I begin by reading to you a few
verses here from John chapter 1. For in these verses, our beloved
Redeemer is set forth to us as being the light. John says he's
the light. John the Baptist, he went forth
delighted to preach the Lord Jesus, preaching Messiah, after
all he was one who preceded the Lord by six months in his ministry. And he wasn't the light. John
made that absolutely abundantly clear. He wasn't the light, but
he came to bear witness of the light. And that's really the
ministry of every preacher of the Gospel, is to bear witness
to the light. We're not the light. Now I know
that there is certainly a way, a sense in which the Lord Jesus
says of all of his people, of every local church, ye are the
light of the world, but the light doesn't originate with us, but
rather we reflect the light. of the world indeed is the Lord
Jesus himself. He shines the light of the gospel
into us and then we by his grace reflect the light just like the
moon. The moon doesn't, there's no
light originates with the moon but is a reflection of the light
of the sun and so we reflect the light of the Lord Jesus. We give light to those who sit
in darkness but only those only the Lord Jesus Himself can actually
pierce through the darkness and make the light to shine deep
within our hearts. He gives light to those who sit
in darkness and He is the light itself. In fact, we read over
in John the third chapter, if you'll go over just another page
or two, He makes this statement, and the Lord Jesus is speaking
here He's speaking to Nicodemus and as he proceeds with his words
to this ruler of the Jews, he says to this man in verse number
19, and this is the condemnation, that light has come into the
world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds
were evil. For every one that doeth evil,
he hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his
deeds should be reproved." Through these next several chapters,
John is led, John the great apostle is led to present to us the Lord
Jesus who is the light of the world and to prove to us that
He manifests Himself as being the light of the world and yet
the light is rejected. Men had no use for Him. Over
and over again we see that the darkness did not comprehend the
light, didn't understand the light, they didn't realize they
needed the light. There was an ignorance about
their own spiritual condition, about their own absolute natural
depravity. They didn't understand that Messiah
had entered into the world and they didn't know who Jesus of
Nazareth was. They were absolutely in the dark
regarding his identity. And though He manifested Himself
over and over again as being the light of the world, as being
the Messiah, as being the Mighty One of God, by all of His miracles
that He did over and over again, consistently they rejected Him. They had no use for Jesus at
all. Even though there was undeniable
evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God, yet the people,
as it were, they willfully just, they blinded themselves. They
had a natural blindness, and then they just shut their eyes
to that which was obvious before them. that this man, this man
did unusual things. He did things that even Nicodemus
here in John chapter 3 said, no man can do the things that
thou doest except God be with him. And yet the people didn't
believe. Yet they walked on in their rejection
of the Son of God and this is more evidence of man's utter
depravity. And we know their attitude toward
the Lord Jesus was one of enmity. In fact, this is the way the
Lord Jesus summed it up. Go over to chapter 15 of John. John chapter 15. Let me read
three verses to you here. John chapter 15. Our Lord Jesus,
He summed up their attitude toward Him and toward the Father in
these three verses. John chapter 15 and look at verse
22. If I had not come and spoken
unto them, they had not had sin. But now, they don't have any
excuse, is what the word cloaked means. They don't have any excuse
for their sins. They're without excuse. They've
seen all the miracles that He's done. And many of them, as in
John chapter 6, were people who ate of the loaves and the fishes.
He says they have no excuse for their sins. Look at verse 22
or 23. He that hateth me, hateth my
Father also. That's their attitude toward
Him. He that hateth me, hateth my
Father also because He's already established this back in John
chapter 5. He that honoreth not the Son
of God, honoreth not the Father who sent Him. And so now he turns
it around and he says, he that hates me, understand this, you
hate the Father also, because it's the Father who sent me into
the world. I am the bread that's come down
from heaven, the Father sent me. And you reject me, you despise
me, and in despising me, you therefore despise the one who
sent me. But look at the next verse, verse
24. If I had not done among them the works which none other man
did, they had not sinned. That is, they had not sinned
on these specific things. But now they both sinned and
hated both me and my Father. You see, all along through the
Gospel of John, the light has been shining. There's no question
about that. And it's been shining brightly,
brilliantly, gloriously. This is the Son of God. This
is the Lord of glory. This is the miracle worker. This
is the one who raised the dead, who made the lame to walk, the
blind to see, on and on we could go. And yet, though they had
all of these evidences, They didn't believe Him. They didn't
believe Him. And our Lord Jesus now says,
and you know who He's speaking to? He's just speaking to His
disciples. Everybody else is gone. Even Judas is gone when
we're reading here in John chapter 15. These are just the beloved
eleven. These are men who love Him and
He wants them to understand. He's going to even say to them,
listen, they hated Me, they're going to hate you as well. And
He's going to say, don't be shocked by the things that they're going
to do to you, by the persecutions they're going to heap upon you.
Don't be surprised. They hated Me before they hated
you. He's speaking to His beloved
disciples about the attitude of these people who've witnessed
one miracle after another and yet refuse to believe the Son
of God. Now as we go back a couple of
chapters, back to chapter 11, the end of our Lord's ministry
is just about over. This is just about the end of
His public ministry. In fact, it's just about the
end of his life. In just a few days, he's going
to be crucified in order to save his people from their sins. But before he goes to die, there's
going to be another great demonstration of his glory and of his deity. You remember last week we began
a message on this subject. Why did Lazarus get sick and
die? And we said there's at least
a four-fold reason why that happened and then to open the way for
this miracle. First of all, John 11 and verse
4 answers the question. When Jesus had heard that Lazarus
was sick, He said, this sickness is not
unto death. What is it for? That is, the
ultimate end is not going to be death, because we've already
read the story, we've read the end of the story already, and
we know that Lazarus is raised from the dead. So the Lord Jesus
said, this sickness is not unto death. Well, what is the reason for
the sickness then? He says the reason for the sickness
is for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified
thereby. In other words, this miracle
is put on display to show forth the majesty and the glory of
God the Father. as God the Son is glorified. And we said last week, and I
certainly want to kind of drill this into your minds if I can,
the glory of the Father is always connected to the glory of the
Son. And the glory of the Son is always
connected to the glory of the Father. It doesn't say here,
this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God and
for the glory of the Son of God. No, the glory of the Father and
the Son are always connected. They're inseparable. They're
inseparable. That's why the Savior said back
in John chapter 5, He then honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the
Father who sent Him. If you don't glorify the Son
of God, you're not glorifying the Father who sent Him. They
always go together. They go together. And the preceding
chapters, we've witnessed the enmity among the enemies of our
Lord Jesus, the enmity, the anger, the hostility that will ultimately,
it will reach its very apex with the death of the Lord Jesus.
But before He is put to death, according to God's timetable,
there will be another blessed and unmistakable witness to His
glory. And that is the raising of Lazarus
from the dead. Now we have already noted throughout
the Gospel of John that Satan couldn't hinder the manifestation
of the person of our Lord Jesus, though our Lord Jesus met with
constant opposition and vicious hatred. Yet Satan couldn't stop
him and his enemies couldn't stop him. Nobody can hinder the
purpose of God. The Lord says, I will work and
who shall hinder me? Nobody. Nobody will keep me from
doing that which I purpose to do. Now our Lord Jesus was certainly
viciously opposed, but yet none can hinder him from doing the
things that he did. That's the reason we read over
in Psalm 2, Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a
vain thing? Throughout this gospel we have
noted the rage of man against God's Christ. This one God has
exalted. And here our Lord Jesus will
give another wonderful demonstration of His glory. And though many
will be led to believe Him, the vast majority, they will use
this in a negative way to kind of fast forward the time of His
death. All in the purpose of God, of
course. And we know the goal, the end of our Lord Jesus in
coming into this world was to remove the sins of His people. But before that happens, and
that is the miracle of miracles, isn't it? We can talk about the
miracles of our Savior, and we do well to do that, how He manifested
His glory. But indeed, the miracle of all
miracles is that in His death, we see our life. In His sacrifice, in His offering
for sin, we see our salvation. In the Lord Jesus being put to
an awful, cruel death, we see our redemption and our reconciliation
to God. But before that, there were going
to be other miracles that will actually attest to His glory
as well. You remember reading that when
they came to arrest the Savior, He will say to them, and this
is later in the Gospel of John, He will say to them in John chapter
18, when they came, big mob of people looking for Him, He said,
unseek ye. And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.
And He said, I am. Behold a miracle. They all hit
the ground. Who did that? Do you think they
all just upon some indication, okay, let's all just hit the
ground right now. No. That wasn't according to
their will. This is sovereign ability and
might and dominion and the authority of King Jesus. He said, I am. I'm Jehovah. And they all fell backwards.
There's another demonstration of his deity when Simon Peter
cut off the right ear of a high priest's servant. That was Malchus.
Another demonstration of His deity. And there was a wonderful
demonstration of His deity. They went unseen by the eyes
of men. That's the salvation of the thief
on the cross. Who could save that man? Who
could rescue that man but a mighty deliverer? And yet there the
Lord Jesus is in physical weakness, dying on the cross, bloodied
and bleeding. And yet, He has all authority
over spiritual death and darkness, and He brings that man out of
darkness into the marvelous light of the Gospel. The Son, as He
said in Matthew 11, quickeneth whom He willed, and He was willed
to quicken one thief and not the other thief. What a demonstration
of His authority and of His power. And then, of course, there's
his own resurrection from the dead. All of these things gave
evidences of the glory of the Father with the Son, the Lord
Jesus. Now, here's the second reason
why Lazarus got sick and died. Drop down to verses 14 and 15.
So the first reason is for the glory of God, that the Son of
God might be glorified thereby." And here's the second reason,
verses 14 and 15. Our Lord Jesus is speaking to
His disciples, and I'm going to address this next Wednesday
about the death of the believer and the various ways in which
this matter of sleep is a beautiful picture of our death. And our Lord said to his disciples,
Lazarus sleeps, and I go to awaken him. There's nothing fearful
about that, being awakened from sleep. And that's the way we
should view death, and we'll get into that next week. But
the disciples, I tell you, sometimes they weren't very astute spiritually,
and they were sort of dull, You know, kind of like us. Kind of
like us. And they didn't understand. Well,
if he's asleep, he does well. Man, he's been sick. He ought
to get his rest. He needs a nap. And the Lord
said just to them plainly, Lazarus is dead. Lazarus is dead. Verse 14. Now, verse 15, interesting
statement. He said, and I'm glad for your
sakes that I was not there to the intent ye may believe." That's
why he got sick and that's why he died. That in witnessing the
Lord raising him from the dead, their faith would be increased
to the intent that ye may believe. Nevertheless, let us go into
him. These were the men, and we've
been emphasizing this in our Bible class on Sunday morning.
These are the men who are going to go forth after our Lord's
resurrection, after His ascension, and they're going to set forth
the majesty and the beauties and the glories of Christ Jesus. He's going to, up to this point,
he's done all the, up to the point when he called, gave an
apostolic call to the 12 men. He had been doing the preaching
and the healing and the casting out of demons. But then that,
as of Matthew chapter 10, kind of entered into a new phase.
And now he's got a dozen men going out, doing the same things
he's been doing. But He's not going to be doing
these things with them for much longer. Because He's going to
die and be raised again, then He's going to go back to glory,
and then the weight, the weight of setting forth the gospel,
of going in all the world and preaching the gospel is going
to rest upon the shoulders of these eleven men. Judas is the
exception, you understand. And these men have got to have
a faith that is strong. They've got to have absolute
confidence in the message that they preach and the one whom
they preach. In order to go forth into all
the world and preach the Gospel, they've got to be convinced in
their own hearts that the Gospel is indeed the power of God unto
salvation to everybody that believes it. They've got to be convinced
this is the power of God. This is the authority of God.
They've got to go forth being absolutely certain of their message. No questions about it. And I
tell you, their faith needs to be strengthened. because they've
got a big task before them. You remember over in Matthew
chapter 8, the Master led His disciples to go into a boat across
the Sea of Galilee. The Scripture says there arose
a mighty tempest. There arose a violent storm,
but it didn't arise by Luck, bad luck didn't arise by chance.
It didn't arise by virtue of the devil. It arose by divine
providence. For the faith of these men needed
to be tested. And they need to be exposed as
weak. As weak. And he's going to strengthen
their faith. Do you know how faith is strengthened?
It's got to be exercised. That's how faith is strengthened.
Listen, if you ask God, Lord, give me a stronger faith, be
careful. You better be careful. Lord,
give me grace to believe you more firmly. Because in order
for faith to grow, it's got to be tested. So he's going to have
to test you. That's the way faith grows. And our Lord Jesus is going to
give them an opportunity to show how much or how little they believe
Him on the Sea of Galilee. And He goes back to the back
of the boat and He goes to sleep. Then a storm arose. They come running to Him, carest
thou not that we perished? We used to sing a song years
ago, Master, the tempest is raging, the billows are tossing high,
the night is o'ershadowed with darkness, no shelter or help
is nigh. But the winds and the waves obey
thy will. When you say peace, be still. Everything obeys His will. They
woke up and said, don't you care that we perish? And he said,
peace be still! And everything was calm. And then he looked at them and
said, how is it that you have no faith? Let me tell you something about
faith. Your faith is only as strong
as it is when it's tested. See, anybody can do fine on the
Sea of Galilee when the waters are peaceful. That's no test
of faith. But what if the storm comes up
and the wind blows and the waves come crashing over your vessel? What about the storms of life?
We'll find out whether we got any faith then. It isn't the
peaceful times that tries faith. It's the stormy times. That's
when faith is tried. You see, the real measure of
our faith, the real measure of our faith will be discovered
in time of trial. Fair weather faith is no faith
at all. That's right. Fair weather faith
is no faith at all. You see real faith. Real God-given
faith. It relies upon Christ Jesus even
when His presence can't be seen. But you still believe Him. You
still believe Him. Our Lord says here in John 11,
I'm glad for your sakes that I wasn't there to the intent
you may believe. Because in raising Lazarus from
the dead, our Lord's disciples would be able to witness a greater
manifestation of His glory. Of His glory and of His authority. That He even had authority over
a death. Here's a man who's been dead
four days! But our Lord had authority over
it. Now I emphasize with the grief of Mary and Martha, But
I'll tell you, the ways of God are absolutely perfect. His ways are wise. You know,
I've looked at this a long time. Our Lord's words indicate to
me that if He had gone immediately to Lazarus, Lazarus wouldn't
have died. Isn't that what you take away
from this? I don't know how you could take anything else away
from it. I don't know how you could draw any other conclusion.
I'm glad for your sakes that I wasn't there to the intent
you may believe." Because he seems to be saying, if I'd been
there, he wouldn't have died. You search through Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John, you'll never find anybody who died in the presence
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is life. I started off by
saying He's light, but He's also life. And where life meets death,
death gives way to life. Death can't exist where life
is. Death flies at His Word, but
it also flies at His presence. at His presence. You think about the thieves on
the cross. You say, well, those guys died.
Not till He died. Not till He died. They didn't
die till He died. When He died, death could get
them. But they couldn't die till He
died. And you know you read over in,
where is it, Matthew 27, I believe, that when our Lord Jesus died,
the earth shook and the graves of many believers opened up and
their bodies were resurrected after His resurrection. But the graves were opened up,
getting everything ready. Because they're coming out of
the grave. But they didn't come out before He did because He's
the first fruits of them that sleep. And when our Lord rose from the
dead, all around Him, graves had been opened and many of the
saints of God came out. You see, He's life. And our Lord
says to these men, I'm glad I wasn't there. The implication being,
because if I'd been there, he wouldn't have died. He wouldn't
have died. In fact, Martha even said that
to him in verse 21. Then Martha said unto Jesus,
Lord, if Thou hast been here, my brother had not died. She
knew that. She recognized that in the presence
of life. Death has no power over man. And we'd like to say to brother
Lazarus, brother, your sickness and your
death will be used of God to teach others. Because who's going to be taught?
His disciples. Their faith's going to be increased.
Oh, I tell you, the providence of God is mysterious, to say
the least. And it's so detailed. I know
sometimes we grumble about what's happening to us. And then somebody
like me comes along, or you reading your Bible, and you read that
all things work together for the good of them that love God,
to them who are called according to His purpose, and you rebuke. But let me tell you something
else. Not only do all things that happen to you happen for
your good, but all things that happen to you for your good happen
to you for the good of other believers as well. You see, if
this had not happened to Lazarus, the faith of the disciples wouldn't
have been strengthened. This happened for the benefit
of Lazarus. It happened for the benefit of
Mary and Martha. And it happened for the benefit
of the disciples as well. Because their faith is going
to be strengthened. It's good to remember that, you
know, no man is an island That's the old saying. And that which
affects us is going to have some effect upon other believers. And I'm sure if somebody had
said to Lazarus, you know, brother Lazarus, I know you're on your
sick bed, but I've got news for you, you're going to die. But
rest assured, God's gonna use this to teach others. I don't
know what Elijah sort of thought about that if you'd have told
him that while he was on his sickbed, but that was absolutely
the truth. That'd be the truth. This is
for your good, and it's for the good of others. For the good
of others. Here's the third reason this
happened. Not only strengthen the faith for the glory of God,
to strengthen the faith of the disciples, but number three,
to bring others to believe on Christ Jesus. Look at 45. Then
many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things
which Jesus did, believed on Him. Well, this happened in order
that the Lord Jesus might manifest His authority over death, His
awesome power, revealing that He's the Son of God in order
to bring others to believe on. He drew others to faith in Himself. This is the effect of the miracle.
Look over in the next chapter, John 12, verses 10 and 11. John 11-10, that the chief priests
consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death because
that by reason of him, many of the Jews went away and believed
on Jesus. They believed He was the prophet
of whom Moses wrote. The Messiah who is pictured and
prophesied in the Old Testament. But I've got to go quickly. Here's
the fourth reason. Let me show you another. reason
for this miracle, another effect of this miracle. It was to bring the enemies of
our Lord together to finally formulate their plan of attack
against the Master. In other words, our Lord is kind
of putting His foot on the throttle to speed up things. See, all
along, all along the enemies of Christ Jesus have sought to
kill Him, but so often we've read His hour was not yet come.
It wasn't time for Him to die. But boy, it's getting close now.
Just a few days away. And our Lord is going to use
this not only for His glory, not only to strengthen the faith
of the disciples, Not only to bring other people to believe
on Him, but He's going to use this to initiate His own death. His own death. I read in verse
45 that many people believed on Him, but look at verse 46,
but some of them, they went their way to the Pharisees. They told
them everything Jesus had done. Then verse 47, 11-47, Then gathered the chief priests
and the Pharisees, the council, the Sanhedrin, they said, what
are we going to do? For this man doeth many miracles.
If we let him alone, all men will believe on him, and the
Romans will come and take away our place and our nation. We're
going to lose our authority. We don't have much authority
left, but we're going to lose it all together if we just leave
him alone. And then drop down to verse 53.
From that day forth, they took counsel together for to put him
to death. Oh, this really, this goads them
into getting together and saying, now we've got to do something. Have we put up with this long
enough? We've got to kill him. We've
got to kill him. This is working out in the purpose
of God because, you know, it's getting close to our Lord's fourth
Passover that He will observe during His public ministry. And
the last one, and this is the time God's Passover Lamb is going
to die. The Lamb of God is going to lay
down His life in order to save His people from their sins. And
so that's another reason this happened. so that he would die
right on schedule. Right on schedule. For God's
glory, to strengthen the faith of the disciples, to bring many
to believe on him, and then to initiate the proceedings that
led to his own death. Every aspect of our Lord's death,
he was in charge of it. He was in charge. He took absolute
control. He died according to the purpose
of God. Let's sing the closing song.