Well, once again, it's so good
to be here with you. We've been really blessed, Nancy
and I, to come and be with you and enjoy your fellowship. It's been great. And I realize
most of it is because I brought Nancy. A preacher mentioned one time,
I had to agree with it wholeheartedly, men generally marry above themselves. And that's the truth of the matter.
Pray for us out in the Dalles. We're at the end of the Oregon
Trail. And it's a long ways from anywhere out there. But pray
for us. We're a small group also. But you know, when it talks about
light in a dark place, it doesn't measure the amount of light.
It's always the same. The light is Christ. And it's
just, it's no little lights here and big lights over there. It's
the light. I realize that I'm doing a grave
injustice this morning. If we were going to truly deal
with the subject we want to deal with, I'd start with John 1,
verse 1 and read up to John 10, but there's just not time. So I'm going to let you do that.
But the Bible is, the Gospels are continuous accounts and tellings
of the gospel, building upon itself, and building upon itself.
And sometimes I do a grave injustice by just pulling a chunk out and
going over it, but our time is limited. And I noticed in that
hymn, I'd never paid attention to it, that time is like a river. And it just, you know, when I
was young, it was like the Columbia River where we are. It just seems
to move so slow. You'd start school in September,
and it was just so slow until it got to June. And now, it's
a rushing, mighty fountain. It just, whoosh, every year goes
by so quickly. And I understand from the people
that are 20 years older than I am, it continues quicker and
quicker. So, we're just moving along.
Many, many years ago, the pastor who brought me the Gospel shared
this outline of the entire Bible, a thumbnail sketch. And he said,
the Old Testament, the Old Testament can be summed up thusly, someone's
coming. The Gospels can be summed up
this way, someone's here. And Acts through Revelation is
someone's coming back. And that's the truth of the matter.
That is the summation of the entire Bible. Well, would you
join me in the book of John chapter 10. I'd like to read a few verses
out of John chapter 10, and then go into John chapter 11 this
morning. The Lord continuously shows us in the Scriptures how
He does His business. It is so contrary to human ways
of doing business. experience in religion is so
contrary to the way God does His business. God does His business
as God Almighty. There is no little God. There is a God Almighty. And sometimes the Lord covers
it thusly, the Lord God Almighty. That is three words that declare
exactly the same thing about God. He is the Lord God Almighty. And if we hear the word Lord,
relationship to God, He is Almighty. And if God is Almighty, and He
is Almighty Almighty. Well, we're just going to stop
here in chapter 10 for just a moment, and read a few verses on how
God does His business. And then go to chapter 11, because
we have a wonderful illustration there. I had pastors for years that
never read John chapter 10. They wouldn't go there. And after
I was saved, I wondered why wouldn't they go there, and you know why
they didn't go there? Because they didn't believe it.
They had their idea on how God does His business, and generally
speaking, religion has a formula on how to get people saved. And
if they follow the formula and say the right words, they're
okay. And yet, that is so contrary
to how God does His business. God does His business all by
Himself. He uses humanity, human beings,
frail vessels of flesh to declare the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that word gospel means good
news. And after He saves us by His grace, it is truly good news
on how God does His business because He leaves us out of the
equation. We are the recipients and not
the participants. The wonderful thing about going
through the Old Testament and looking at that old covenant,
we find that God made an agreement with Israel, and He used them
as a favored nation status, and yet, in the conclusion of the
whole matter, they could not keep that covenant. So when it
comes to the everlasting covenant, or the new covenant that we talk
about, He never included us as a participant at the table. When
I was a young man, there was a lot of discussion on what was
going to be the shape of the table for the settlement of the
war in Vietnam. Oh my goodness, the fury that
went through. Can it be rectangular? Can it
be square? Can it be round? They spent months
on determining that. And you know that's just the
discussion of religion. Months are in discussion about
how God's going to do His business, and how we can get people to
agree with a formula, and God is just going to cut through
the chase and say, this is how I do my business. Here in John
chapter 10 verse 11, the scripture is shared with us so plainly,
so clearly. I am the good shepherd. You know,
a lot of people just stop right there. And then he goes on to
say, I'm going to tell you, succinctly, straightforward, without any
hesitation, who I'm going to die for. I've had people, all
kinds of people, tell me who Jesus died for. And they generally
go to John 3.16 and say he died for everybody in the world. And
I say, you find a passage of scripture that tells that Jesus
said that, and I'll give you ten verses of scripture that
say he died for the sheep. Look here, John chapter 10 verse
11, I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd giveth his life
for the sheep. John chapter 10 verse 14, I am
the good shepherd, and known my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even
so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. Other
sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring,
and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one fold and
one shepherd. Therefore doth My Father love
Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it up again.
No man taketh it from Me." Boy, those Romans, those Jews, oh,
I lay down My life. No man takes it from me." If
you want an expression of the almighty power of God, when it
came to those folks that came to arrest Him, He said one word,
and they're flat on their face. Don't you think for a moment
He couldn't have kept them there if He didn't intend to do what
He intended to do? He could have kept them in the
dust till this very day. But He permitted them to rise
and take Him off and go through all those indignities and go
to the cross and do what He had purpose to do to begin with.
Go to the cross. He lays down His life for the
sheep. He becomes their substitute,
their redeemer. And then if you look at verse
24 of this chapter, it says, Then came the Jews round about
him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us doubt? If thou
be Christ, tell us. Jesus answered them, I told you,
and ye believe not. The works that I do in my Father's
name they bear witness of me, but ye believe not, because you
are not of my sheep. As I said unto you, My sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give
unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father which gave them
Me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out
of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one." Now,
would you jump over to chapter 11? We're going to see how God
does His business. He's just declared how He's going
to do His business. He's almighty, all-powerful,
no man taking His life. He's going to lay it down. He's
the Good Shepherd, the Good Shepherd giving His life for the sheep.
He's going to do with a host of folks that the Father gave
Him in the covenant of grace. There was no human being sitting
at the table of the covenant of grace. They are the recipients
of this wonderful blessings of this covenant of grace, but they
are not the participants in it. Israel was a participant, could
not keep it. He demonstrated that humanity
cannot keep the law of God, cannot keep that covenant. And he said,
I regarded them not. He had never ever intended to
put national Israel in a special place except to illustrate a
point. They, given all the blessings,
miracles, and all His great care, could not do what God demanded. The only ones that can do what
God demanded is His Son and all those that are in His Son when
He went to the cross. They do it by proxy. He keeps it for them. Alright,
here in the book of John chapter 11, we have one of the most glorious
illustrations of salvation found in the Scriptures, until we go
over to Ezekiel chapter 37 and all the other places that declare
the same thing. But here's a wonderful illustration.
There is a man, a certain man by the name of Lazarus, and he
is sick. The Lord Jesus, in earlier experiences
and after experiences, healed people from a great distance.
He didn't have to be there to heal them. But it was not in
His purpose to heal this man. He's going to illustrate how
He does His business. This man is sick, and Jesus detains
his visit on purpose. He is not going to hurry over
there to deal with this sick man by the name of Lazarus. It
tells us in John chapter 11, Now a certain man was sick, named
Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary, and her sister Martha. It was that Mary which anointed
the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose
brother Lazarus was sick. There are two women in the Scriptures
that do this to the Lord Jesus Christ. The last one was not
too far from His death when He went to the cross. And you know
what? I am convinced that that alabaster box of ointment that
was spread over our Lord was the smell those Roman soldiers
smelled when they nailed Him to the cross. This is the sweet
savor. The glorious savor of the blessings
of God in Christ Jesus could be smelled at the cross by those
Roman soldiers. He did not have it washed off.
He smelled good at the cross. physically and to us as a sweet
savor unto God. He was the most precious smell
a Christian can ever smell. He's the most precious one that
we ever could come in contact with because of what he did on
the behalf of his people. Well, we find here in chapter
11 that he stuck around It says, verse 2, "...his sisters sent
unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
This sickness is not unto death, he tells, but for the glory of
God, that the Son of God might be glorified." Now what he's
saying here is that this death is not going to be a death that
reigns in Lazarus until the general judgment. There's going to be
something happen because I'm going to show you how I do my
business. I'm going to show you how. I'm going to give you an
illustration of how God saves His people. It's going to be at God's time,
in God's way, with God's Word, and that Lazarus has no involvement
whatsoever. That's how God does His business.
And you know, after the fact, Lazarus was thankful. Before
the fact, he couldn't be thankful because he didn't have any knowledge
about it. God never came up to that tomb. Christ never came
up to that tomb and says, Lazarus, if you wiggle your finger a little
bit, I can help you. He never said, Lazarus, if you
can sign a card, I can help you. He never said, if you can come
forward, I can help you. He never said, if you follow
this formula, I can help you. Because Lazarus was dead. And
when we study the Scriptures, we find out that he is an illustration
of what we are spiritually before an Almighty God. We're dead in
trespasses and sin. We have the same problem he did
physically. We have it spiritually. We may
be animate. We may walk around. Our heart
pumps until that river flows to the appropriate time, and
we find out, God said, there's an appointed time for all of
us to leave this life, and no doctor is going to prevent us
going beyond it, and nobody's going to cause it to happen before
it happens. We don't know. An old preacher said, no believer
fears death. Sometimes we're concerned how
he's going to do that. Is he going to be in a car wreck? Is it going to be cancer? Is
it going to be, I'm just going to go to sleep one night and
never wake up? We don't know. That's not for us to know. Alright,
let's go on here. The Lord, He hung around. He just stayed there, visited
with His disciples, and the disciples said, you know, if He's just
sick, it's good. It's good. I mean, if He's sleeping, it's
good. The Lord goes on to say, Lazarus is dead. You know, that's what God could
have said about me or you. Norm is dead. Now, he's dead
in a different way. I haven't met that time yet.
It's in my future. Close or a long ways away, but
it's in my future. But I was dead in a spiritual
way that Lazarus illustrates in a physical way. Norm is dead. Now, if there's going to be any
way that Norm is ever going to have a spiritual relationship
with God, we're going to have to get involved because it's
beyond him to get out of the mess he's in. He is so dead that
he can't even hear the Word of God. He is so dead that he can't
do anything that will attract God's attention. He is so dead
that He is going to have to have someone else call His name into
His deadness and resurrect Him before He can recognize what
blessing it is to be raised from the dead. Well, the Lord Jesus
stays there for a certain amount of time, and then He goes on.
Verse 11, he says, And after that he saith unto them, Our
friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go, and I may wake him of sleep. And his disciples said, Lord,
if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit, Jesus spake of his death,
but they thought that he had spoken of taking a rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly,
Lazarus is dead. Now isn't it a wonderful thing
that the God of heaven looks upon all of His children in their
passing from this life to the next as sleepy? Now it's not
soul sleep. Our body is placed into tomb,
grave, out at sea. I used to have, you know in religion
you have all kinds of false ideas. And after that, I said, people
would come to me, what do you think about this form of disposing
of your body? I says, the main thing is let
your family know what you want done. Don't make them guess. Take care of some of that business.
Do it as you see fit. But some way, our body will be
disposed of. It may burn up in a fire. It
may go down on a ship, but it will be taken care of. but to be absent from the body
is to be present with the Lord. This part that we can't see,
when it is resurrected spiritually, ascends directly to the presence
of the Lord, and we get to sing hallelujah songs. Now, in time,
He's going to come back, and that body that was disposed of
as you hope it is, or wished it is, or had it, or whatever
way, God's going to bring it together, and it's going to be
a new body, not like this body. I have never thought a thought
without sin being involved. We have a corrupt body, and God
never saved this body. He saved us. But this body is
just like it was created. I'm thankful for the restraining
hand of God. Have you ever went into a grocery
store and had to restrain your kids? We'll put our arms around
Him, whatever, to restrain Him. I'm thankful for the restraining
hand of God, or I would do things that I really don't want to do.
God restrains His people. His love constraineth us. And I'm thankful for that, but
it doesn't mean He's changed our body. Our body is corrupt. We still have that old Adamic
body. But that which God has created
in us, that new creation, the Holy Spirit in us, that part
does not die. It goes to God as soon as a last
breath is given out of our body. But there's a day coming when
that will be reunited and we'll have a body like His body. And it won't have sin in it.
And one more time, we're going to say hallelujah. Alright, Jesus
stays and guess what? Lazarus dies. Oh, how sad we say. And yet,
till we get to the end of the story, we say, As Martha and
Mary both said, if you had been here, if you had been here, my
brother would not have died. And he said, I'm the resurrection
of life. We know he'll be raised in that day. They both confessed
that. We know he'll be raised in that day. He will be raised
in that day. But the Lord was not there to
just console them about His resurrection in that day. He is there to show
how God does His business. how He saves people. He's going
to demonstrate for us the glorious way He resurrects people from
the spiritual dead. He's going to show us that it
is He that is in charge. He's going to show us that He
is in command. He's going to show us that all
of the inventions of religion is just absolutely nonsense. The church I grew up in had a
formula. You say this, and you say this,
and you raise your hand, and then we'll baptize you. And that's
nonsense, because God was completely left out of the equation. I have
no idea in this world what E equals MC squared, the theory of relativity. There was a man that could describe
it, but I can't even understand it. Well, when it comes to spiritual
things, God has made His way so far above our way that we'll
not understand it until He raises us from the dead and we have
an inkling of it. Well, let's go over here. Jesus goes over
to Bethany. That's what He has to do. He
must needs go through Samaria. He must needs go here or there. I'm so thankful in God's eternal
purpose. He must needs go to Central Point,
Oregon, where there was a preacher, a false preacher, a lying about
God preacher who had been pastoring for 15 years that didn't know
the first thing about the gospel. That was me. And when I heard
the gospel, I mentioned this the other night, and I'll tell
it until I pass from this live, when I heard the gospel, I shared
this about the man who delivered the message, I hate that man. Now if he had went on and preached
works or church, truth, or all of the other stuff, in times,
that stuff, we'd have had no problems. But when he preached
the gospel that I didn't know, I had a real problem with him.
Because he undid, he did, he preached and God undid my religion. And you know that puts you on
slippery slopes when you find out your religion is absolutely
worthless. Well, the Lord Jesus is going
to demonstrate here, it's not by my power, or by my might,
or by my birth, or by my blood, or by anything else. It is necessary
for the God of glory to come and do His work, and He will
do it upon everyone that was chosen in Christ by the Father
before the foundation of the world. He will do it! Wherever, and that's why there's
a light here, because there's some sheep here. That's why there's
a light out in the dows, because there's some sheep there. There's
not one too many churches, or one too few, and there's not
one too many pastors, or one too few. There's the exact right
amount for right now in this world. Alright. Verse 34 of this 11th chapter of the book of John. Now he doesn't ask this question
for his information. I had a preacher tell me one
time, God didn't know where Adam and Eve were, because He had
to come down, where art thou Adam? A lot of people's view of God
is that. The Bible's view of that is God
is omniscient. This is just one of the ways
he illustrated it. He knows the number of hair of
everybody on the world at the same time. And this morning I
lost some when I combed my hair. Can you imagine that? That is
just an insignificant way of God allowing us to know that
He knows everything, so when it gets to the more serious things,
He knows all about us. He says, they don't know that
I know their sins. Well, where have you laid Him?
And they said unto Him, Lord, come and see. Verse 35, Jesus
wept. Then said the Jews, behold how
he loved him. And some of them said, could
not this man which opened the eyes of the blind have caused
that even this man should not have died? We know more about
this than God does. We've got God all figured out,
and we're going to tell him what to do. Jesus therefore, again groaning
in himself, cometh to the grave. It was a cave, a stone lay upon
it. And he said, take away the stone.
Take away the stone. Gospel never asks anyone to do
anything. This has nothing to do with raising
this man. Do you know what this means to
us? Take away. Religion of the world has so
many encumbrances. That's what the gospel does not
have. Religion says you must, and then the list goes on. You
must. Those Judaizers that followed
the Apostle Paul says you must follow the law to be saved. Religion today, you must be baptized. You must believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. You must go to our church. And the gospel has no encumbrances
like that whatsoever. Salvation is of the Lord. Take away the stone. The gospel
never asks anybody to do anything. Now, we find you must believe,
you must have faith, and then we find out that that happens
after He regenerates us. It's an impossibility before
to have any belief in God that's right, and it's impossible to
have any repentance or faith towards God before our resurrection,
spiritual resurrection, because we will get it wrong. After that,
we can do it right because it's given to us. Jesus said, take away the stone.
She said, we're way beyond help here. You could have, but you
didn't. And now we must wait for the
resurrection in the end. What does she say? He's too far
gone. He's been there four days. Did
you know that death does not have any qualifiers? There's
no dead, deader, and deadest. There's no qualifiers. Dead. That's it. And yet, it is only
in religion where we'll argue dead. God's definition of dead
is like Scott Richardson would say, graveyard dead. That's it. He has been dead four days. All
right. If he's dead like that, isn't
this going to be more of a miracle than we thought? If God does
His business here, it's going to be so grand that everybody
is just going to love it. Well, you know the result of
this? He raises this man from the dead, and there's a whole
bunch of religious people that says, we've got to get rid of
him. We can't have this. He's ruining
us. Martha, the sister of him that
was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh, for
he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, said I
not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the
glory of God. Then they took away the stone from the place
where the dead was laid, and Jesus lifted up His eyes and
said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me. And I knew
that Thou hearest me always, but because of the people which
stand by, I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent
me. And when He had thus spoken, He cried with a loud voice."
Now we could go back to the 37th chapter of the book of Ezekiel,
and Ezekiel is brought out into a valley full of dry bones, and
God asked that man, Will these bones live? You know what Ezekiel
answered? Thou knowest. I can't tell. That's a pile of dead bones.
I can't tell whether they'll live or not, but thou knowest."
And he said, prophesy to them. What does that mean? Preach.
Preach the gospel to them. Declare to them, you don't know
whether they can live or not, but I know the ones that will
live. So preach the gospel, and he declared the truth of the
gospel. He prophesied to them. And there was a rattling. And
there was some noise. And they came together. And then,
he says, pray the wind. We're so dependent upon the power
of the Holy Spirit, the life giver. And he raised an exceeding
great army. Well, let's go on here. Notice
what he said. This is how he does his business.
Lazarus, come forth. That's how God does His business.
This is how the shepherd calls his sheep. By name. He calls
in such a way that it is irresistible. Lazarus was going to hear his
name called that day. He was going to be given life
in such a capacity that he would hear His name called. And beside
that, He was going to be given life to such a capacity that
He could raise His head and twist around on that slab of stone
and have His feet hang over and His mind working and say, I'm
going to that voice. And he left his place and came
out of that tomb. What's it go on to say? And he
that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with grave clothes,
and his face was bound around with a napkin, and Jesus said,
Loose him and let him go. You know, after we're saved,
we have all these preconceived ideas that we brought with from
our religion, and God is faithful to have someone come along and
say, Let's look at this verse of Scripture right here. And
we say, oh my goodness, oh, how could I think that? And so our
grave clothes are slowly taken away and we begin to see the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. One more passage is found
in the book of Ephesians. Would you turn there with me?
Ephesians chapter 1. Now I'm not going to read much
of this, but I'll let you know this. You cannot enjoy the blessings
of Ephesians chapter 2 if you don't enjoy the blessings of
Ephesians chapter 1. The blessed involvement of the
Godhead in order to cause salvation to be a success story. God intended
for salvation to be a success story. I have a friend that I've
been visiting with, I mentioned him the other night, and he has
the idea that Jesus died for everybody, and yet a whole bunch
of those folks are going to go to hell. And I said, have you
ever thought about that? That is so unsuccessful. That puts God in a very unsuccessful
position. That He would lay down His life
to pay the sin debt of people, and then they end up in hell
anyway? I said, that's not right. And that's not scriptural. Nobody
that is on the left hand and hears God Almighty in that day
say, Depart from me ye workers of iniquity. None of those did
Jesus Christ have their names on the palms of His hand, and
He didn't shed one drop of blood for them. Only for the sheep
did He do that. And that's why they are secure.
The rest He didn't do anything for. Well, in chapter 1 of the
book of Ephesians, he shares with us how he's going to make
salvation successful. It is. He chose us in Christ
before the foundation of the world. I am going to make my
salvation successful. Religion is unsuccessful because
it is so built upon such flawed things. But my salvation will
be so successful that I will lose not one of them. Here he
says, Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places according as He hath chosen us
in Him before the foundation of the world. And we should be
holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself, according
to the good pleasure of His will." And the summation of chapter
1 is, my salvation will be a success story. Chapter 2. We love that. I heard a lot of
preachers preach on that and didn't know the first thing about
grace. But would you notice with me in Ephesians chapter 2 verse
1, And you hath he quickened. Now that's in italics. Make it
clear. Translators put it there, but
let's read on. You have he quickened who were dead in trespasses and
sin, wherein in time past you walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince and power of the air,
the spirit that thou workest in the children of disobedience,
among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in
the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as
others. But God, who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith
He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, were quickened
together by Christ by grace, ye are saved." Quickened. You know, that's what Jesus did
there when He called Lazarus out of the tomb. He quickened
him. He gave Him life. He reanimated Him. He gave Him
life. We were animated, if you please,
in the Garden of Eden in Adam. We lost that blessed position
in the fall. And we must be regenerated. Have any of you ever went out
to your car and had a dead battery? You just need to be someplace
and you didn't quite leave early enough to have a battery charged?
You got out there and went, What did we have to do? Did we pray
over the battery and say, please get some power so I can leave
right now? No. We got someone with jumper cables. We have to have energy from outside
the source. Well, in a very small way. That's an illustration. We must
be born from above. We must be given life from God. We cannot generate it ourselves
and we can't get anybody else to do it for us. So we must be
quickened from above. We must be quickened by God.
That is an absolute essential. And you know, when we find out
that that's happened, it's when we have faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ and believe His Word. I have a dear friend, his daughter
came to him and says, you don't believe I'm saved, do you? And
he says, no, I don't. Well, why do you believe that?
Well, number one, you've never been a sinner. And number two,
you don't believe the report. You don't believe God. God's
people will believe the report. And God's people know, as Paul
said, we're chiefest of sinners. Chiefest. We hold the number
one position of being a sinner. Well, thanks be unto God, He
takes dead people and according to His good pleasure and in His
good time, He comes to where we are and breathes on us the
breath of life and we become a living soul. It's an act of God. It's an act
of grace. And it's not by merit. Lazarus
had not done enough good things for Him to come by and do that.
It's not by merit. It's not by volunteerism. It's
by the grace of God, the unmerited favor of God. For by grace are
you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It's a gift
of God. Lest any man should boast No,
the worst thing about my religion was I was bragging about myself. In Christianity, we say, Oh my
Lord, He is all my strength and all my salvation.