...again tonight in John chapter
11. What a marvelous portion of Scripture
this is. Our God, our God-man, our Savior,
God our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, raises Lazarus from the
dead. This was a man who had fallen
sick and died. as we know in this passage. And
he was really dead. Really dead. Furthermore, it
is the eyewitness account of his sister Martha that he had
been dead for four days. Not that he was more dead the
fourth day than he was the first day. But the evidence of death
was there. It was more obvious that he was
dead because Martha said, don't roll the stone away. Being dead
four days, by this time he stinketh. But neither the presence of death
nor the offensive odor of death could hinder the Savior from
accomplishing what He set out to do. That is, glorify the Father
and Himself by waiting till the body had begun to corrupt and
then performing this miracle. The great physician could have
gotten there early and healed Him, Or he didn't even have to
be there in order to heal him. But for his purpose, Lazarus
died. The Lord had already ordained
in old eternity that he die from this sickness. And as God ordained
that he would die from this sickness, God also ordained that that one
who is life would give this man physical life again after four
days. This is a vivid picture of the
miracle of the new birth. What God does for us poor spiritually
dead sinners who stink. We stink. And no question about
it, we're offensive to our God. Our God of whom we read and then
we sang, who is holy, holy, holy. And He deals in mercy with those
of us who are nothing but vile creatures. Sinful, sinful,
sinful. That's us. We're like the old
leper. who had to put a rag over his
face when anybody walked by and he said, unclean, unclean, unclean. That's us. Holy, holy, holy,
unclean, unclean, unclean. That's us. That's us. And yet, the Lord Jesus came
to him in marvelous, quickening mercy. You see, the Lord of heaven and
earth, He has ordained that a people be the recipients of His saving
grace. Yes, as we know, before He ever
made this world, this globe, before He ever made the universe,
God had already set apart a people for Himself, for His glory, the
glory of His grace. These would be the recipients
of His saving mercies. He gave these people in covenant
affection to His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus, who received
us as a gift from the Father. He said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. We were God's gift to Christ
Jesus before He made the world. He gave us in great affection
and everlasting love to His Son who 2,000 years ago left His throne of
glory. He came to this old sinful world. What a stoop! What a stoop! who is the everlasting God, joined
Himself to our humanity. And He left His palace on the
high. He left His standing before the
angels who worshipped Him and adored Him and who worshipped
Him ever since it had been created. They must have been awestruck
when they saw their Creator leave heaven's glory and come down
here to this earth. And of course, they don't understand
God's purpose of redemption. They've sought to look into this
matter of salvation, but there's much of it they don't understand.
But yet, I tell you, when they came into this world, they sang
His praises. They sang his praises. A few
shepherds out there on a hill one night, keeping watch over
their flocks, and suddenly an angel of God appeared to them.
And I tell you, they were afraid. And that angel was, very soon,
he was joined by a multitude of angels. And they were all
praising the name of the one who came down from heaven's glory
to save sinners. He has redeemed us already by
His blood. Before you were ever born, you
were already redeemed. Before you ever drew your first
breath, you were already reconciled to God. I mean, before you came
forth and uttered that first cry, there had already been one
leading to God for you, crying to God for you, and offering
to God that sacrifice that put away your sins. Though you knew
nothing about it, you already had a mediator. You already had
a great high priest. You already had a voice in heaven. A voice in heaven. Not the voice
of an archangel. Not the voice of all of the angels
of God. but the voice of God Himself
who spoke for you even in the covenant of grace. You were heavy on His heart and
on the heart of the Father and the heart of the Spirit as well.
Therefore, the Son of God came into this world on a mission
of love. A mission of love. And by His
death, He separated all of our sins from His people, as far
as the East is, from the West. He saved us. He rescued us. He delivered us from everlasting
condemnation. And He established righteousness
for us so that we have always stood accepted in the Beloved. I don't know, I think some people
are under the thinking that they were accepted in Christ Jesus
when they received the Son of God. That's not when you were
accepted by God. You have always been accepted
by God. You have never been rejected
by God. Oh, you rejected the Lord Jesus
yourself. You had no use for Him, but He
has always accepted you in the Beloved. Ephesians chapter 1
says that. We've been justified by His grace,
justified by His blood, and justified by His righteousness. And this
is all before we ever heard the gospel. And yet there must be a revelation
to the soul of the redeemed ones, of who the Redeemer is, and what
the Redeemer has done for us. We've got to come to know Him.
That's in the purpose of God as well. And so God sends us a preacher. Doesn't matter who the man is,
as long as he's got the right word. It doesn't matter whether
he's a loud preacher or a soft preacher. It doesn't matter whether
he's a loner, preaches out in the wilderness, and doesn't visit
anybody, doesn't go to funerals and doesn't go to weddings like
John the Baptist, doesn't even have a house of worship to preach
in, just preached outside, or whether it's the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is a very public figure, Visited people, sat down and
ate and drank with people. Whoever the preacher is, that
doesn't matter as long as he's got the right message. We get
so caught up in personality, we get so caught up in preachers.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say it, you
know, so-and-so, he's my favorite preacher. He's my favorite preacher. Well, I know there are preachers
who, you know, maybe they come across to us a little clearer. We take a liking to them. Maybe
their personality is we like it, whatever it is. But I tell
you who my favorite preacher is, the man who tells the truth.
That's who my favorite preacher is. The man who's honest with
me. The man who gets up here, or
gets behind the pulpit somewhere, and he tells us who God is, he
tells us what we are, and he tells us who Christ Jesus is,
and what he's already accomplished on the behalf of his people,
that's my favorite preacher. It's the man who's honest with
me. Honest with me. And the Lord's gonna send us
somebody to tell us the truth. Because He doesn't save His people
through the preaching of error. God's not that desperate. He
saves His people. He reveals Himself to His preacher
through the truth. The truth. But now, when we hear the preaching
of the Word of God, the Lord finds us in a spiritual condition
that It does indeed parallel the physical condition in which
he found Lazarus. What was the condition in which
he found Lazarus? Three things, dead, stinking, bound. That's how all of His people,
that's how He finds us. When He comes to us and He's
going to deal with us in sovereign, saving mercy, He finds us this
way. He finds us dead, He finds us
stinking, and He finds us bound, but He doesn't leave us that
way. He doesn't leave us that way. How does he find us? Well, first
of all, he finds us spiritually dead. He finds us lifeless. He finds
us dead in trespasses and in sins. There's an absence of spiritual
life. Where there is no spiritual life,
there are no spiritual actions. And no spiritual actions, therefore,
can ever be performed. We can't repent of our sins.
We can't repent of our idols. We can't repent of our dead works. Dead men and women cannot move
toward Christ Jesus. We have neither the will nor
the ability. We're dead. Our Savior said, no man can come
to me. Don't you say they can. He said
they can't. No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me.
Draw him. Draw him. That's what the Savior
said. He said, and I'll raise him up
at the last day. The dead have neither the will
nor the ability to come to Christ. Our Lord said therefore in John
5 in verse 40, and you will not come to me that you might have
life. The dead don't have a will to
come to Christ. They can't come to Christ even
if they wanted to, which they don't. They don't have a desire
for God's salvation. The dead cannot see, the dead
cannot hear, the dead cannot comprehend, the dead cannot understand
spiritual things. We must be quickened. It seems to me this quickening,
this raising is twofold. Though these two
really are inseparably joined together. Maybe we could put
it this way, the one assures us of the other. So I'll say
this as far as our being quickened from the dead. First of all,
we were quickened representatively through the resurrection of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Look with me in Colossians chapter
2. Look in Colossians chapter 2. Let me read a few verses here.
Colossians chapter 2 in verse 9. Colossians 2, 9. In him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. So he's talking about Christ
Jesus. The third verse, he said, in
this one are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. But
now look in Colossians chapter two and verse number 10, and
you, you are complete in him. which is the head of all principality
and power, in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision
made without hands, and putting off the body of the sins of the
flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism,
wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the
operation, of God who has raised Him from the dead, that is the
same energy, the same energy that raised our Lord Jesus from
the dead. What kind of energy was that?
That's divine energy. That's what kind of energy raised
Him from the dead. That's the kind of energy that
is at work in us creating faith within us. What's it going to
take for a man to believe on Christ Jesus? Well, he's got
to be raised from the dead. There's got to be an operation
of God in his soul, in his heart. To use what Ezekiel says, God's
got to take away from him the stony heart and give him a heart
of flesh. That's what God's got to do.
And look at verse 13, and you being dead in your and your sins. That's what we're talking about,
right? Death, death. And the uncircumcision of your
flesh, and you have he quickened together with him. Not outside of him, not a part
of him, not separated from him. You were quickened together with
him. having forgiven you all trespasses."
Well, when did this happen? Blotting out the handwriting,
verse 14, of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary
to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross,
and having spoiled, having disarmed, having stripped of all power,
these evil things, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over
them in it. You see, when our Lord Jesus
was raised up from the dead, that's when we were quickened.
That's when we were quickened. Here's what I want to get across
to you. This spiritual resurrection This
regeneration, that's how we know it, right? The new birth. Being
born again. It must never be separated from
the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's
vitally joined together. Let me give you another reference.
1 Peter chapter 1. 1 Peter chapter 1. Look at verse 1. Peter, verse
Peter 1, 1. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia, and Bithynia elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you
and peace be multiplied. Blessed are blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His
abundant mercy hath begotten us." Who's the us? The elect of verse 2, those chosen
unto salvation. He has begotten us. again unto
a lively hope, a living hope. How'd he do that? By the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. Don't ever separate the work
of regeneration from our Lord's cross death, His cross death,
and His own resurrection. It's vitally joined together. Let me give you the second thing
quickly. We're quickened individually at the time of the new birth.
Representatively in Christ Jesus. Individually at the time of the
new birth. We must be called. We must be
effectually called. And that comes in the new birth.
You and I know there's a general call that goes out even when
I call. I call you to believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's a general call. But that
doesn't do the work. That doesn't bring you to life. I would use this illustration. Let's say when Lazarus died.
When Lazarus died. And I would assume Martha and
Mary were there and maybe some friends and neighbors. And I've
seen when people die, I've seen Say an individual dies, I've
seen family members drape themselves over the body and say, oh, please
come back to me. Oh, please don't die. And you just grieve with them,
even though we shouldn't go to pieces. But I've seen people
do it and you've seen it. But let me tell you, all that
crying and begging, oh, please come back to me. Is that an effectual
call to come back to life? Well, no. It's just a general
call. It doesn't accomplish anything. It doesn't cause life to come
back. See, when we read the Word of
God, we preach the Gospel, we write, we send out CDs, DVDs,
all these things, whenever we speak, Whenever you speak to
somebody, that is a general call. Oh, believe on Christ Jesus. Oh, come to the blessed Savior. But I don't have a voice that
wakes the dead. Sometimes I can use a voice to
wake those who are asleep. But I don't have a voice to wake
those who are dead. But He does. The Lord does. And through the preaching of
the Word, our Lord raises spiritually dead sinners. He said, you must
be born again. That's what He told Nicodemus. Well, why must we be born again?
We're born dead in trespasses and sins the first time. We're
born wrong the first time. We've got to be made alive. We've
got to hear the voice that wakes the dead. And it's the voice of our beloved
that we hear. It's the same voice that Lazarus
heard. He must speak to us and say,
come forth, come forth. You see, as you look through
the Scriptures, every spiritual blessing is always in Christ
Jesus. Don't ever divorce anything from
Him and His work. Are we blessed with all spiritual
blessings? Yes, we are. In heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. Not outside of Him. Not separated
from Him. Somebody says, oh, the Lord blesses.
Well, if He does, if He has, He's blessed you in Christ because
outside of Christ there aren't any blessings, right? There aren't
any blessings outside of Christ. Are we chosen unto salvation? It's in Christ Jesus. Are we
predestinated to the adoption of children? Yes, it's by Jesus
Christ unto Himself. Are we redeemed? We're redeemed
by His blood. Therefore, we have the forgiveness
of sins. Are we reconciled to God? Yes,
Christ has reconciled us. Are we righteous? We're righteous
in Him, Christ Jesus. We became sinful through the
disobedience of one representative man. We've become righteous by
the obedience of another representative man, Christ Jesus. Everything we need and everything
God requires is in Christ Jesus and that includes spiritual life. Don't separate it from Christ. We read in 1 Corinthians chapter
1, But of God are we in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us, let's
see, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
well, what's that? That's holiness. Well, I need
to quit this and quit something else so I can be a holy person.
Let me tell you something, without holiness, no man is going to
see the Lord. And I would ask you this, is
holiness, is that essential to salvation? You betcha. Then you don't have anything
to do with it. Does that make sense? You don't have anything
to do with it. Who of God has made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, that's holiness, and redemption. It's all in Christ Jesus. From
our election in old eternity, unto our glorification in future
eternity, and including our regeneration, being born again by the Spirit
of Christ, everything is linked to, tied to, in Jesus Christ
the Lord. Man, I wish I could tell that
to everybody. Of course, everybody's not going to listen to it, but
I'd like to say it to a bunch of people. Are we alive to God? Yes, we
must be made alive. We know that without question.
There must be the impartation of life. Look at Colossians again. Gotta have life. God's got to give us life. We're
dead. He comes to us, He finds us the
same way He found Lazarus, dead. Got to be made alive. Well, is
this life that we're given, is it separate from Jesus Christ? Oh no. Oh no. Colossians 3 and
verse 4. Well, look at verse 3. For you're
dead. and your life is hid with Christ
in God. Verse four, when Christ who is
our life shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory.
Who's our life? Christ Jesus is our life. That's
the reason we read Christ in you, the hope of glory. Now this
will never happen. But if the Lord Jesus were to
forsake you and leave you, you know what you'd be? Dead. You'd
be dead again. Right? You'd be dead again. Because
He's your life. He said, I'm the way, I'm the
truth, I'm the life. And if life leaves you, you're
dead. Or you may still be walking around,
but you'd be spiritually dead if Christ Jesus left you. There's
no life without Him, but when He comes, He brings life. He
brings life. So the first thing is, he found
Lazarus dead. Secondly, he found him stinking. Roll ye away the stone, the Lord
said. Martha said, I object. I object. And if we'd been there, we would
have objected too. Because the body of Lazarus would
give off a foul odor. And I'll tell you, that's an
accurate description of us. We give off a foul odor to high
heaven. There's just a stench about us. You know what it is? It's the
stench of spiritual death. It's the stench of corruption. It's the stench of rottenness. Isaiah said, all our righteousness
is filthy rags. That's as the rags of a woman
during her bleeding cycle. We stink. God looked down from
heaven to see if there was any that didn't understand. Any that
did seek Him, He said, they've all gone astray. They've all
together become filthy, and the word is stinking. Stinking. That's why David said in Psalm
38, verse 5, my wounds stink and are corrupt because of my
foolishness. Oh, we put on the perfume of
religion, and we think that makes us smell better. No. Religion ain't gonna make you
smell better to God. Not at all. You know, that passage of scripture,
we don't have time to look at it in Genesis 27. This is when Isaac was his old and
he couldn't have seen. And he told Esau, he said, I
want you to go fix me some of that venison. Like, I love the
way you prepare venison. And he said, and I'm going to
bless you. And the mother of Jacob and Esau
heard what Isaac said, and she went and told Jacob. She said,
I tell you, daddy's ready to pronounce a blessing on your
brother Esau, but we're going to take care of things here.
She said, you go out and get a goat and I'll fix it up. He'll
think it's venison. It'd be the best venison he's
ever had. And then she put on him some
of Esau's garments and scans on his hand. And then Jacob went in to his
daddy Esau, took him something to eat. And Jacob took his hand
and he said, well, the voice The voice is the sound of Jacob,
but you're a hairy fella, just like, yeah, it's Esau. And then he hugged him and he
said, the smell is the smell of Esau. I bless you. Let me tell you something. We
got to have the smell of Christ Jesus about us. That's what we
got to have. And you know what it is that
God smells? The sweet fragrance of his substitutionary
death. When Noah came out of the ark,
the first thing he did was offer a sacrifice to God. And God,
you know what it says? Smelled a sweet smell. You know
what smells sweet to God? Blood redemption. That's what
smells sweet to God. That's a fragrance to God. Oh,
that perfumes all of heaven! And I tell you what, it'll perfume
you too. That's what we gotta have. We gotta have the right smell.
Because we stink as we are. As we are. Turn to Psalm 45. Maybe we got time to look at
this. Psalm 45. I'll be quick. Look at Psalm
45. This is what we got here. Look at
these verses, Psalm 45, talking about Christ Jesus. And I love
to read beginning in verse one. You read it later, but look at
verse six, Psalm 45, six. Thy throne, O God, is forever
and ever. The scepter of thy kingdom is
a right scepter. Thou lovest righteousness. and
hate is wickedness. Therefore God even, therefore
God, thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above
thy fellows. All thy garments, they smell of myrrh and aloes
and acacia out of the ivory palaces. Out of the, you ever heard that
song? Out of his ivory palaces into a world of woe. Christ Jesus
came down here, whereby they have made thee glad. Oh, His
righteousness is so delightful to the Father. And this righteousness
that He established for us, it's like myrrh and aloes and acacia
out of the ivory palaces. Why, this is the righteousness
of God Himself. And I tell you, robed in his
righteousness, we smell good to God. We smell good to God. Yeah, Lazarus, he found him dead. Gave him life. Found him stinking. And then with that life that
he gave him, all of a sudden the smell of death is gone. There's
no smell of death about the people of God. It's the smell, it's
the fragrance of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ Jesus. A
sweet smell to our God. And here's the last thing. Thirdly,
he finds us bound as he found Lazarus. Bound with grave clothes. The Lord Jesus spoke to him,
Lazarus come forth. Boy, what power in that voice.
Scripture says he calls his own sheep by name. Walking out of Jericho, he looked
up in a tree. There's a fellow up there. Who's
going to pay attention to that guy? Only the one who chose him
in the everlasting covenant of grace. He's gonna pay attention
to it. He looked up there and he said,
Zacchaeus! He called it his own sheep by name. Come down. For today I must abide at thy
house. Today is salvation! Come to this
house. And our Lord says, Lazarus, come
forth. add on these grave clothes. And you know, I realize we're
saved, we're converted. Conversion happens by the grace
of God. God gives us life and we believe
on Christ Jesus. But you know, we're continually
being converted because we've still got grave
clothes. Do you reckon you still have
the grave clothes of unbelief? Yes, you do, in case you don't
know. That's a grave cloth that's still
on you. And even the grave clothes of
legalism. I tell you, legalism, Martin
Luther said, you put down You put down self-righteousness and
legalism over here, and it'll raise its ugly head over here.
And that's the truth. I'll tell you how self-righteous
we are. We look at the news and say, how could that idiot kill
all those people down there? I'll tell you how he'd do it.
God just give him rope enough to do it. Be thankful God hadn't
let you live out your vile imaginations. There have been times I bet you've
lost your temper if you'd had a gun in your hand. Watch out. Self-righteous. I don't know
how anybody could ever do that. I tell you what, we do anything God
doesn't restrain us. religious customs, traditions, rituals. The Savior's command is loose
him and let him go. And I'll tell you in Christ Jesus
we have a blessed freedom. We have liberty and we're still
Do you think we've really begun to enjoy our liberty in Christ
Jesus? We're just commencing the beginning
to get started to enjoy that liberty. We're free from the law. Oh,
happy condition! Jesus has bled! There's remission! Cursed by the law! Bruised by
the fall! Christ has redeemed us! Once
for all. Once for all. Yep, he is dead,
he is stinking, and he was bound. And he walked away that day alive,
had the smell of life about him, and unbound, unfettered. Let's go home like that. Let's
go home like that. Well, let's sing a closing song.
What about 474?