This way, the question is often
asked, why did the Lord, in His infinitely wise and eternal purpose,
why did He determine that this matter of man's guilt and sin
should enter into the world? I've been asked before, couldn't
God have prevented that And the obvious answer is yes, He could
have prevented it, if it had been His will. Why then would sin enter into
the world and thereby defile all of Adam's race? And I would answer it this way,
I'm no theologian, but after studying the Scriptures, I would
answer it this way, Adam's fall, it happened because that's the
only way grace could be made known. That's the only way God's
mercy through Christ Jesus could ever be put on display. The justifying grace of God,
you see, would be unnecessary if Adam had not fallen, if Adam
had not sinned, there would be no need for grace. There would
be no need for forgiveness. There would be no need for the
entrance into this world of the Son of God. There would be no
need of His substitutionary death. Why? What need would we have
of righteousness in Christ Jesus if we still had the righteousness
of unfallen Adam? We wouldn't need it. Why would
we need forgiveness if in Adam we hadn't sinned? Why would we
need to be resurrected from spiritual death if we hadn't died in Adam? You see, the only way that God
could fully set forth His grace was against the backdrop of man's
guilt and man's corruption and man's sin. The only way we would
need a bath in the blood of the Lord Jesus is if we become filthy. The only reason we would ever
need a remedy for our corruption would be if it was by becoming
diseased by Adam's fall. I can't begin to understand the
ways of God, but I know this, somehow in the covenant of grace,
both man's fall and that great recovery of a multitude of those
who fell in the fall of Adam, that was all ordained by God
and was to the praise of the glory of His grace. I know that. You see, God's greatest glory
is in the salvation of sinners. We know creation manifests the
glory of God. Some of us noted how wonderful
moon looked last night. Wasn't that beautiful? What a
beautiful, big, full moon. I read somewhere it's the biggest
it'll be this year. I don't know. I hope everybody
else on planet Earth enjoyed seeing a big, full moon last
night wherever they were. But that manifests the glory
of God. But not fully. Not fully. We know that God rules all things. He brings everything to pass
by His providence. What is providence? It's God
bringing to fulfillment or to pass that which He has predestinated. And that's to the glory of God. Every single thing. And this
just... Somebody says, I can't wrap my
mind around it. Well, of course you can. But
I tell you, somehow or another, our God rules over every single
thing that ever happens in this world at all times. At all times. Big things, little things. Significant
events, insignificant events. Everything in your life, everything
in my life, God has ordained them all and now He's bringing
them to fulfillment. by His wise counsel and His mighty,
mighty mercy. But God's greatest glory is not
seen in creation nor in providence, but it's seen in salvation. In salvation. That's where you
see the love of God. I know you look, this morning,
we had to go out quite early to get some blood work done,
going up 23 toward Bellefonte Hospital. And I tell you, everything
was just sparkling, beautiful, as the mist, mist off the river,
froze on bushes and trees and grass. The sun was shining. It was just wonderful. It was
just absolutely spectacular. What a wonder. And Nancy and
I both remarked about it. I said, the Lord made that. This is some of His great handiwork. And I'm thankful for that. But
you can't find anything but the love of God from that. Can you? Well, certainly you can't. I
was talking about the big full moon last night. It was wonderful. I enjoyed looking at it. But
you can't find anything about how God saves sinners by looking
at the moon. I had somebody told me they got
a camera with all those high powered things and take pictures
of it and see everything, all this stuff on the moon. That's wonderful. That's great.
But you can't find anything about the grace of God by looking at
the moon. You can't find anything about the love of God by observing
the beautiful snowfall. We learn these things in the
gospel. And the gospel is wonderful and
glorious on account of the fall. You see, it's against the backdrop,
the black backdrop of man's fall. That's where we see the diamonds
and the gold and the riches of God's grace in Christ Jesus.
And there would be no necessity for that if there wasn't sin. I remember Christmas of 1968. I decided I'd buy Nancy a little
pre-engagement ring. I worked at Dairy Queen, didn't
make a lot of money, but I was a night manager and I was all
the way up to a dollar an hour at that time, making good money
for somebody in high school. I went to the local jewelry store
where one of the ladies in the church worked. And I told her,
I said, and her name happened to be Nancy as well. And I said,
Nancy, I want to get my girlfriend a pre-engagement ring. She unfolded
this black, I can't think what, what's the
word? Felt, thank you. Felt. unfolded
that, put it out there, and she said, sure Jim, look at this
one. And I'm telling you, those diamonds,
I know you needed a magnifying glass to see them just about,
but they just sparkled. They looked so beautiful against
the backdrop of that black felt. And you see, that's the way the
grace of God, the love of God, the substitutionary death of
the Lord Jesus, God's great salvation, we can only see the wonders of
it and the beauty of it and the majesty of it when put against
that black backdrop of our sinfulness. Here in John chapter 11. Why did Lazarus die? And we've
already talked about the fact that he died so that God would
be glorified through the Lord Jesus being glorified in the
resurrection of Lazarus. Lazarus died so that the disciples
as they witnessed the resurrection of Lazarus, their faith in the
Son of God would be increased. And then he died and he was raised
from the grave so that others would come to believe upon the
Lord Jesus Christ. But another reason was this. Lazarus died because that's the
only way that our Lord Jesus could be. seen and known as being
the resurrection and the life. You see, where there is no death,
there is no need for resurrection. Where there is no death, there
is no need for life. In order for the Lord Jesus,
who is Himself the life, He said, I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm
the life. In order for Him to be seen as
the life, there has to be that backdrop of death. And with death before them. Death before the disciples. Death
before Martha and Mary. Death before all the neighbors
and friends of Lazarus. Against the backdrop of death. Our Lord Jesus raised Lazarus
from the dead and then they knew. They knew exactly what He meant
when He said to Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. That's the only way they could
know. The only way they could know. In order for our Savior
to manifest His glory in defying death, in ordering death to give way
to life, Lazarus had to die. And then our Lord, He summons
Lazarus back from the dead. He will say, as we will study
as we get deeper into this, our Lord will say there before all
the friends and neighbors and family members of Lazarus, He
will say, Lazarus, come forth. And He will come forth. But if
He hadn't died, the wonders of the Lord Jesus, the glories of
the Lord Jesus, the majesty of the Lord Jesus, the authority
of the Lord Jesus that could not have been seen. None of those
things could have been seen or experienced except for Lazarus
dying. Now, there's beautiful pictures
here in the darkness of this death. There's
a picture here, a figure of another death, spiritual death. This
is a physical death. But that picture is another kind
of death, spiritual death. All men are dead in trespasses
and sins. The wages of sin is death. But
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Every man is born spiritually dead. spiritually dead in the
day that Adam sinned against God, he died. And the thing of
it is, he died not as a private individual. That'd been bad enough. But he died a death of representation. Because when he died, that's
when we died. That's when everybody in the
human race died. He was the head and public representative
of his race. It's just like if you go out
here and cut down a tree. In the summertime, it may have
thousands and thousands of leaves on that tree. And you don't even
touch them. But you just cut that, you put
that chainsaw in there like brother Larry Smith does to many a tree. And you cut that tree down whenever
you cut that trunk. You sever the life of it and
thousands and thousands of leaves, you couldn't even count them
all. But something happens to them immediately. Their life
source is gone, it's severed. Death, death affects everything. Throughout the tree. And that's
the way it was with the fall of Adam. When Adam died, he dragged
every member of the human race down to the grave with him. We're
all a bunch of spiritual corpses. And the Scripture says in Ephesians
4.18, we're alienated from the life of God. That's us. That's
us in Adam. We're alienated from the life
of God. We're spiritually dead. Oh, I
know we're alive toward the world. We're alive toward the things
of the world. We're alive toward self. Everything that has to
do with self, we're very much alive. We're alive toward sin. And we're even alive toward religion. We're alive toward religion,
false religion. but we're dead toward God. And a preacher can get up and
preach to us. When we're in our deadness, he
can get up and preach to us about the beauties of Jesus Christ
and the perfections of Jesus Christ and the redemptive work
of Jesus Christ, the blood of Jesus Christ, the righteousness
of Jesus Christ, how he conquered death, he conquered Satan, he
conquered the world, he conquered sinfulness, he's gone back to
glory and taken his position on high. He's the lovely, ever-glorious
Son of God. We can preach Jesus Christ as
loud as we can and as boldly as we can. But a man who's dead
in trespasses and sins won't mean anything to Him. Not as long as he's dead. Or
we can preach the anger of God, the wrath of God, the justice
of God, the judgment of God. We can preach on hell. We can
tell sinners if you die without Jesus Christ, you will perish. The Savior said where I am, you
can't come if you die in your sins. But you know what? That
doesn't move anybody either. That doesn't move a dead man.
That's the reason we say if the only words you hear are the words
of the preacher, You know me better off. You see, the religious world
thinks that with wisdom and diligence, we can kind of fan a spark of
life that is within everybody and it will be fanned into a
roaring flame. But that's not right. because
we don't have a spark of life within us. We're dead. We're lifeless. We're as lifeless
as Lazarus was. I know I spoke to a person some
time ago about being spiritually dead, and this dear lady, she
took Ishi with me. about men being dead in trespasses
and sins, and I just quoted some verses. Listen, just quote the
Scripture to people. Use the Word of God. I know men
lack understanding, but you can't reason people into the Kingdom
of God. Right? You can't reason them
into the Kingdom of God. Use the Word of God. The life
is in the Word. Christ said, My words, they're
Spirit. their life. And I quote her these
verses. She said, I just don't think
man is that dead. Well, what is that dead? What do you mean by that dead?
You're either dead or you're alive. There's no such thing
as being that dead. There is an absence of life.
Where there is an absence of spiritual life, there's death.
And where there is life, there isn't any death. But there isn't
anything in between. In between. That's why we need
to be born again. We have to be given life. You
want to know what has to be imparted to the sinner? Life. Life. God's got to give us life. Because
there's an absence of life. Poor Lazarus, he had been dead
when the Lord Jesus got there and he delayed getting there
on purpose When he arrived, and I just read it to you, he had
been in the grave. Lazarus had been in the grave
four days already. There was no doubt. He was dead. The Jews had a belief, and some
of the people did, especially from heathen countries, that
the soul kind of hung around, the spirit kind of hung around
the body for three days, and then it's gone. Well, our Lord
took care of that because He waited until Lazarus had been
dead four days. Four days. There's an absence
of life. He had to be given life, and
that's us. That's us. We have to be given
life. If we were only a little spiritually
diseased, Maybe a remedy could be given to us, but we're not
just a little spiritually diseased, we're dead. We're dead. Which is why some
people, reasoning, they use logic. They say, well, if we're just
a bunch of spiritual corpses, what's the use in even speaking
to us about the things of God? What is the use of even preaching? Why should you preach to spiritually
dead sinners? Well, I'll give you two reasons. First of all, God said do it.
I really don't need any more. Right? That's enough. The Lord
said to Ezekiel, took Ezekiel out there in the wilderness Took
him to a place where there had been a great battle. Fought. Warriors died. Just like great
battle was fought in Genesis chapter 3. And Adam died and
everybody he represented died. That's all of us. And the Lord
said to Ezekiel, son of man, can these bones live? He said, Lord, thou knowest.
You know what the Lord said to him? Preach to them. And the natural man, even in
religion, said, well, that's the most foolish thing I've ever
heard in my life. Preach to dead bones? That's
what the Lord said to him. And that's the reason we get
up and preach. even though I know full well
that my words have no authority, no power to raise anybody from
the dead. But the Lord said, go forth,
preach the Word. Preach the Word of God. That's what we did. That's what
Ezekiel started doing. He just went out there and started
preaching. I expect there were some people who said, I think
he needs to retire. He's lost his mind. What do you
mean? Well, you know that preacher
Ezekiel? You remember years and years ago, hearing people talk
about that battle that was fought out there, and they didn't even
bother to bury the soldiers, and their bones are out there,
been bleached by the sun, the sand blowing over them? Yeah,
I remember people talking about that big war. I tell you, that
preacher's out there preaching them bones. That's what we do. That's what
we do. Why preach? Because the Lord
said do it. And the second reason we do it is because there's life
in the Word of God. Herein lies the power. I can't
raise the dead, but if the voice of the Son of God and His Word,
the dead will live. They will live. And Ezekiel began
to reach, and the bones began to come together. But still,
once these all come together, they didn't have any life until
the Spirit of God breathed upon them. Breathed upon them. And that's what we always ask.
Lord, breathe, breathe upon the bones that they may live. Why
is it that you live spiritually? You're no better or smarter than
anybody else. There have been others smarter
than you and me, a higher IQ and that sort of thing. That's
not the reason we live spiritually. We live spiritually because the
Spirit of God took the Word of God, the living Word, the living
seed. The life of God came into the
soul in a miraculous way, in a spiritual way, and all of a
sudden, the dead is made to live. We're dead no longer. I'm not
preaching to dry bones now, not to you folks. I'm preaching to
living, breathing army, army that follows Christ Jesus, our
commanding officer. And we're engaged in a battle
every day against the world. But in Christ Jesus, we're more
than conquerors through him that loved us. That's why we preach. Lazarus was dead. What a tremendous
spiritual lesson here. But you know, When our Lord Jesus spoke of
the death of Lazarus, he worded it this way in verse 11. Our
friend Lazarus sleepeth. That's the title of the message. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth. And the disciples of our Lord
Jesus like ourselves, were oftentimes spiritually dull. A lot of times we just don't get
it. And they didn't understand what
the Savior was speaking about. Because their immediate reaction
was, well, if He's sleeping, that's what He needed. He needed
to go to sleep and rest. because they thought the Lord
was speaking about Lazarus taking or getting rest through sleep.
Then he just said to them openly in a way that they could understand. And you know, our Lord, he knows,
he knows that we're A lot of times kind of foggy and have
a hard time coming through to us. He spoke in a language they
could understand. And he said, well, let me just
put it this way. Lazarus is dead. But I'm going. I'm going. Let's all go. Thomas said, well,
let's go and die with him. Sleep. Sleep. The death of a believer is oftentimes
in Scripture likened to sleep. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15,
and I'm sure you know this passage quite well, it's a passage that
I often read at the grave site. Behold, I show you a mystery.
We shall not all sleep, but we all shall be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, what's he talking about? He's talking about the
death of this body. Now understand this, when this
body dies, and to use our Lord's language, when this body falls
asleep, The soul goes back to God who
gave it. The soul is the life of the body. I've often said this, we are
a soul and we have a body. See, a lot of people, they'll
say something like this, you know, we have a soul. I have
a soul, you know. I beg your pardon. You are a
soul and you have a body. Your soul has a body. Your soul
has somewhere to dwell in. But when this body, when the
soul vacates the body, then the life of the body is gone. And our Lord says, for a believer,
falls asleep, falls asleep. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 4,
our Lord speaking through the Apostle Paul, speaking concerning
those who had died in the Lord Jesus. He said, I would not have
you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep. Asleep. Their bodies are going
to be awakened someday. You see, with Lazarus, To use
our Lord's language, his body had fallen asleep. The Savior
goes to Bethany to awaken his body. To awaken his body. And he will say, Lazarus, come
forth. Literally. Lazarus, wake up. Wake up, Lazarus. And then the
soul that had gone back to God, the soul that enjoyed the wonders
and the beauties of everlasting paradise. I don't know how the
message was conveyed to Lazarus, but word came back, came to Lazarus,
maybe by an angel. The master says, you must go
back. And back he went to inhabit that
body. Sleep. Sleep. You know, when we think of sleep,
falling asleep, we'll go home tonight, Lord willing, fall asleep. It's not a fearful thing. Solomon says sleep is wonderful. It's good for a working man.
It refreshes the body. And death to a believer. It ought not be to us a fearful
thing. The body is just going to fall
asleep. Because, I'll tell you this,
sleep is perfectly harmless. You go home tonight, you fall
asleep. There's nothing to be afraid of. Nothing to fear. Much to be thankful for. Sleep. Sleep is a friend. It isn't a
foe. And so it is with death for a
believer. It is a friend. It isn't a foe. Death doesn't come to a believer
with a fierceness to snatch us away and put us into a place of torment. No, death comes
for us. It says the Master wants you. It's time to go home. Death comes
accompanied by a host of angels. Nothing fearful about falling
asleep. And for the child of God, the
sting of death is gone. The sting of death is gone. Sin has been dealt with by our
Savior. Therefore, death doesn't have
a sting. It's been removed. Christ died. He bore our sins. He bore them
away. No need to be fearful. It's just
falling asleep. I'll tell you something else.
Sleep comes as a welcome relief after the sorrows and the toils
of the day. Sleep is a merciful provision
for our bodies from God. And I'm sure it's not appreciated
as much as we ought to appreciate it. A welcome relief. Lots of God's people go through
toil, they suffer, some for years, and then they're going to fall
asleep in Jesus, and all toils will be over. All sorrows will
be over. No more tears. No more sadness. Here's the big thing. No more
sin. No more sin. Can you imagine? Everything that has to do with
sin is gone. Everything that sin brings us,
no more. It's gone. A welcome relief. And I'll tell you something else
about sleep. When we go home, go to bed tonight, in sleep we
lie down to rise again. Kiss your wife goodnight. Goodnight,
honey. I love you. See you in the morning. And one of these days, we'll
say to one another, Good night. I love you. I'll see you in the
morning. I'll see you in the morning.
And I'll tell you what, like sleep, it'll all be over before
you know it, just like that. And I'll tell you, I don't sleep
very long, and usually I don't sleep very well. I'm always up
early. But I do enjoy sleep. When I
finally fall asleep, because I'm one of these people that
at the end of the day, I kind of review the day. I'll go home
tonight and I'll go to bed and I'll review this message and
that sort of thing. I'll critique it. I'll take out
my red ink pen and my mind and I'll go through this message.
I just have a hard time getting to sleep. But when I finally
get to sleep, it's a welcome relief and I fully
anticipate God willing to rise again in the morning. Let me
tell you something, when we fall asleep in Jesus, when these bodies,
when God calls the soul home, these bodies will go to sleep
in Jesus, but they will rise again in the morning. In the resurrection morning,
it will rise again. And I'll tell you, we know that
sleep is a time of rest. What sweet repose. Especially
if you've been working, and most of my work is mental work. Physical work, a lot of you folks. Say, I am so tired, I've just
got to go to sleep. And the work of the day is exchanged
for a sweet repose. No wonder the scripture says,
blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth,
that they may rest from their labors. Rest from their labor. We labor against sin, we labor
against the world, we labor against Satan, but someday the labor's
coming to an end. And I'll tell you something else,
sleep shuts out the troubles of life. Go to sleep with something on
your mind, some trial, some trouble, whatever it is. You finally doze
off. You're free from it for a while.
You know what I'm talking about. For a little while. And then
you wake up and maybe it all comes back to you. But for a
little while, you're kind of unconscious of
the things that are going on around you. That's the way it will be in
death. When this body goes to sleep
in the Lord Jesus, we won't know anything about tears anymore.
Won't know anything about hurting anymore. Won't know anything
about difficulties anymore. And you know, I was thinking
about this. When this body goes to sleep,
when the Lord wakes this body up, It will be a sweet thing and
be an easy thing for him to do. This morning, I already said
we had blood work had to do at the hospital, just routine. And
I woke up early, like I usually do. And Nancy kind of stirred
and said, wake me up at 6.30. I said, OK. So I get up, get
in my shower and stuff, get me a cup of coffee and get the paper
and read the paper. And I went in, I said, time to
wake up. She said, OK. You know how it
is. Time to wake up. With what ease, I awakened her. And you know, when the Lord Jesus
wakes up these bodies, it'll be an easy thing for Him to do.
even though there will be millions upon millions of the bodies of
the saints which sleep in the graves. Some of them, they're
just dust, if that exists. But yet, He's the Almighty Redeemer. And He will wake us all up with
such ease. It's time to get up. It's time
to get up. and the soul will come back to
the body. Oh, isn't it wonderful? And then
Job knew a little bit about this by faith. He said, I know that
my Redeemer liveth. And in my flesh, I know worms
are going to devour it, but I know someday in this flesh I shall
see God. Isn't that wonderful? In this
flesh! Because even though it's going to fall asleep one day,
I don't know when, it'll be okay. My soul will go back to be with
Christ Jesus. And one day He's going to say
to all the souls in heaven, all the ransomed, all the redeemed
ones in heaven, it's time to wake everybody up. And He'll
come back with a shout. in the voice of the archangel,
in the trump of God, and the dead in Christ. Those that sleep
in Jesus are going to wake up. My mom, dad, precious loved ones,
brother Abel, he's a believer who's been dead the longest,
right? Brother Abel and all the saints of God from Back then,
all who died in Jesus, going to wake up. Oh, what an easy
thing it would be for the Savior to do that. And I'll give you this. Sleep. We'll go home, go to sleep tonight. That's a time when the body is
kind of getting ready for the duties of tomorrow. That's what
the bodies do. It's going to kind of rejuvenate
tonight. You need rest. The muscles need
rest. You just need to recuperate a
little bit. Get ready for tomorrow. And when we slip away in the
Lord Jesus and our bodies go to sleep, the Lord will one day wake us
up And we'll be ready for the duties of an everlasting tomorrow. And what will be the duties of
an everlasting tomorrow? To worship Him and praise Him
and set at His feet forever and ever and ever. And won't that
be glorious? When we see Him face to face.
In this body I shall see God. That's just a wonderful thought. And He who spoke to us spiritually
and said, come forth. One of these days, even though
these bodies are going to fall asleep, if the Lord didn't come
back soon, these bodies will live again
through the praise of the glory of His grace. The One who loved
us and gave Himself for us. Let's sing the closing song.