Okay, now I want to turn your
attention this morning in our studies in the Acts of the Apostles
to chapter 5 and the 20th verse. Now, chapter 5 is a long chapter,
42 verses in there, but just one verse I want to look at this
morning. It's not my purpose or intention to say everything
that could possibly be said about every verse in the book of the
Acts of the Apostles, but just to pick out certain points throughout
it. But nevertheless, just to put
this verse into context and I'll read the verse it's when the
angel let the apostles out of prison without any great fuss
they were just taken out of the prison quite miraculously and
it's the instruction that was given to the apostles on their
release this is what they were to do go stand and speak in the
temple to the people all the words of this life that's going
to be our focus but to set it in context just a bit about what
is in the rest of chapter 5. Now we saw last week what a state
of blessing there was in the church, this early church, what
a state of blessing. Thousands, thousands who'd been
amongst the crowds that had cried, crucify him, crucify him. They'd
been there, and yet under the power of the Holy Spirit, whom
God had promised and whom he had given to them, the preaching
was anointed. It never ceases to amaze me,
the weak and failing words of one like Peter, who was so bold,
and the moment a young girl said to him, you're one of his disciples,
aren't you? He denied with cursing. on the night before Christ was
betrayed. But now, with the Holy Spirit's anointing, with the
Holy Spirit's power, He's preaching the words of eternal life. And
the Holy Spirit is bringing to life those whom God has ordained
for salvation. And there's 8,000 plus, I don't
know, there must be 10,000 by now, by this stage. And the fruits
of that salvation, the fruits of that conversion are these,
that they regard nothing as their own. They regard it that their
treasure is in heaven. They regard it that they've been
blessed with all things. They regard it that if they've
got houses and there are others of their body who need things,
they'll sell them and they'll share the money. And so that
nobody of the body lacks, because they regarded themselves as part
of the body of Christ, his church. And so they did all things for
the good of the body of Christ. So that, and in that picture
that we have in 1 Corinthians 12, if the thumb hurts the mind
knows about it and does something about it and so on and so they
were bringing all of the things that were needed they were selling
them and they were sharing them together and then we have this
dreadful account of Ananias and Sapphira at the start of chapter
5 because it doesn't matter how blessed the situation is it's
always the case that because of the frailty and the sinfulness
of human flesh hypocrisy will creep in error will creep in
Malpractice will creep in. And these two, Ananias and Sapphira,
tried to make a show that they were like the others. They tried
to make this show and in the midst of all of this blessing,
they hypocritically pretended that they'd sold this great possession
and they'd brought it and laid it all at the apostles' feet.
And of course they hadn't, it was just done for show. It was
just done to get the attention of other people. You remember
how Jesus in the temple, when that widow and the Pharisees
were all bringing their gifts, and the Pharisees and the scribes
were putting their large gifts into the treasury, and he saw
that woman just put one little mite into the treasury, and he
said to them, do you know who's brought the most? She has, because
she gave everything. Whereas they were doing what
they were doing for a show, to be seen of men. Don't be religious
is the message of the scriptures. It's the message of the Sermon
on the Mount. Don't be religious. Don't be
religious. Don't do things for a show before
men. And these did. And these were
special days. And they were struck dead. Instantly. Quite remarkable. clearly special
days, we shouldn't look to see this kind of thing repeated in
our day or since but this was a visible demonstration of the
judgment of God that you cannot mess, you cannot treat lightly
the things of the Spirit of God and the Gospel of His grace and
they were struck dead there in the sight of all those that were
gathered and it must have been a shocking thing like it was
to David when Uzzah was struck dead for putting his hand out
to touch the Ark of God a thing that was forbidden And it was
a visible demonstration of that which is a spiritual truth. For
it is appointed unto man to die once. This is all of us. This
is you. This is me. Appointed to die once. And then,
the judgment. And it's true what God says.
God is holy. God is of purer eyes than to
behold iniquity. And sometimes we need a demonstration.
And God, by His Spirit, gave this demonstration here in that
these two, Ananias and Sapphira, who had a possession that was
perfectly capable of being theirs, they could continue with it,
Peter said to them, Peter said to Sapphira, he said, wasn't
it yours? You didn't have to sell it, you
could have kept on hold of it, it was entirely yours, nobody
made you sell it, why did you do this hypocritical show, lying
to God, lying to the Holy Spirit, and he demonstrates that the
Holy Spirit is indeed God, he says, you've lied to God, the
Holy Spirit, The judgment that would come after death, it is
appointed to man to die once, and then the judgment was visibly
demonstrated before them, before their eyes. They were struck
dead, and they were buried. I mean, Sapphira came in and
didn't even know that her husband, Ananias, had dropped down dead
and had been carried away and buried. No time to wait for the
funeral, he'd been taken out. It was demonstrating how serious
this thing is. To mess with the things of eternal
life, to treat it lightly, to treat it as a fickle thing, to
treat it as something in which we can play the hypocrite. Absolutely
not. And it gave testimony to the
apostles' message and authority. This was a time not to be repeated.
The apostles authority was a special time. God gave some to be apostles
and some prophets and teachers. This time of the apostles was
when they were giving the Word of God, completing the Word of
God in the New Testament. And it was a not to be repeated
time. And the signs of the apostles
accompanied it. And some were marvellous and
others were terrifying but it all pointed to the fact that
God is true and this message was true and don't mess with
it because these are the words of eternal life and the result
of it verse 11 was that great fear came upon all the church
great reverence great carefulness in not treating things lightly
great fear came upon all the church and upon as many as heard
these things but there was growth and there was prosperity look
at verse 14 the believers were the more added to the Lord multitudes
both of men and women many added to the Lord these were sincere
converts you see it says in verse 13 and of the rest Durst dared,
in modern language, dared no man join himself to them, but
the people magnified them. In other words, what he means
is, what the writer means, what Luke, who wrote this, means is,
and of the rest, dared no hypocritical man, who was seeking just the
benefits of this new philanthropic society, as they might have regarded
the church. None just coming along for what
they could get out of it. They didn't come. It was either
sincere belief, or they didn't come at all. And the believers
were the more added to the Lord. Multitudes, both of men and women.
Then we see they go on and the apostles are arrested and imprisoned
again, they're miraculously released, that's verse 20, we'll come back
to that shortly, they were commissioned to preach, they end up before
the council again, and the council, you can imagine, this council
of these Sadducees, of the high priests, were absolutely furious. When they were filled with indignation,
Peter read the marginal word, they were filled with envy. They
were envious because these people whom they hated, whose message
they hated, had the ear of the people. And instead of being
able to whip up the cry, crucify, crucify, as they had weeks earlier
concerning Christ, now they don't do a thing. They don't put a
foot wrong. They don't bring them by violence in case they
were stoned by the people for what they were doing, because
the people saw that this was evidently a work of God. And
so they come before the council again, and they're told to stop
it. to stop filling Jerusalem with this doctrine. And Peter
says, we ought to obey God rather than men. We're to be good citizens. We're to be responsible citizens.
We're to obey the laws of the country. But there's a point
at which we ought to obey God rather than men. When it comes
to matters of just sheer immorality and that which goes clearly against
the principles of God's Word, we obey God rather than men.
There are things in our land in our day, there are laws that
are being made that are fundamentally evil in the sight of God. And
there are people in terrible situations, people running businesses
in innocent situations, who are being put under ridiculous, utterly
immoral pressure because of the wicked laws of this land that
have been made in recent years. And some, it's going to be very
hard for them, but if they're believers, they're going to have
to say, we ought to obey God, rather than men. Let's pray for
them, if we know of any. Anyway, so it goes on, and Gamaliel,
who was the teacher of Saul, who became Paul the Apostle,
he stood up and he said some very wise things to this council. He said, look, there have been
all sorts of movements that have got up and then have fizzled
away and come to nothing. If this is of God, there's nothing
you can do about it, because who can stop what God has intended? If it isn't, Don't make a fuss
about it. It will just fizzle out of its
own accord. That's the words of Gamaliel. And it was wise
advice. And why was it wise advice? Because
it was in the hands of God. The heart of the king is in the
hands of God. And God moved him to come out
with some wise words. And they listened to him. And
they left them alone. and they went away and in verse
42 they beat them of course, they didn't just let them go,
they beat them they unjustly beat them and then in verse 42
daily in the temple and in every house they cease not to teach
and preach Jesus Christ look at that, isn't that great? the
end of that chapter after all of that fuss the end result is
they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ so let's come back
to verse 20 and let's look at this verse And obviously, we
haven't got much time, but we'll get what we can out of this.
Let's break it up like this. Verse 20 says this. This is what
the angel, who released them from the prison, opened the prison
doors, miraculously. How he did it, I don't know.
It doesn't say. If it was by the same means that
Christ, the risen Christ, appeared in the room with the disciples
after the resurrection, in his new body and he'd been able just
to go through a door without the door interfering you know
it's all the forces of nature and he controls all things by
the word of his power and I have no problem whatsoever in believing
that it's perfectly possible for God to miraculously enable
these to just pass through the door so that they're outside
of the prison the prison couldn't hold them and he says to them
he gives them this commission And we don't know which apostles
it was, no doubt Peter was amongst them because we read of him later.
It's not just Peter and John, as far as I can see, it's more
than that, the apostles. They're put in prison and they're
released and he tells them, the angel of God tells them, go stand
and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this
life. Go stand and speak in the temple. He's telling them to go and preach. What is preaching? 1 Corinthians
chapter 1 and verse 21. Just turn over there. 1 Corinthians
1 and verse 21. Talking about God making foolish
the wisdom of this world. There's a wisdom of this world
as we know. We're surrounded by it. the world thinks its wisdom
is the best wisdom that there's ever been and in verse 21 we
read for after that in the wisdom of God the world by its wisdom
knew not God You see? You can't work it out. The world
can't work out how to know God by its own human wisdom. But
it pleased God. So how do you get to know God?
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that
believe. The foolishness of preaching. He says to them, go and stand
in the temple and preach. The foolishness of preaching.
What's foolish about it? What's foolish? Well, to the
natural man, it's an illogical message. It's an illogical message. So much of what passes for preaching
the gospel is a distortion of the truth as we read it in the
Word of God in order to make it fit with what the natural
man thinks. The natural man thinks God ought
to be fair, in the way that he judges fairness. God ought not
to be unfair. The God I believe in doesn't
do things this way. Yes, but is the God you believe
in the God of this book? Because the one true God of all
eternity, the one true God, the one true God, reveals how he
is in this book, and in this book alone, and to the law and
to the testimony. If they speak not according to
this word, there is no light in them. but man twists it and
bends it to make it fit with his own logic and his own view
of fairness so in one sense preaching is illogical it's foolish because
it's foolish to the natural mind and then in another way it's
foolish because what an ineffective way of getting a message across
for a man to stand up in front of a group of people and speak
for a certain amount of time There's far more effective ways
of getting messages across, they would say, in their day, as they
say in our day, don't they? There's much more effective ways
of getting a message across. I mean, this was the day when
there was the influence of the Greeks. and that the Romans and
the Greeks and the Romans were great ones for their theatre
and drama, you know, the amphitheatres where they performed their plays.
Isn't that the most effective way of getting a message across?
And what about the Greeks? In the Aeropagus, where we see
Paul a few chapters later on, they loved to go there and debate. What a debating society we live
in. No, they're told to go and preach.
That's the method. just as Noah was a preacher of
righteousness. That's what he did. He didn't
just build an ark. The 125 years or so, I think it was, that he
was building the ark, he wasn't just building the ark, he was
preaching righteousness. He was preaching judgment to
come. He was preaching sin. He was preaching that God is
just and holy. He was preaching that there's
one way of salvation, come into this ark, or you yourselves will
be swept up in the judgment that is to come, and that ark. was
such a picture of Christ he was a preacher of righteousness and
so all of the prophets after him were preachers of righteousness
they preached the message of salvation they stood up and they
said with the authority of God and with the anointing of God's
Holy Spirit thus says the Lord we read Nehemiah chapter 8 don't
turn to it for the sake of time we read it earlier Nehemiah chapter
8 and in verses 4 and verse 8 two things stand out to me number
one they made a pulpit so that Ezra could stand up and all the
people could see him and they could hear him they could hear
his message and because it was such a big crowd he had all sorts
of helpers so that they could hear in all the different places
and what did they do? they read in the book of the
law of Moses from the oldest of them to the youngest that
could understand and I tell you what some people say oh my children
are too young to understand preaching I'm sorry adjust your preaching
Your children are old enough to understand from a very, very
young age in actual fact. there's a little lad outside
that we could probably judge is a bit too young to understand
but children can understand don't have your intelligence insulted
children by letting adults tell you that you're too young to
understand the gospel you're not you can understand it it's
clear and from the oldest to the youngest all that could hear
with understanding were there and those who preached Ezra in
the lead and those who helped him what did they do they read
the words and they gave the sense. They preached the gospel. How
shall they hear, says Romans, I quote this every week, Romans
10 14, how shall they hear the words of eternal life without
a preacher? People claim that, oh, you don't
need a preacher. It can come just by reading a
book. Well, I suppose I'm not going to be so dogmatic as to
deny that it can come just by reading a book, or just by reading
the scriptures on your own. But God's pattern is quite clear
in here. God sends a preacher. What did he do to the Ethiopian
eunuch? He's got the scriptures. He's reading in the book of Isaiah.
Did he come to a knowledge of the gospel by reading the book
of Isaiah even though the book of Isaiah is full of the gospel
of God's grace? He's on the road back from Jerusalem.
We'll read about it in a few chapters time. And he's reading
the book of Isaiah that's full of the gospel of grace and he
can't understand it. So Philip comes alongside by
the movement of the Holy Spirit. Go alongside. Ask him, do you
understand what you're reading? And what does he say? How can
I, unless a man explain it to me? So Philip goes up alongside
and preaches to him Jesus and the resurrection. He preaches
to him. That's God's method. It's God's
method of calling his sheep. It's preaching. It's not debate.
It's not drama. It's not music. I mean, I speak
from experience because I met my wife when she was the star
of a show in a Christian place, sitting on the fence, with a
devil one side and a preacher the other, trying to persuade
her to come down either side of the fence. But it was an Arminian
gospel, and it was no gospel at all, because it wasn't the
truth that saves to eternal life. It wasn't the truth that redeems
a sinner from his sins, and shows him the truth. Oh, God used it
all, I know he used it all, but there's no excuse for continuing
in it when you know better. No. Preach the word, be instant,
says Paul to Timothy. That's his... almost the last
words in writing that Paul the Apostle wrote that we have preserved
were these, to Timothy. a pastor. We say young, he was
just younger than Paul, we don't know how young he was. But the
command, the instruction, the exhortation to Timothy was preach
the word. What am I going to do about all
of these things, Paul? What are all these things that
are happening all around us in the opposition? This is Paul's
answer. Preach the word. Be instant, in season, out of
season. And to whom? Secondly, to whom?
To the people. Go and speak in the temple to
the people. You see, it's no more elaborate
than that. Go and speak in the temple to the people. Go and
speak to the people, meaning the people without distinction.
Don't just speak to this class of people, or don't just speak
to the men who are Pharisees, or don't just speak to those
over there. Go and speak to the people without distinction, knowing
this, that as you speak, God the Holy Spirit will make alive
those whom Christ has redeemed for Christ has redeemed his people
Christ has saved his people who are his people? all whom the
father gave to the son from before the beginning of time do we know
who they are? not in the slightest do we have
any confidence that we're among them? yes we do if we believe
the gospel of his grace he brings everyone for whom he died to
believe the gospel of his grace and we know this that as we go
and preach to the people without distinction God the Holy Spirit. It's not the power of our words,
it's not words of worldly wisdom, it's not the way that we are
persuasive as people who stand up and speak to others, not at
all. It's God the Holy Spirit who speaks in the heart and makes
alive those whom Christ has redeemed. So we don't try to convince people
to believe, we just tell them the gospel. Think about it, you
apply this to your situation, your work situation, your neighbours,
we're all the time fussing around trying to convince people to
believe let's just tell them the gospel that Christ has saved
his people from their sins that there is life there is life in
a look at the crucified one that there is life in a look at and
our God in our Lord Jesus Christ who has saved his people from
their sins. So the message is to go to all. It's a preached message and it's
to all and it's all the words of this life. Now I see 22 minutes
have gone and I could probably do with another 45 minutes to
do this any sort of justice. All the words of this life. All the words of this life. What
are we to preach? All the doctrine of eternal life. All of it. All of it. Now, why
am I stressing this? Why am I making such a point
of this? Because I fear that in our day, and in so many days
that have gone before us, that men have applied their own wisdom
and have said, people are not going to believe that. Oh, if
I preach that, that's really going to put people off. I better
not say that. That really will put people off. They'll accuse
me of being a hyper-Calvinist, so I'd better not say that. I'd
better not put it that particular way. No. Preach all of the Scriptures. Don't hold back on any doctrine
that is in the Scriptures, for all Scripture is God-breathed. It's all God-breathed. It's all
profitable for doctrine, for instruction. What is it? 1 Timothy
3.15, or it might be 2 Timothy 3.15. It's one of those around
there anyway. If it's in the Bible, Preach it. God put it
there for a purpose. He has revealed all that is needed. These are the scriptures that
are able to make you wise unto salvation. Therefore none of
it is off limits. None of it is out of bounds in
terms of the message that you preach. All of it is to be preached. Base all on the scriptures. Do
you know Paul said to the Ephesian elders when he was parting from
them He said to them, I have not shunned to preach unto you
the whole counsel of God. The whole counsel, the whole
advice, the whole wisdom of God. He preached it. And what was
it? He says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 2, he says
this, I determined. What do you mean Paul, you've
preached the whole counsel of God? Well I determined not to
know anything amongst you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. For if you preach Jesus Christ
and Him crucified, if you preach that message of salvation in
Him, you have preached the whole counsel of God. So base it all
on the Scriptures as the authoritative Word of God. This is where we
start. Thus says the Lord. The Scriptures say. We don't
believe things because we feel things. We believe things because
God's Word says it. And we base our feelings on what
God's Word says. This is the source of truth.
This is where we get our doctrine from. This is that which we must
preach, the scriptures. And preach God. Preach God. Preach the person, the being
of God, as he reveals himself in the scripture. As he describes
himself, we must preach him. We must preach him as the creator,
the life giver. the one who is holy, that means
different different from every concept that we have of that
which is right and wrong he is different, he is altogether holy
and he's just he's the absolute standard of moral uprightness
and holiness and he's just and being God he is absolutely sovereign
you know our government is called sovereign in the affairs of Britain,
but it isn't sovereign really, in that it tries and it fails
in lots of things. Governments of all persuasions,
down all history, they try to do things, but they're constantly
thwarted, and they fail, and their attempts come to nothing.
But God is sovereign. When he speaks, it happens. He
does it. He accomplishes it. Nothing that
he has written will fail to happen. In fact, you can trace through,
and everything in terms of human history that God had said was
going to happen, has already happened, with one exception.
Do you know what that one exception is, that is still to happen in
human history? Christ is to come again. That's
the one that hasn't yet happened. But everything else, in terms
of the nations of this earth, the powers that be, the things
that happen in the world around us, are all true. Every single
one. Because he's sovereign. He's
gracious. He's merciful. You know, people... A man once said to me... It was when he heard the true
gospel preached, and he thought he was an authority on the gospel.
And the words he heard preached were these. I think Evelyn might
remember this, it goes back a long time, but the words he heard
preached were the words we read right at the start, Christ is
made unto us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. And in the course of preaching
that message, the preacher said that Jesus did not die for every
man that had ever lived, but he died for his elect whom the
Father gave to him from before the foundation of the world.
And this man stood up and he said, When I heard that my Jesus
didn't die for everybody in the world, that horrified me. Well,
his Jesus did die for everybody in the world, but his Jesus was
totally ineffective, in that his Jesus ends up saving absolutely
nobody. The Jesus of the Scriptures,
our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh, saved his people
from their sins and cried, it is finished, absolutely. And
what else are these words of life? These words of life are
these. They're not how to live. Definitely
not. The words of life are don't go
and teach them how to live in order to be accepted by God.
And when you hear preaching today, so much of it under the guise
of evangelical reform preaching is nothing other than a must
do, ought to do, should do, could have done. Go and whip yourself
for this, that and the other. No, it's not about what we must
do, because the truth of the Scriptures is this, that we,
all men, are utterly depraved, utterly short of the glory of
God, utterly without the ability to save ourselves, utterly condemned
as we are, and without any hope in the flesh. So what must I
do to be saved? Nothing. You can do nothing that
will save you. It doesn't matter how good you
are to your neighbours. It doesn't matter how considerate
you are to these people. None of it counts for anything
in the reckoning of God in terms of earning you eternal life.
Not one solitary bit of it. Oh, I go to church. I try to
go to church. Don't come. You don't get anything. You don't
get any merit points from God for coming to church. You don't
get any merit points from God for standing up preaching. You
don't get any merit points from God for anything that you do
in the flesh. There's only life and salvation
in the doing and the dying of another, and that's the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the gospel. That's the
gospel message. Believe me, if you hear nothing
else this morning, hear this. It's not what we do. It's what
He has done. And so we preach Jesus. This
is what they preached. They ceased not to teach and
preach Jesus Christ. Why? They preached Jesus as the
Christ. the Messiah, the substitute,
the surety, the one who stands in the place of, the representative
of all his people and of only his people, that he came and
represented them. And so we preach this. I've got
a few things down here. We preach this. That Christ answers
this question. The book of Job's got lots of
good questions in it. We're going to look at it in
more detail later on. But in Job chapter 14 and verse 14,
we read this. If a man die, Shall he live again? If a man die, shall he live again?
It's a very, very pertinent question. Not just in days gone by, but
in these days. Do you know what I heard in the
news recently? So many people who've had heart
attacks, and have been pronounced clinically dead, but then have
been revived in the hospital's intensive care unit, have come
back and said, I've had an out-of-body experience. I was looking down
on you all, dealing with my dead body. Have you heard this? It's
absolutely, I'm not joking, it's in the news at the moment. And
so there's a hospital that is running experiments. And do you
know what the experiments are? they're putting pieces of paper
with writing on, high up on shelves, so that the out-of-body experience
goes up and can look down and read it, and then after the event,
I'm not, you're looking at me as if I'm joking, I am not joking,
this is perfectly serious, this is what they're doing, because
they're testing, well, he's dead, you know, we've pronounced him
dead, and his eyes are there in his body, so what is it that's
seeing these things? And if they can see things that
you can't see without getting on some steps and getting up
high and looking down. Maybe there's something in it,
you see. People are questioning. There was a film, a movie, a
few years ago, Flatliners, where medical students were, I don't
think I ever saw it myself, apart from trailers for it, but taking
themselves, deliberately putting themselves into a death state
to see what it was like being out of the body. You see, people
think about these things, but seriously, this is not just weird
stuff. If a man died, and, oh, is there
anybody who's going to volunteer for not dying? I don't think
so. We're all going to die one day. If a man died, shall he
live again? These are important things. Only
Christ can answer that question. Only Christ can answer that question.
And so preach the need for a Messiah. Oh, you know, I've said the hopelessness
of the flesh, the hopelessness of being right with God, There's
only hope in a Messiah. This is what the whole of the
Old Testament was about, was about the Messiah who would come,
the Christ who would come, and when he came there would be salvation.
And so you find the baby Jesus brought to the temple when he's
eight days old to be circumcised, as was the manna. And there's
Simeon, that old man, who's been waiting there, and he holds that
baby in his arms and he says, now I can depart in peace for
I have seen and held the salvation of God which is in the Messiah
here is the promised one and there was that old prophetess
Anna who was 90 odd years old and she saw him and rejoiced
that her eyes had seen the Savior there was the Samaritan woman
who was living in such immorality as we would say even in these
days you know scandals still shock as they do in the BBC this
last week scandals shock And this woman, this Samaritan woman,
she'd be all over the raunchiest parts of the news of the world,
if it was today. And she knew what she was waiting
for. She said, when Christ comes, she says, I don't know much,
but I know this, when Christ comes, he will tell us all things.
He will show us the truth. And Jesus said, I who speak to
you, and he I am that one who has come." And she goes and gets
the men and she comes back and says, is this not the Christ?
And there were the people who were waiting in their culture,
in their religion, they were waiting for this Messiah to come
and save them from their sins and to do that which was necessary
to make them right with God. And in John 7, 31, they say this,
when the Christ comes, will he do more miracles than this man,
this Jesus of Nazareth? Surely this is the Christ. they
preach that Jesus is the resurrection and the life and we must preach
that we must preach life the life that is in his name the
words of this life I want to turn you to John chapter 11 John chapter 11 you know the account of Lazarus
who died they called for Jesus he didn't come to them Lazarus
died and they're mourning and he's been in the tomb four days
and verse 23 of John chapter 11 Jesus said to Martha your
brother Lazarus shall rise again Martha said to him I know that
he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day she believed
in the resurrection unlike these Sadducees who were the council
opposing the Apostles they didn't believe in the resurrection and
Martha said to him I know he shall rise in the resurrection
and Jesus said to her I am the resurrection and the life he
that believes in me though he were dead yet shall he live and
whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die spiritually
do you believe this? she said to him yes Lord I believe
that you are the Christ the Son of God which should come into
the world the resurrection and the life The resurrection. In Christ is resurrection. Do
you know why the resurrection is so important? That Christ
rose from the dead? That there is no body? There's
no bodily remains of the Lord Jesus Christ? He rose from the
dead? It gives us confidence that in Him we shall rise. Shall
a man live if he dies? Yes, he shall. Christ is risen
from the dead. The reason that Lazarus was raised,
even though it was a temporary resurrection, because he died
again a natural death later, but the reason was to graphically
demonstrate that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. He
is the one who has the power of eternal life. He is the one
who has conquered death. He is the one in whom we say,
O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?
He has conquered it, and in Him, all who are in Him have conquered
it. So if a man dies, shall he live again? Yes, he most certainly
shall. We preach that righteousness
is not in the works that we do, but righteousness is in our Lord
Jesus Christ. Look at Romans chapter 3. I just
want to turn you to some very familiar words. Romans chapter
3. You see, isn't this the thing?
How can a man be just with God so that he might live and be
accepted with God? How does it happen? Chapter 3
of Romans and verse 20. Is it by the deeds of the law?
Is it by being nice to your neighbours? don't worry I'm not saying that
you shouldn't be nice to your neighbours but it's not by those things,
it's not by the things that we do for it says in verse 20 of
Romans 3 by the deeds of the law the things that you or I
think we do for Christ And in the name of religion, by the
deeds of the law, no flesh shall be justified in his sight. All
the law does is points out where you've sinned. It doesn't justify
you. But now, look at verse 21, now
the righteousness of God, that righteousness which we must have
if we must see God, the righteousness of God without the law is manifest,
made obvious, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.
They'd already written about it. The Old Testament's full
of it. Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of
Jesus Christ. By the faithful acts of the Lord
Jesus Christ, He has established righteousness for His people. It's upon all them that believe.
How do you know it's your righteousness? You believe Him. That's how you
know it's your righteousness. There's no difference. All of
us, without exception, have sinned and come short of the glory of
God, but He's justified His people. on the basis of what he has done,
the righteousness of Jesus Christ, justified freely by his grace
through the redemption, the payment, the purchase, the buying back
that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth to be a propitiation,
a turning away of anger through faith in his blood. His blood
has turned away the anger of God against our sins, and that's
how we are counted righteous. So preach that, he says. Preach
that Christ has completed the work of saving his people. We
could turn, we will quickly, we'll probably run over very
slightly this morning, but let's turn to John 17 and verse 2. John 17 and verse 2. The great prayer of our Lord
Jesus Christ before he went to the cross. He says this, He lifted
up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify
thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee, as thou hast given
him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to
as many as thou hast given him. That he should give eternal life. Eternal life is not what you
earn, it's the gift of God. And this is the will of God,
that Christ should give eternal life to as many as the Father
gave to Christ before the foundation of the world. And this is life
eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. If you know Him, you have
that eternal life. If you know Him, you can say,
if a man die, shall he live again? Yes, he shall. That eternal life
is in knowing the true God. John 20.31, don't turn to it,
says this, John wrote his gospel that you might believe that Jesus
is the Christ the Son of God and that believing you might
have life through his name that life, that eternal life that
if a man die yet shall he live in the Lord Jesus Christ on the
grounds of what Christ has done in our place for us that we could
never do and that we have done in the reckoning of God in him
that this Jesus is the one, verse 31 of our chapter in Acts chapter
5 verse 31 as Peter said to that council again him Jesus has God
exalted with his right hand to be a prince and a saviour for
to give repentance to Israel to give repentance from sins
to Israel, Israel there he's elect his people the people of
God and the forgiveness of sins And so, this is what we're to
preach. Go stand and speak in the temple, to the people, all
the words of this life. Speak to them. Preach to them.
Preach Jesus. Preach the substitute. Preach
the Messiah. Preach the surety. And respond
to the question, when they ask, what must we do? As they did
on the day of Pentecost. What must we do? Men and brethren,
what must we do? Simply believe. simply believe
and God added believers we read it in verse 14 the more the more
added to the Lord multitudes both of men and women despite
the opposition despite the persecution and verse 42 they cease not to
teach and preach Jesus Christ and with God's help we too will
not cease to teach and to preach Jesus Christ and the abundant
life that is in Him alone. These are the words of eternal
life. That's what Peter said to Jesus. You have the words
of eternal life. This is hope for all eternity
in a world of death. Amen.