He's on his way to the cross
where he will give his life a ransom for many. It is, of course, that time of
the year called Passover. The Son of God made under God's
law was bound to keep and honor all of the precepts of the law,
not only what we would speak of as the moral law, but also
the Levitical law. That is, the ceremonies and the
rituals that God ordained in the Old Testament that pictured
son of God in the work of redemption that he would accomplish. And
so being made of a woman, being made of a woman made under God's
law, he therefore had to keep the laws regarding the feast
days. During the year, three feasts
he had to observe as did all of the males of Israel. And just about everybody in Israel
would go to Jerusalem during these three specific feasts,
the Passover, and of course we know that commemorated that occasion
found in the Book of Exodus when the Lord brought Israel out by
price and by great power. He brought them out by the price
of the blood of the lamb, the Passover lamb, And of course,
he did that by his own power in executing all the firstborn
in the land of Egypt of both man and beast. And our Lord honored
that feast, the Passover. And of course, he himself was
the fulfillment of that Passover, because as we read in 1 Corinthians
chapter four, Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. And so
he always went to the Passover feast. And then 50 days after
the Passover, he would always go to Pentecost. And that was
to remember and observe the first fruits of the harvests of Israel
when the farmers would plant their crops. At Pentecost, they
would get the first fruits, the first pickings of the crops and
honor God and thank God. And then toward the end of the
year, the last feast that the Jews observed was the Feast of
Tabernacles. And that was when they had gathered
in all the crops. And they thanked God for providing
for their forefathers during their wilderness journeys when
they all lived in tents or tabernacles. And they would also acknowledge
the goodness of God in sending them a bountiful harvest. Our Lord Jesus went to all those
feasts, and on one occasion when he was at the Feast of the Tabernacles,
and there was even some among the people as to whether he would
attend the Feast of Tabernacles, but he would be there because
he kept all the law of God perfectly. And he was there speaking to
people, and the scripture says a lot of people believed him.
He had quite the following of people there at the Feast of
Tabernacles, and people gathered around to listen to his teaching.
He was a very powerful preacher, and had such an understanding
of the Word of God like they had never experienced before.
And indeed, the reason he had such an understanding of the
Word of God, because that's His Word. This is His book. And so he taught them with authority.
In fact, they even made mention of this back in the end of Matthew
chapter 7, after he had finished that great message of the Sermon
on the Mount. The people were astonished because
they said, He teaches His doctrine as one who has authority and
not as one of the scribes. The scribes, they based all that
they said upon what the old rabbis said and that sort of thing,
but our Lord Jesus, He spoke with authority, spoke with knowledge. He had an absolute grasp of all
of the truth of God. And they were just amazed as
they listened to him preach, such a powerful preacher, such
a wonderful teacher of the scriptures of God. And so at that Feast
of the Tabernacles, he's busy teaching. And the Pharisees and
the Sadducees, they were irritated even more because so many people
were following him. And so they said to the... at the temple, they had policemen.
And so the scribes and the Pharisees, the religious authorities, they
called the policemen in and said, go and arrest this man. We had
it with his teaching and he's getting a greater following than
we're getting and you go get him. And so he sends the temple
police, sends the cops after him. And so they go, and it's
the last day of the feast of the tabernacles. And on that
day, it was typical for the high priest to pour out a big jar
of water, indicating the feast was over.
And it reminded them of how God, He abundantly provided for them
And during the wilderness journeys, when they lived in the tents,
He provided them water from a rock. And you remember that, water
from a rock. And our Lord Jesus, a high priest,
poured out the water. Our Lord Jesus, on the last day
of the feast, the great day of the feast, He stood and cried
saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. And
out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. And everybody
was listening to him and just kind of hanging on every word. And guess what? The cops didn't
arrest him. And they went back to report
to the Pharisees and to the Sadducees And they came in, and here comes
the policeman in with, you know, in their regal apparel and with
supposedly having the authority of the priesthood. Those guys
who sent him out, they come back in and here's what the chief
priests and the scribes and the Pharisees, all of them said,
well, where is he? Where is the prisoner? And they
said, never a man spake like this man. That's all they could
say. Never a man spake like this man. What an unusual speaker Jesus
of Nazareth was. And his words, his words are
so powerful. They were so significant. They
were so arresting to many people. On one occasion, he even said
this, it's the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing.
He said, the words that I speak to you, the words that I speak
to you, he said, their spirit and their life. It's what he said, what he said. Now of you and me, We've got
to take everything that we say with a grain of salt, right?
Because the scripture says all men are liars. In fact, it says
we came forth from the womb doing what? Speaking lies. That's what it says. You know,
some of you school teachers, I'm sure you, and I know parents
said this to Nancy, you know, My child doesn't lie. Bless your
heart. It got the wool pulled over your
eyes, don't they? Everybody lies. That's just the
way we are. We have a propensity toward lying. That is, we shade the truth. Sometimes we don't, you know,
it's not really abundantly obvious that we lie. But we do lie, and
as we get older, we just get better at it. We're very polished
at it. We can shape what we say, but
here's the bottom line, we're all liars. That's the reason
we read in the book of Ephesians, when after the apostle sets forth
the doctrine of the gospel, He goes and He deals with the lives
of the people of God. He gives instructions to us.
He says, wherefore putting away lying? Stop lying. That's what He says. He says
that to the people of God. You mean God's people lie? Well, you know how we are. And
He says, stop lying. But of the Lord Jesus, He speaks
nothing but the truth. In fact, the scripture says,
let God be true and all men a liar. Our savior always spoke that
which was the truth. All of his words were truthful.
And I want you to think about the boldness of his words regarding
himself. the boldness of his words regarding
himself. He spoke to the people of his
day who were in spiritual darkness, and he said, I am the light of
the world. What a statement for a man to
make. I'm the one who illuminates anybody
who's got spiritual light. I'm the one who gives them that
illumination. I am the light of the world.
That's what he said. He said to a bunch of people
in John chapter 6, He had fed them the previous day, and on
the next day they were following Him, and He said to them, I am
the bread that came down from heaven. I am the bread of life.
What a statement. Oh, how that astonished them.
I'm the bread that came down from heaven. I had a previous
existence, He said. Now, none of us could ever say
that, at least not truthfully. You may be one of those who believes
in reincarnation, that you used to be a frog, and you came back
as a human, and you're going to die, and maybe you go back
to be a frog, or whatever the case may be. But we didn't have
a previous existence except in the mind and purpose of God.
That's all. But ask ourselves, we didn't
have a previous existence, but He did. He said, I'm the true
bread that came down from heaven. You mean you lived before you
were born in Bethlehem's manger? That's exactly what I mean would
be his response. He said, I am the door. I am
the door. By me, if any man enter in, he
shall be saved. He's the door of salvation. There
is no other door. Who else could make that statement? except Christ Jesus. He said,
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. He said he had sheep. Where did
those sheep, where did he get them from? My father gave them
to me, he says. And I'm going to lay down my
life for the sheep. I'll give my life. I'll give
it. Nobody's going to take it from me, he said. I lay it down
of myself. I have the power. I have the
authority to lay down my life. And I have the authority to take
it again. This commandment have I received
from my Father. He said, I am the resurrection
and the life. Martha was so upset because Lazarus
had died. And our Lord is speaking to her
and He says, I am the resurrection and I am the life. There's no
life anywhere else. You look at all of us and you
know what you see? A life that's dying. Right? We have a life that's
dying. Somebody said at the beginning,
when our hearts began to beat, it began a drum cadence that
beats all the way to death, then it stops. Then the drum beat
stops. But our Lord Jesus, He is Himself
life. He has life in and of Himself. You have life that was given
to you. God gave you physical life and
God has blessed many of us with spiritual life, eternal life. But that life came from that
One who is life. He said, I am the resurrection
and the life. He told His disciples, I am the
vine. You're the branches. You draw
your life, your strength from Me. Nobody else could say that. What powerful words those were. And he said to his disciples
regarding, he'd spoken about going away. And Thomas said to
him, Lord, we don't know where you're going and we don't know
the way. Listen up, disciples. Listen
up all of you who want to go where He is. He says, I am the
way, I am the truth, I am the life. No man cometh unto the
Father but by Me. What powerful, authoritative
words are these? And yet they're believable words
because of the One who spoke them. He's the Son of God. And he says to the Jews who didn't
believe him, he says to them, ye believe not. Listen up, here's the reason
you don't believe. You're not of my sheep. You're
not of my sheep. Nobody else could know that except
him. And then he said to that very
same bunch, I and my Father are one. One in will, one in purpose,
one in essence, one in power, one in mind. I and my Father
are one. Nobody could say those words
except Jesus of Nazareth. All of the Jews look back to
Jonah. said, oh Jonah, oh what a special
prophet. He said to them, behold, look,
a greater than Jonah is here. And they said, oh, for the glory
days of Israel when King Solomon was here. Oh, we know how the
queen of Sheba, she made this long journey to hear of his wisdom
and she met him and she listened to him and she said, the half
has not been told. He said, behold, a greater than
Solomon is here. You're looking at him, that's
what he's saying. You're looking at him. If anybody else had said those
words, it'd been horrible. It'd been blasphemy. But when he said those words,
that's truthful. You and I know that we would
do well not to attach too much importance to a man's estimate
of himself. Right? Don't put too much importance
on a man's estimate of himself. He may gloat about his accomplishments,
and we say, okay. Or he may say, oh, I'm just nothing,
you know. That's nothing to me, and it
faults humility. Don't put a lot of weight in
a man's words concerning himself. In fact, the scripture says,
Proverbs 27 verse 2, let another praise thee and not thine own
mouth. Let a stranger praise thee and
not thine own lips. But there's one exception to
that rule, the Lord Jesus Christ. Because everything he said about
himself was true. He spoke about His character.
He said, come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden,
and I'll give you rest. I'm meek and lowly in heart. That's the truth. You want to
know about our Savior's tenderness? You want to know about His lowliness?
He's meek and lowly. in the heart. And he said, you
come to me, you'll find rest for your soul. He is the one who always speaks
the truth. He can't say anything that's
wrong. He made so many statements about himself that the Holy Spirit
recorded for our profit and for our admonition, but really none
was more powerful And none was more important than the words
of my text. John chapter 12. And I want you to look at verse
32. And I want to give you a couple of verses here. John 12, 32.
And remember, these words were spoken just a very few days before
his death. I mean, he's in the final week.
We're in the countdown now. In fact, John chapter 12 finishes
up his public ministry. Chapters 13, 14, 15, and chapter
16, that's when he'll be teaching his disciples. Chapter 17, he's
in the Garden of Gethsemane praying. And then of course, chapter 18
is when he's arrested. And we get into his death, his
crucifixion. So this is right toward the end
of his ministry. And he says this in verse 32,
he says, and I, who's the speaker? the Son of God, the Lord Jesus. He says, and I, if I be lifted
up from the earth, will draw all men, the word men is italicized,
which means that was really put in there by those who translated
the King James Version. For our benefit, he's talking
about that I will draw all, that is all of his people. will draw
all unto me." And then the Spirit of God led John to write the
words of verse 33 to give us an understanding of what Jesus
of Nazareth meant when he spoke about being lifted up. And here's
what the Spirit lays upon John's heart to write, and these are
the words that he inscribed. This, he said, signifying what? Death, that he should die. Now these words reveal the one
who will be lifted up. He says, and I, if I be lifted
up. He uses the word I twice. And
I, if I be lifted up from the earth. He's going to be lifted
up from the earth. Earth wouldn't have Him. Heaven
couldn't have Him. Because He bore the sins of all
of His people in His own body on the tree. If I be lifted up,
this is the Son of God being lifted up. This is the Son of
Man. This is the Lord of glory. This
is the great creator. This is the sustainer of all
men. This is the only savior of sinners.
He says, and if I be lifted up from the earth, this is what
I'm going to do. I will draw all of my people
unto me. I will do it. I will do it. Who else could say that except
the Son of God? These words reveal His reason
for coming into the world, to be lifted up, to be lifted up
on the cross. That expression, lifted up, is
very interesting. Because if you'll take the time
to search the references to lifted up, such as in John 3.14 where
you read a few moments ago, where our Lord Jesus said, as Moses
lifted up, lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have eternal life. That expression, lifted
up, it does, it certainly leaves us with the understanding that
He's going to be lifted up to die. Lifted up on a cross. But
if you look those words up, lifted up, it literally means exalted. I'm going to be exalted. The
Son of Man must be exalted. The Jewish people They saw his
death, and many people saw his death as being the hour of his
greatest defeat. Jesus went through his life doing
good, performing miracles, and treating people nicely, all except
for the religious people, he rebuked them, but he helped so
many people, and this is what he got for his troubles? What
a sad day. What a sad day. It was a sorrowful
thing. But our Lord Jesus looked at
it much differently than others looked at it. It wasn't the day
of His greatest humiliation, though in a sense it was. But
the way he looked at it was, this is my exaltation. This is
the time the Son of Man is going to be exalted. In fact, if you
look back up in verse 23, Same chapter. And Jesus answered
them. He answered Philip and Andrew. He answered them saying, the
hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Not
defeated. Not cast down. This is the hour
of my glorification. When He said in I, if I be lifted
up, will draw all unto Me, He's saying if I be exalted to die
as the substitute of sinners, as that one who satisfies divine
justice, this will be my greatest hour. This is the time that I
conquer. It wasn't His defeat. He didn't
go to the cross of Calvary because He couldn't avoid it, or because
the authorities had all this power over Him. No, He had pointed
toward the cross of Calvary ever since old eternity, ever since
the covenant of grace. This was His intention to die,
to be lifted up. This was the day of His exaltation. You see, all the powers of hell
will be defeated by His cross. All of our sins will be washed
away by His cross. That is His bloody death. That
righteousness that we've got to have, we've got to have to
be justified, to be accepted by God, He's going to bring it
in. How's He going to do that? By
His cross. This is the day of His exaltation. This is the day of His glorification. Everything in eternity past pointed
to this day. In fact, I would be so bold as
to say, based upon the authority of the Word of God, of course,
that of all the events of all of time, from the moment God
started the clock ticking, to the moment that God stops the
clock from ticking and time shall be no more. This event, the substitutionary
death of the Lord Jesus, is the central focus of all of time. Everything points to this. God's eternal purpose of salvation,
what did it point to? It pointed to the time when he
would be lifted up to die. All of the Old Testament saints
of God. What did they look for and who
did they look for? They looked for Messiah. What
did they look for Him to do? Put away their sins. And you
and I today, living in 2018, who do we look to for our salvation? The Lord Jesus. And what event
do we look to that took care of everything regarding our salvation? We look back to an event that
happened 2,000 years ago. You see, the gospel is the declaration
of something that has already happened. Preachers of the gospel
are just reporters. We just report the news. That's
why Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter 53, Lord, who hath believed our
report? I've got a good report. I'm not
doctoring up the report, I'm not inventing the report, I didn't
write the report, I'm just giving the report of Jesus Christ, who
He is, and the fact that He was lifted up to die upon the cross
of Calvary, that God might be just, and the justifier of all
who believe on Him, that He redeemed His people, He reconciled us
to God, He brought in everlasting righteousness, I'm just giving
the report. just giving the report. And there's something about this
report. It has such power. It has such
power that it will draw all kinds of people unto Him. You remember Romans 1 in verse
16, Paul said, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for
it's the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to
the Jew first and also to the Gentiles, for therein is the
righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is
written, the just shall live by faith. Here's the power of
God. And I'm sure you've heard this
before, that word power. is dunamis. That's the original
word. That's the word we get our English
word dynamite from. I'll tell you, such is our spiritual
deadness. We're so hard-hearted, it takes
dynamite. It takes spiritual dynamite to
loosen our grip from all the things of the world and bring
us to see and believe and rest in and trust in and hug up to
the Lord Jesus Christ only. That's what it takes. It takes
divine dynamite. And that's what the gospel is.
It's divine dynamite. And all we do as preachers of
the gospel is we preach Jesus Christ lifted up, we preach Him
exalted. See, He was exalted, He was lifted
up to die 2,000 years ago, and I'm lifting Him up again today,
not to die, but I'm lifting Him up before you. And that's always
the preacher's job. Listen to the words of the Apostle
Paul. He wrote to the Corinthians, he said, I was determined when
I was with you, I was determined not to do anything among you
except this, Jesus Christ and Him crucified." He said, I had
that determination. I'm fixed on this. He said, I'm
settled on this. I'm not going to waver. I'm not
going to change. My subject is Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. Why is that? Well, by divine
mandate. Our Lord said to His disciples,
Go ye into all the world and do what? Build hospitals? It's good for other people to
build hospitals, but that's not our responsibility. Go ye into
all the world and feed the hungry? It's good to feed the hungry,
but that's not the mandate to the church. That's not what we're
called to do. Go ye into all the world and
preach what? The gospel. That which is the
very power of God unto salvation. That's why we do what we do. Others can do other things, but
they can't do this. That's what we do. You see, here we find out who
died. We find out that he is going to be lifted up. This is
the death that he's going to die. And we see the results of
his death. He's going to draw all men to
him. Oh, what magnetism there is in the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And all we have to do is preach
the gospel. It has a magnetic pull upon the
people of God. It's quite amazing, really. There's
nothing short of miraculous that one sinful man could stand before
other sinners who are gathered before Him and set forth Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. And that message grabs hold of
your heart and won't let you go. So much so that you hear other
religious messages and you say, no, that's not it. That's not it. I know they mean
well. I know they're sincere, but that's
not it. It's this message of Christ Jesus
and him crucified. Paul said, moreover, brethren,
I declare unto you the gospel. That's what I declare unto you,
he said. And in this gospel, There is such magnetism, and
I'll just give you a couple of things here, and I'll quit. The love of God is seen in this
gospel, and it has magnetic power. Somebody said love is the strongest
motivator, right? Love is the strongest motivator.
It'll move us when nothing else will move us. Threats won't move
us, but love will move us. And I'll tell you, if somebody
showers their love on you, you can't be mad at them. You can't
mistreat them. They just shower on me with love.
Love attracts love. Love brings forth love. Well,
herein is love. You want to see love? Look at
Christ lifted up. Herein is love. Not that we love
God. Now, we do love God, don't we?
We love Him because He first loved us. But herein is love,
pure love, undiluted love, love that's perfect. Herein is love,
not that we love God, but that He loved us. How do we know? He gave His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. Propitiation, what does that
mean? Satisfaction of God's justice. How do I know God's love for
me? Because he gave his only begotten son to save me. To satisfy his own demands. The wages of sin is death. And
God got death. He got death. As the wages that
I've earned for all of my sins, God got death. It was the death
of a suitable victim, the Lord Jesus Christ. So the Savior, when he died,
he manifested the love of God. There's such a magnetism to that. The world, the religious world,
They talk about the love of God in kind of generalities. Well, God loves you. He has a
wonderful plan for your life. They speak about the love of
God vaguely. The word of God is not vague
regarding the love of God. You see, the only place you can
see the love of God is at Calvary. That's where you see the love
of God. It's in Christ Jesus. You can't know the love of God,
perceive the love of God, understand the love of God anywhere else
except I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men, all of my
people unto me. That's where we see the love
of God. That's where we see the purpose of God come to pass.
Well, sure. That's where we see the very
heart and center of the covenant of grace. And maybe some of you, you're
just learning the things of the Lord. You say, preacher, I hear
you men talk about the covenant of grace, and you talk about
election, you talk about predestination, and I'll tell you, preacher,
those things just go right over my head. Okay, I understand that. We all gotta learn. But when
we talk about God's eternal purpose, we're talking about what God,
before He made the world, determined to do. So you can understand
that. Before you have a big project. Because somebody asked me about
this the other day, asked me about the purpose of God. And
I thought, sometimes I'm afraid I make the mistake. I can't speak
for other preachers. But I think sometimes I make
the mistake of thinking that everybody knows the things that
we've been talking about for years and years and years, and
they don't. And those of us who do understand
these things, we need to be reminded. Here's what God's purpose is.
It's what He determined to do. If you're going to have a big
project, well, you lay out some plans, right? This is what I'm
going to do. Okay, we're going to build a
house. Okay, well I'll just call up, I'll call down here at Lowe's
or somewhere. Bring me some lumber. Bring me
some nails. Bring me some bricks. I'm going
to build me a house. No, you don't do it that way.
It's got to be planned. There's got to be some determination.
This is what I'm going to do. The kitchen's going to be over
here. We're gonna have this many bedrooms and this many bathrooms.
You know what I'm talking about. And before God saved sinners,
He purposed, He designed this entire thing about salvation.
That's what we're talking about when we talk about the covenant
of grace. We're just simply saying God purposed it all out. He determined
what He was going to do. He's going to save a people,
redeem a people, forgive a people, bring a people home to glory,
make a people like unto His Son, the Lord Jesus. They'll be conformed
to His image. That's what it says. And the
way He's going to bring that to pass in a way consistent with
His own law and justice that demanded death for sin was for
His only begotten Son to come into this world and become like
one of us. Sin accepted. Sin was the exception. He's not like us as a sinner.
He's not a sinner. And he grew up under the law,
kept the law perfectly. He loved God with all his heart,
mind, soul, and strength. Loved his neighbors himself.
And then he had to go to the cross of Calvary because the
penalty for our sin had to be paid. And we've already talked
about the penalty is death. That's why he died. To pay the
penalty. To pay the wages. It isn't complicated
and I don't want to make it complicated. I don't want to take away what's
called the simplicity of the gospel. The good news is Jesus
Christ is the Savior of sinners. He's done everything that God
required for all of His people. And the Lord brings us to see
this is the very Savior we need. And the reason we're gonna take
of the Lord's supper this morning is because the Lord Jesus himself
gave us instructions. He said, do this in remembrance
of me. Take the bread in remembrance
of me, of my body broken for you. Think of his body, lifted
up, exalted on the cross. Wounded, bruised, beaten for
us. And that's just what man did
to him. But God made his soul an offering for sin. It was Luther
who said the soul of his sufferings was his soul's sufferings. It
wasn't what man did to him, it's what God did to him. It pleased
the Lord to bruise him. So the bread reminds us of his
body, of his human nature, that he's a man. that God joined himself
to manhood. And the wine reminds us of his
blood. What's it gonna take? What's
it gonna take to save us, to redeem us, to buy us back? It's
gonna take the bloody death of the Lord Jesus. That's simple,
isn't it? Isn't that clear? I hope that's
clear to everybody. And so we take the wine in remembrance
of his blood poured out for sinners. When Joe or whoever poured the
wine out, it wasn't spilled. It wasn't an accident. He did
it on purpose. Poured these glasses, poured
the wine in the glass. It's on purpose. The death of
the Lord Jesus is on purpose. It fulfilled God's purpose and
Christ died on purpose. He gave up His life. He gave
it up. So we'd live. And he who died arose for us. He went back to heaven, he intercedes
for us. And he left this ordinance for
us. He says, now this do, and do
it in remembrance of me. This is not about you, it's not
about me, it's not about the church, it's about him. It's about remembering his death.
until he comes again. So let's sing before we'll