Let's go back to that scripture
in the book of the Gospel of John, chapter 11. It is very
good to see each of you, and it's good to see Brother Parker
back with us this evening. I thought about giving him a
job, but I give you the evening off. So I figured you could use
the rest. You know, as you get older, you
need that. But we're thankful to have you. And he'll be going up to Michigan
this weekend preaching the gospel. And you remember him as he speaks
to those people at First Baptist Church in Almonte. Well, John chapter 11 into the first
part of chapter 12. I want to talk to you about the
raising of Lazarus. You know, as we arrive at the
first section of John chapter 12, We're going to find that our
Lord's earthly ministry, His public ministry, is going to
end in chapter 12. And I know lots of chapters are
left, but He's going to be finished with the public. He'll minister
to His disciples. He's in the very shadow of the
cross. And really, Isn't there a sense
in which He's always been in the shadow of the cross? He set His face like flint. That's what Isaiah said. But
He did that before the world began. He's the surety of the
new covenant. And in that covenant of grace,
our Lord Jesus, having received us as a gift from the Father,
For the Father elected us unto salvation in the Lord Jesus before
the world began, and it was an unconditional election of grace. And unto the Savior, unto the
surety, unto the Son of God, we were given as a gift. And the Lord Jesus, God's own
Son, He set His face to die for us. After all, He stood good
for us. He accepted the responsibility
to save all of the elect. That great debt of sin that we
would owe to the divine justice of the Lord, our Savior, He promised
the Father He would satisfy that indebtedness. He would pay it
in full. And in order to do that, he must
die. So really, even from before the
world began, before the foundation of the world, our Savior set
his sight upon dying. When we get to John chapter 12,
it's just six days away from that. But listen, He is no more
intent upon dying then as He was when He stood with the Father
and the Spirit in the covenant of grace. He was just as determined,
just as anxious, if I may say it that way, that He would lay
down His life for His sheep. And all of the Old Testament
announced that He was coming. And He's the sacrifice. And when
we get to John chapter 12, six days away from Him laying down
His life for the sheep. Oh, blessed Redeemer, who so
willingly and so full of love for His elect gave Himself to
save us. Oh, glorious substitution. or
wonderful satisfaction to divine justice. So our Savior is not
far away from the very hour of His death. But though He has dying on His
mind and bearing the sins of all of His people and facing
the wrath of God, in chapter 11, When messengers are sent
from Martha and Mary that their brother Lazarus was sick, our
Savior was full of compassion for them. He loved them. Listen, people of God. Our Lord
is always interested in us. He is always concerned about
our welfare. And whenever you cry out to Him,
He will always hear you. Because we're His people. We've
been redeemed by His blood. We're robed in His righteousness.
And our Lord is said to be a sympathizing High Priest. He's able to succor
us. That is, He's able to help us
with feeling, with great compassion. It isn't that He's feeling less
toward His people. He's full of feeling. He's full
of love. He's full of kindness. He's full
of concern for you and you and you and me and all of His elect.
In fact, He loved us so much that He died for us. Is that
not the evidence of the Lord's love for us? That He laid down
His life for His sheep. Here's our Lord. He's set His
face like a flint. He's on His way to die. He's
on His way to make satisfaction to divine justice. And messengers
in the first part of John 11, and you're very familiar with
the story, I know. Messengers are sent by Mary and
Martha. Lord, He whom thou lovest is
sick. Look back at the first part of
John 11, verse 3. The first verse says he was sick.
He was sick. Verse 3, therefore his sisters
sent unto the Savior, saying, Lord, behold, Lord, behold, Lord,
look, Lord, listen, O Lord, we beseech you, he whom thou lovest
is sick. They didn't beseech the Lord
on the basis of the love of Lazarus for the Savior, although Lazarus
did love the Lord Jesus. Because we read, if any man love
not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha. Let him be judged when Christ
comes. And Lazarus loved the Savior.
He loved Him because, as you said in your prayer, because
he first loved Him. The Lord loved Lazarus with an
everlasting love, and Lazarus loved the Lord. If you love Christ
Jesus tonight, and you love Him as He's revealed in the Scriptures,
you love Him as the Sovereign Christ, You love Him as the successful
Christ. You love Him as your Master.
You love Him as that friend that sticketh closer than a brother. If you love Him as the Lord of
glory, if you love Him as He's revealed in His Word, it's a
blessed thing. But when you go to the Lord in
your hour of need, Boy, every hour is an hour of need, isn't
it? When you go to the Lord in your neediness, it is not your
love for Him that you would set forth to Him as being the reason
why He should hear you and answer your prayer. We beseech Him on
the basis of His everlasting love to us. And Mary and Martha,
they say, Lord, behold. And don't overlook that word,
behold. Lord, we need your attention
over here. And listen, I know people have
a lot of problems with the sovereignty of God and our responsibility
in praying to the Lord. But does this matter of prayer
have something to do with the will of God? And us conforming
to the will of God? We're not trying to get God to
change His mind. What we're doing in prayer is
acknowledging to the Lord, we need You. Alas, O Lord! Behold, O Lord! I need You in
my hour of sickness. Or in the hour of the sickness
of my brother, as in this case. Oh Lord, look on us. Look on
us. And hear us. And you know something? He is never too busy to hear
your cry. Isn't that wonderful? He is never
too busy. He is never too occupied with
other things. You say, well, He's got a whole
world to run. Oh, I tell you. Each one of His
children are so dear to Him that He focuses all of His attention
on you, and you, and you, and you, and me, and all of His elect. That's how almighty He is. That's
how infinite our God is. We sing, reach out and touch
the Lord as He passes by. You'll find He's not too busy
to hear your hearts cry. His ears are ever open to our
cries. And rest assured, child of God,
when from your innermost being you beseech the Lord and you
say, Behold, Lord, He whom thou lovest has a problem, you may
rest assured He hears you. And He will answer according
to His everlasting purpose. Lazarus was an object of the
Lord's love. And we're assured of that. If
there were any doubt about it, the Spirit of God removes the
doubt in verse 5. Now Jesus loved Martha and her
sister and Lazarus. He didn't say, now Jesus loves
everybody. That's of no real comfort. A
general love? That doesn't help me. But if
I am assured He loves me, that will help my poor soul. Lord behold, he whom thou lovest
is sick. Now Jesus loved Martha and her
sister and Lazarus. Therefore he listened to the
message that they sent him. And as you know, Lazarus died. Lazarus died. Now let me show
you several things here. Number one, let's look at the
condition of Lazarus. He died. Remember what the Savior
said. Look in verse 11. These things saith he, and after
that he saith, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may
awake him out of sleep. Then his disciples said, Lord,
if he sleep, he shall do well. A man who is sick, he needs to
sleep, he needs to rest. How did Jesus speak of his death?
But they thought he had spoken of taking a rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them, and
he said it to them so plainly that they couldn't misunderstand
it. Lazarus is dead. Lazarus is dead. Now if the Lord
of life, the Lord who is life, if He says a man is dead, you
may rest assured the man is dead. He had no life, and that is an
accurate picture of all of us spiritually. We died in Adam,
our legal representative and our federal head. Romans chapter
5 says this, Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin, and so death it passed upon all men,
for that all have sinned, that is, all sinned in Adam, and all
died in Adam. 1 Corinthians 15, 21, For since
by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the
dead. For as in Adam all died, Even so, in Christ shall all
be made alive." Poor Lazarus was dead. What could he do? If someone said to him, and if
they were to talk to him this way, they should have locked
him up in a padded cell, but if they had said to Lazarus,
look over here, he couldn't do that. Lazarus, can you hear what
I'm saying? There was no response. His eyes
were closed in death. Oh, he still had ears, but he
had no ability to hear. If someone said, Lazarus, get
up and walk over here, he couldn't do that. He had no ability to
do a thing. Even so, even so, Every sinner
by nature lacks the ability to do anything of a spiritual nature. Are we commanded to believe on
Jesus Christ? Yes. Does man have the responsibility
to believe? Yes. Does every one of us have
the responsibility to repent of our dead works? To turn away
from our idols? And to worship and serve and
love the living God in Christ Jesus? Absolutely we do. We have the responsibility to
do that. But don't confuse responsibility
with ability. You don't have the ability. That's why the Savior said, you
will not come to me that you might have life. He said, no
man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw
him. I'll raise him up at the last
day. It's not within the realm of man's power. It's not within
the scope of his desire to draw near to the Lord Jesus. And I'll
tell you, Nobody will ever submit to being saved by grace alone,
through the blood of the Lord Jesus alone, and justified by
His imputed righteousness alone, while in that state of death. Nobody ever will. Well, what
must happen? You must be born again. That is, he who is life must
come to one who is dead. That's what happens in this passage.
The one who is life. The Savior said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. He who is life went to this grave
of Lazarus. A grave where death was laid
over all of whoever else was in that grave as well as Lazarus. That one whose life went there. And when life meets death, death
must give way. You see, He is our life. He has
come to us in life giving power. Those of us who were dead, dead
in sin, He's made us alive. And with life, there comes the
willingness to believe, to submit to being saved God's way. Do you have any opposition to
salvation God's way? I don't. Salvation through a
substitute? Sins washed away by the blood
of that worthy sacrifice? Being robed in His righteousness? I have no qualms with God about
those things whatsoever. Do you? Do you know why you don't
have any qualms about those things? Do you know why you are not standing
up for salvation by works? Or salvation by the worth of
man? Or salvation by the will of man?
Here's why you don't believe those things and the reason you
believe salvation by grace all in Christ Jesus. Life has come
to you. The Lord spoke words of life. You hath He quickened who were
dead in trespasses and in sins. The condition of Lazarus, he's
dead. And we have a responsibility,
we preach the gospel to the dead. Just like Ezekiel did. We're absolutely, totally dependent
upon the Lord to make His Word effectual. I'm not trying to talk you into
something, because if I can talk you into something, somebody
else can talk you out of it. One old writer said, any knot
that we can tie with our own fingers, we can untie with our
own fingers. No, we preach the gospel of the
Lord Jesus, of His blood and of His righteousness, and then
we say, Oh God, make Your Word effectual to the hearts of those
who hear. Oh God, raise the dead. Raise the dead. Because this
is our condition. the condition of Lazarus, he
was dead. Secondly, look at the corruption
of Lazarus. Look at verse 39. Look at verse
39. The Lord came to the cave and
he said in verse 39, take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister
of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, But by this time he
stinketh, for he's been dead four days. Due to the fall, we
are thoroughly corrupt." You know, when we speak of total
depravity, we don't mean that everybody
is as rotten as they could be. Thank God that There's such a thing as God's
restraining mercies that prevents most people from giving full
vent to their corruption. That's a wonderful thing. If you've not committed or participated
in some grave, horrible wickedness, something that you can think
of and you say, oh, I'm glad I haven't done that. If you haven't
done that, it's only because God has restrained you. Listen,
we're all capable of doing anything that any other son or daughter
of Adam has done. That's an awful accusation, but
it's the truth. We're capable of doing it if
God doesn't restrain us. And I mean even the Lord's people.
The Lord's people. Oh God, keep a tight chain on
me. I don't want to be like the dog
that somebody had. You know, you see somebody walking
a dog. People are all the time walking dogs up front of the
house. And some of them got those leashes that kind of go out automatically,
you know. And I want to say to him, don't
give that dog that much leash. And I say to the Lord, and I
sincerely mean this, Lord, don't give me much leash. Oh Lord, hold me tightly, lest
I say something or do something that will bring reproach upon
my Lord, upon His gospel, upon His church, and upon my family. When we talk about total depravity,
now we don't mean that everybody is as rotten and as corrupt as
they could possibly be. What we mean is sin has infected
every bit of us. There's nothing that has gone
on unaffected by sin in us. There's no part of man that hasn't
been contaminated. See, we don't just sin. We are
sin. Is that right? We are sin. We're
just a mass of sin. We're just a mass of corruption.
That's why everything we do is marred by sin. So I hope there's no sin in my prayer.
There's sin in your prayer. I read the Bible today, I sure
hope there wasn't any sin in it. There was sin in your Bible
reading today. Because your sin, your sin, we
always need the blood of the Son of God. We always need the
fragrance of His righteousness, of the beauties of His holiness. You see, we are made comely through
His righteousness. All of the glory goes to Him.
All the blame goes to us. Lazarus was corrupt. Look at Psalm 14. Let me just
read this to you quick and then I'll get back to the text. Look
at Psalm 14. Look at verse 1, Psalm 14, 1. The fool hath said in his heart,
there is no God. That is, no God for me. They are corrupt. That means
they're spoiled, ruined, gone bad. Nancy is in dating with Susanna,
and she bought me some strawberries before she left, because I love
strawberries. And this afternoon, when I got
back to the house from the office, I went to the strawberries, and
I thought, boy, that's a good-looking one there. Then I looked, and
it was kind of fuzzy, something growing on it on the bottom,
and it was getting all kind of mushy. What's happened? It's spoiled.
It's corrupt. That's us. That's us. We're corrupt. We're spoiled. We've gone bad. What do you,
in your refrigeration, and I heard some, the other day I heard that
40% of the food that we buy goes bad. That's not good, is it? We waste a lot of food. It goes
bad. Well, let me tell you something.
We've all gone bad. in the fall. We're all spoiled. We're all rotten. This is what
God says, they're corrupt. They've done abominable works.
There's none that doeth good. The Lord looketh down from heaven
upon the children of men to see if there were any that didn't
understand and seek God. They're all gone astray. They're
all together become filthy. And in my Bible, over in the
center column, it says, filthy in the Hebrew is stinking. They are all stinking. There
is none that doeth good, no, not one. Martha said, when the
Savior said, roll away the stone, she said, you don't want to do
that. He stinks. He stinks. We used to say when
something stinks, we said, man, that stinks to high heaven. Well,
that is true about us. We stink to the highest heaven. Corruption. Corruption. Martha said he's stinking. He
gives off an odor. And let me tell you something. You either give off an odor to
a holy God that is offensive to Him, or there's a delightful
fragrance about you. Isn't that right? One or the other. Those who are
in Christ Jesus, God smells the fragrance. of the obedience of
the Lord Jesus. It delights him. It delights
him. Otherwise, we stink. Old A.T. Robertson. Some of us
read A.T. Robertson. He was a Greek word
studies professor. He said of this back over here
in John 11, he translated this statement about where Martha
said, by this time he's stinking, he's been dead four days. A.T.
Robertson said, he's a fourth day dead man. He's a fourth day
dead man. And that's us. We've been dead
four days. We're fourth day dead people.
We stink. We stink. Well, here's the third
thing. the Savior's command to the servants. Back in John 11, look at verse
39. And Jesus said, take ye away
the stone. Now the raising of the man from
the dead, that's the work of the sovereign Christ. But our
Lord, He made use of somebody in rolling away the stone. Most likely these words were
addressed to the servants Mary and Martha. Our Lord raises the
dead. Our Lord quickens the dead. But you know, He makes use of
other sinners in this matter. In what way, preacher? In preaching
the gospel. And in rolling away a few stones. I can't raise the dead, I can't
give life to anybody, I can't enable a person to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. But I'll tell you what I can
do by His grace, and it's what I try to do, is preach Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. I'm not a holy roller, I'm a
stone roller. That's what we're doing, we're
rolling away stones. We're trying to roll away obstacles.
And I was talking about this to somebody the other day, in
seeking to roll away obstacles from people, I'll tell you this,
make sure you're not the obstacle. The gospel is, it's a gospel
of offense to the natural man, isn't it? It's offensive to the
natural man to be saved by the merits of somebody else. with
no works, no worthiness, no will of yours coming to the picture
whatsoever. The gospel is a very humbling
message. It is an offensive message. The
apostle Paul talks about the offense of the cross. But as we set forth this gospel
of the cross, which is offensive to the natural man, let's be
careful, we're not the offense. I don't want to be an obstacle.
Oh God, keep me from being an obstacle. Just roll me out of
the way. Roll me out of the way. You know, God commanded there
be six cities of refuge. Three cities on either side of
the Jordan River. And every year, the magistrates
were responsible to send men out to roll away the stones out
of the roads, to raise up the low places and bring down the
high places. If they ever had a rock slide,
go out there and clean the obstacle out of the way. Had to post signs
every once in a while, refuge this way. If somebody had committed
a horrible crime, if they could get to that place of refuge,
they would find safety. In every one of those cities,
six of them, there are six cities of refuge, they all picture the
refuge we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we flee to Him. And I admonish you to flee to
the blessed Savior. Safety is only found in Him. And those of us who know something
about having a refuge in Christ Jesus, let's try our best to
do what we can to keep the stones rolled away. No obstacles. Let's us not be the obstacle.
Let's us not be the offense. Roll the stones away. Had somebody
tell me one time, they said, you know, I'm just too vile to
be saved. Let me roll that stone away for
you. The scripture says Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners. It's a faithful saying. He said,
I'm not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repent. I'm going
to roll that stone out of the way. These are stones that Satan
puts in your way, and your own self-righteousness will put those
stones in the way. I'm not good enough. No, you're
not. But He's good enough to be the
Savior. Be the Savior of sinners. He's
a friend of publicans and sinners, is what the Scripture says. Well, then notice God's call
to Lazarus. And our brother read this to
us. Verse 43, Lazarus come forth. Scripture says he cried aloud. Not because the loudness of his
voice would awaken Lazarus, but the loudness of his voice was
for the benefit of those around him that they might hear and
see what was happening and whose power brought this to pass. And
you'll notice this was not a general call, but a specific call, an
irresistible call, a personal call, a particular call, a powerful
call to one man, Lazarus. That's the new birth. That's
the effectual call of grace. It's when the Lord deals with
you one-on-one, and He who is life comes to you. Lazarus come forth, and whenever
he issues that call, it's always successful. And he'll never fail to bring
all those for whom he stood as the surety and the covenant of
grace. He'll never fail to bring all of them in whose stead he
died. He'll never fail to bring unto
them that salvation that is theirs by his life-giving power. But then I want you to notice,
and I know my time is about up, but notice the company of Lazarus. This is in chapter 12. And this
is just six days before our Lord is going to give His life a ransom
for many. Verse 1, Then six days before
the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was that had been
dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper,
and Martha served. But Lazarus was one of them that
sat at the table with him. Lazarus has been raised from
the dead. And I'll throw this out to you
to think about. Where was Lazarus all this time?
He's four days. Where has Lazarus been? But he's
been in paradise. And when he came back from glory,
he never said a word to anybody about what he experienced. And
I'll give you a word of caution. Don't you pay any attention.
These folks that say they died and they had an after-death experience,
they saw whatever in heaven, Here's a man, I know he died
because the Savior said he died. And he loved the Lord and the
Lord loved him. He didn't go to limbo somewhere. He didn't go floating on a cloud,
strumming on a harp somewhere. He went to the presence of the
God of glory. He went to where Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob were. And when he came back, he never
said a word about where he went or what he saw. Everything you need to know about
heaven and what's going on in heaven is in here. This is enough. If we needed more information,
we'd have more information. Lazarus came back. The Lord called
him back. I don't know, maybe an angel.
I thought about this. In my mind, I have a strange
mind. I think about things like this.
Lazarus is up there worshiping the Lord. Was it an angel who
came to him and said, Mr. Lazarus, you've got to go back. You ever think about that? You've
got to go back. Back to that old sinful body
that you lived in. You've got to go back into that
world. You've got to go back there where they hate God. You've
got to go back. He came back. I think about things
like that. Well, He came back. Then where
do you find Him? Sitting at the table with the
Lord Jesus Christ. Sitting with other people who
love the Savior. I tell you, when the Lord raises
somebody from the dead, when the Lord issues an effectual
call of grace, and we come to Him by His quickening power,
do you know where we will want to be found? We will want to
be found at the table of communion, dining on the glorious gospel
of God's grace, drinking the wine, and eating the bread of
him who is the bread of life. That's where Lazarus was. Don't
you try to convince yourself, those that maybe somebody's watching
tonight, that, well, I don't have to go to church. I'm a believer.
I don't have to go and attend. People who've been made alive,
love the company of the Lord's people, and they want to be where
somebody is talking about, preaching about, and praising the Lord
Jesus Christ. Oh, you mean preaching up there
again tonight? I'm going. I'm going. Where is Lazarus found? At the
dinner table. Sitting with Jesus. Keeping company
with the Lord Jesus and the saints of God. But, this don't mean
it's going to be smooth sailing for Lazarus. Here's the last
thing. Here's the consultation against Lazarus. They consulted
against him. Look down here in chapter 12
verses 10 and 11. Chapter 12 verse 10. But the
chief priests consulted. Oh, there was a great consultation
about Lazarus. Well, what's this consultation
about? We'll put Him to death too. Because that by reason of Him,
many of the Jews went away. Now wait, where did they go away
from? They went away from these guys.
They left that old dead religion. They followed the Lord Jesus.
These guys were losing the following. They were losing power. Meaning we're believing on the
Lord Jesus because of that guy sitting at the table whose name
was Lazarus. Well, what did he do? He's an
object of God's grace. And they're not happy. I remember
when the Lord opened my eyes to the gospel of substitution. I just couldn't wait to tell
somebody. And I thought they'd be as happy and thrilled about
it as I was. Especially some people that I
knew who were religious. I thought they're just going
to be ecstatic like I am. I couldn't wait to go tell them.
I think they would have rather that I had told them that I'm
never going to church anymore and I'm just going to live a
vile, wicked life out here somewhere. Because when I told them the
gospel that I believed, oh, they weren't happy at all. And here's
Lazarus. I'd say, what did he do? He didn't
do anything. Something was done for him. Isn't
that what salvation is? Salvation is not you doing something,
it is something being done for you. Something was done for you
before the foundation of the world. Something was done for
you 2,000 years ago. Something has been done for you
to make you know that something was done for you. Is that right? And you think, oh, my family
is going to be real happy now. They will be as thrilled as I
am. It doesn't work that way, does it? No. It doesn't work that way. But
thank God He raises the dead. He's still raising the dead.
There may be a Lazarus in here tonight. There may be a Lazarus
watching out there tonight. You say, well, how will I know
if the Lord has made me alive? You'll believe Him. You'll believe
Him. And you'll love Him. And you'll
say, I love Him because He first loved me. He came down here and
He paid my debt. I'm saved on His merits. And
He's done it all. I'm just an object of His grace.
We give Him the glory, don't we? closing song and we'll go
home. Is it 256? Okay, 256. You've got to stand up to walk
out of this building, so you might as well stand up now and
sing. 256. It is well with my soul. I hope to see you Saturday at
the funeral home.