They're not going to
give him out of purgatory. They're not going to do anything. It's a
cry over him. He's weak. There was no hope
for Landrys in the church at all. There was no hope in his
past good works. If there was, don't you think
Martha and Mary would have mentioned him? They said, Lord, he whom
thou lovest is sick. They didn't say he whom has kept
you in his house and fed you. They said, Lord, the one you
love is sick. Here is where we find our hope,
in the one who loves us. He said in 1 John, herein is
love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave his
Son for us, gave his Son to die for us. That's love. That's genuine
love. And besides, there's no blood
in our works. The Scripture says The scripture
says it's the blood that makes atonement for the soul. So we
couldn't even mention works here. It's the blood that makes atonement
for the soul. Our hope of life and forgiveness
is in Jesus Christ. Our hope is in who this man really
is. Who is this man, Jesus? Who do
they say that I am, he said? He's God in human flesh, that's
who he is. I told that to a person one time,
they said, I didn't know that. And this person claimed to be
a Christian. They proclaimed to be a believer, you know. I
never heard that before. He's God in human flesh. That's
who he is. God incarnate. Let all the Pharisees,
let all the scribes, let all the priests, let every one of
them walk up to the grave and say, Lazarus, come forth. Nothing
happens. Nothing would happen. Not a thing
would happen. Just like those guys on Mt. Carmel
Center. pleading to their God, praying
to their God, and nothing happened. I mean, they was cutting herself,
they was doing all kinds of ridiculous things, and nothing happened. But let the God-man, let the
God-man, Christ Jesus, walk up to that tomb and say, Lazarus,
come out of there, and he's going to come out. He's going to come out. I'll
tell you what's going to happen. Life is going to happen. Just like God said in the beginning
of creation, he said, let there be light, and there was light.
There was no refusal of it. There was no struggle. The light
didn't struggle with the darkness. The light just bursted in. And then he commanded the life,
and he commanded the trees and the animals, and all this stuff
happened. And the same God walks up to
that grave and said, Lazarus, come out of there. And he comes
out. Life happens. Life is going to happen. He said,
I have power. Our Lord said, I have power to
give life. I have power to give. It's mine
to give, because I am life. Jesus Christ is the appointed
and anointed Messiah, chosen of God from all eternity to be
the Savior of sinners. It says this in Isaiah 42, Behold
my servant whom I have chosen. Behold my servant whom I have
chosen. He only has the right and the power to raise the dead.
That's why he said to Martha, Mary dear, I am the resurrection. He's got the power to do it,
and he has the right to do it because of who he is. And he's
our hope in what he did for us. He robed himself in flesh. He
lived the perfect life of righteousness for his people. I had never heard
that until I heard Henry preaching on television. I'd heard of Jesus
Christ dying on the cross, but I'd never heard of him living
that perfect, righteous life to God's law for me, for those
whom he represented. You know, I need that righteousness
as much as I need that death. You can't separate them. You
can't preach one without the other. He lived a perfect life of righteousness
in thought, word, and deed. He loved God like I ought to
love him. He loved his neighbor like I ought to love him. He
loved you like I ought to love you. He was obedient as I ought
to be obedient, not only outwardly but inwardly. Thought, word,
and deed. That's the way he did it. That's
why the Scripture says, You are complete in him. I don't lack
anything. In Christ I lack nothing. We
have in Christ that righteousness that we so desperately need to
stand before God accepted. I have it in Christ. I don't
have to go out here and work for it. I don't have to do this
and do that. I have it in Christ. God's given
it to me in his Son, because I could never produce it anyway.
I could never produce it. He has set us free from the curse
of the law and the sting of death by being made a curse for us.
God's Son was made a curse for us. Made a curse for us. He gave
himself for our sins. He actually and really gave himself
for our sins. He died. He was not a martyr.
He was a sacrifice. He was a sin offering. Never
preached Christ or never witnessed Christ as being like some martyr.
He's a sacrifice. He's a sin offering. Christ,
by his death, has enabled God to be both just and justifier.
He's enabled him to be a just God and a Savior. Christ comes
to us and meets us where we are. I want you to notice this. He
said, I'm glad for your sakes that I was not there to the intent
you may believe. Nevertheless, let's go to him. He said that he's going to meet
him where he's at, and he's going to meet us where we are. in our
sin, our corruption, our death, our deadness, he's going to come
to where we are. He said, let's go to him. He's
not going to come to us. Let's go to him. And that's what we
do, even as a church. We go out with the gospel, preaching,
and God commands Lazarus, he'll command this one and this one
and this one by his gospel to come out. And then, last of all, I'll close.
He's our hope and where he is, seated at the right hand of God.
You know, my hope is seated at the right hand of God. That's
where my hope is, seated at. It's seated right at his right
hand. The place of acceptance, the place of power, my hope is
seated right there. Right there it's seated. Christ
reigns as monarch over all things and over all principalities.
I don't have to be all Torah about this world. I wish I could
learn to do that more and more. It's all under his control. It's
all under his power and authority. Nothing happens that he has under
his thumb. He reigns over all of it. As
a king, he rules in the hearts of his people and over the hearts
of the wicked. And there, at God's right hand,
at the right hand of the Father, he makes intercessions for us.
He makes intercessions for us. He prays for us. You know, I
enjoy when I hear somebody pray for me before I preach, and people
who lift my name up to God in prayer, but not like I enjoy
when I think about him praying for me. He said, Father, I know
you always hear me. I know, he said, you always hear
me. And last of all, he's our resurrection. He said, because
I live, you're going to live also. She said, I know he'll
rise again in the resurrection. She's talking about Levant. He
said, you missed it. I'm the resurrection. It's not
Levant, it's a person. He said, I'm the resurrection.
And I'm not looking for an event to happen. I'm looking for the
resurrection to come and take us back. Okay, I'll dismiss this
in prayer. Let's stand. Father, we thank you. We thank
you for Christ and all that you've given us in Christ. We give thanks.
Enable us to worship you. Enable us to know you. Lord,
unless you give life We will die. We will spend eternity in
hell. We know that life is yours to
give, and we look to you for it. We know that we are born
into this world dead, and we know that the only hope we have
is the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we pray that you would
bless us this day. Enable us to think upon you. and nine-man.