Good evening. It's a privilege
to be here this evening. I need to probably stay away
from this microphone just a little bit. So if I stand back, just
know that I'm not trying to get away from you. Just a little
loud. If you'll take your Bibles and
turn with me to John, John chapter 11. John chapter 11. The title of the message this
evening is Behold the Glory of God. The Glory of God. Here, in this chapter without
question, is one of the greatest miracles, if not the greatest
miracle, that the Lord Jesus Christ performed in his earthly
ministry, which is the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Now, Lazarus was a man dearly
loved of the Lord Jesus Christ. Him and his sisters Mary and
Martha were greatly loved and very acquainted with the Lord
Jesus Christ. It says in verse 1, now a certain
man was sick named Lazarus of Bethany, town of Mary and her
sister Martha. And if you read in verse 5, now
Jesus loved Mary, Martha and her sister and Lazarus. These were people who were very
loved of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were believers in Christ.
They associated with Him in the flesh. Imagine that. They got to eat with Him. They
got to spend time with Him. He went to their home. He was
welcome in their home, and they loved Him, and He loved them.
This was expressed greatly, that He loved them very much, but
something happened. Tragedy. struck in this home
of believers. Lazarus, the man dearly loved
of the Lord Jesus Christ, was sick and nigh unto death. And so the Lord Jesus Christ,
not being present with them, being away preaching the gospel,
they did what every believer in Christ would do. They sent
a message. They sent a message. It says
in verse 3, Now therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying,
Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. Now do you not suppose
that they thought that when they uttered that, when they sent
that message, that as soon as the Lord received that message,
that he would drop everything and return? Surely he loved Lazarus. This was his friend. Surely he
would come when we tell him he's sick. He healed so many people. Surely he'll come to his friend.
They said they thought surely he would stop everything and
come and hear their cries and heal their brother that he loved
so much. But to their surprise, and I
suppose even to the surprise of the disciples, I imagine they
got that letter, the disciples, and they started packing up.
They said, Oh, Lazarus is sick. We got to get this thing going.
We'll pack up and start going. And Jesus didn't move. He said
unto them, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory
of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. And when
he heard, verse 6, Therefore, that he was sick, he abode two
days still, in the same place where he was. Now why would Christ do that? Why would the Lord Jesus, upon
hearing of the sickness and near death of his friend, stay where
he was? Why would he purposefully abide
in the same place and allow his beloved friend to suffer? Jesus
tells us the reason. He says in verse 4, this is not
unto death but for the glory of God. The glory of God. Jesus tells us the reason for
his tarrying is for the glory of God. Do you often wonder when you
are in trouble? Why it is that the Lord delays
in coming. Maybe I'm the only one. Maybe
I'm the only one that has had this experience. Me and Lazarus.
I don't know. Maybe because I've prayed, I've
been in trouble and I've asked the Lord, Lord, please come.
I'm having trouble. I'm having difficulty. And yet
he abides. He doesn't come quickly. Why
is that? Well, it's the same reason for
the glory of God. Why doesn't he come to you quickly?
Why is it that he doesn't take away your suffering or your sickness
or your trouble immediately when you ask? You say, does he love
me? That has no bearing on the situation. He loves you. But just because
he doesn't come and answer you quickly has no bearing on his
love for you. What he does, he does all for
the glory of God. The glory of God. Now, surely
when this word came to Mary and Martha, here's the answer. Jesus
said, this sickness is not unto death. Surely they were somewhat
comforted by that. They were somewhat comforted.
This sickness is not unto death. Surely he's going to get better
now. But much to their dismay and confusion, Lazarus did not
get better. He got worse. And you imagine while that he
was gasping for his last breath, they were holding on to the promise.
This sickness is not unto death. This sickness is not unto death.
And he died. Now, can you imagine their confusion?
The Lord Jesus Christ said this sickness wasn't unto death. And
yet my brother died. Surely they were confused. Maybe
I'm the only one that gets confused about the Lord's providence. I don't believe so. I don't believe
so. Jesus then, knowing the time
of His friend's death, He tells His disciples, now then, let's
go. Verse 7, He said, now let's go to Judea. Judea, or Bethany
more specifically. And His disciples said, Master,
the Jews sought of laid to stone thee, and you want to go back
again? And notice his answer, he said, are there not twelve
hours in a day? If any man walk in the day, he
stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But
if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth because there is no
light in him. These things he said, and after he hath saith
unto them, our friend Lazarus sleepeth. But I go that I may
awake him out of his sleep. The disciples did not quite understand
what he was saying. He said, Lazarus sleepeth. Well, they said, Lord, if he
sleeps and let's not wake him up, he's doing well. So he had
to tell them Lazarus is dead. Lazarus is dead. He told them plainly. And he
adds in verse 15, look at this, in verse 15, And I am glad for
your sakes that I was not there. Is that not strange to you? Jesus
said, I was glad that I wasn't there for your sakes. I'm glad. Why was he glad not
to be there with his friend? Why was he glad that his friend
was not healed but rather died? Why was he glad? Here it is to the intent that
you may believe. Do you understand now why Lazarus
died? Do you understand why Lazarus
died? He died that you might believe. Our Lord Jesus allowed
his very close friend to die so that you might believe, listen,
that he is God. He is God. Jesus had before professed many
times to the Pharisees that He Himself was God manifest in the
flesh. He said in chapter 8, He said,
except you believe that I am, you shall die in your sins. Do you not see the importance
of believing His deity? Very important. If you believe in His humanity
without His deity, something's wrong. He said, you must believe
that I am. This is the same word that he
used at the burning bush when he reclaimed himself to Moses. That I am has sent thee. Jesus
tells him in chapter 8 and verse 58, he says, before Abraham was,
I am. What was he saying? He's saying,
I am God. And those Jews finally clicked,
you know, before they were just missing the whole point. But
now they got it. How do I know? Because they picked
up rocks ready to kill the Lord Jesus Christ because he said
it. He said, I am God. I am God. equal with the Father and the
Spirit. And in the very next chapter,
He proves this to them. He proves His deity by healing
that man that was born blind. If you go over to that chapter
in chapter 9, in verse 3, they ask why he was born blind. And
Jesus said, neither this man's sin nor his parents. Here's why
this man was born blind. That the works of God should
be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him
that sent me while it is day. The night cometh when no man
can work. And as long as I'm in the world,
I am the light of the world. Isn't that exactly what he told
his disciples in our text? If you go back to your text,
he says, Are there not twelve hours in a day? If any man walk
in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of
the world. You see, Jesus is telling them,
I am the light of the world. I am the light by which is manifest
to you. I am the Son of God. This is what his purpose was
in allowing Lazarus to die, that he might manifest his deity. Behold that Jesus' purpose in
waiting and tearing until Lazarus was dead before he returns to
Judah, more specifically to Bethany. His purpose was to manifest the
glory of God by raising Lazarus from the dead. This was always
his intent, to raise Lazarus from the dead. Now Martha, hearing
that the Lord Jesus Christ was coming, she runs out to him,
And she makes a very bold statement, a statement that every one of
us probably would make. Martha, as soon in verse 20,
Martha, as soon as she heard Jesus was coming, went out to
him. But Mary sat still in the house and Martha said unto Jesus,
Lord, if thou has been here, my brother had not died. Have we not said that? When the
Lord did not come at our proper time, when we thought He should,
Lord, if you'd been here, it would have been different. Is she not manifesting the fleshly
nature in this? The fleshly nature of us all
to blame God. The human nature always raises
its ugly head. And it usually raises it first.
It's a reaction, it's natural reaction. Boom, the flesh is
up. Something happens and we're quick with the flesh. Lord, if you'd been here, my
brother had not died. That's true. That's true. But Martha was also a woman of
great faith. And she, like every believer,
when we are confused as to why our Lord tarries in our time
of need, Lord, why did you allow this painful affliction? Why
did you not heal my child? Why did you not heal my brother?
Why did you not heal me? But yet she, in the presence
of the Lord Jesus Christ, resigns. This is the new nature. This
is the new nature, she said, Lord, but I know. But I know. I think verse 21 is more like
what she felt. And verse 22 is what she knew. Sometimes we feel. But when you
feel, don't cling to your feelings. Cling to what you know. Rather,
cling to who you know. Who you know. And that's what
she did. Lord, but I know. that even now
whatsoever thou would ask of God, he will give it thee. And
Jesus said unto her, thy brother shall rise again. And Martha
said unto him, I know, I know he'll rise in the resurrection
at the last day. Jesus reveals to her some great
truth about himself by this. He says this to her in verse
25, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth on
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever
liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? See that Jesus tells us plainly
the reason for his delay, the reason he did not come to heal
his beloved friend, And why Lazarus must die? So that he would show
he is the resurrection and the life. So that by his raising
Lazarus from the dead, he should show the glory of God in how
he saves sinners. This is what he's going to do.
He's going to paint a picture for you and me. By this history,
by this event, he is painting a picture for us of his salvation. My friends, there is coming a
resurrection. There will come a time when God
will come, and He will judge all men. He will raise all men
from the dead, and He will judge them. There will be a resurrection
unto life for the righteous, and there will be a resurrection
unto eternal damnation for the unjust. That day is coming. That
day is coming. As I look at you, you and I will
die. we will die. Just like Lazarus,
just like everyone else, we will die most likely unless the Lord
comes first. But I wouldn't bank on it. You might want to go ahead and
get your plot because most of us are probably going to die
before he comes. But when we die, which resurrection
will you be in? unto eternal life or eternal
death. I tell you that only those who are born again of the Spirit
of God shall see the kingdom of God. In Revelation 20 and
verse 6, it says, Blessed and holy is he that hath part in
the first resurrection. On such the second death hath
no power. The first death is dying physically. The second death is dying eternally. And unless you have part in the
first resurrection, which is the new birth, which is being
born again of God, unless you have part in that, you'll have
no power. The second death will have no
power on those who have part in the first resurrection, which
is to be born again. If you have any part in the last
resurrection that is unto eternal life, you must first be raised
from the dead. You must be given a new nature,
a new heart. Now behold the picture for the
glory of God here. Lazarus is a picture of all of
us. We're Lazarus. We're Lazarus. As Lazarus was without life,
without strength, without feeling, Even so, we by nature are born
dead, without strength, without life, without faith, without
hope. We had physical life when we
were born, but when we were born, we were born dead spiritually.
We by nature went about to establish our own righteousness. We by
nature thought that God should accept us for our best efforts. We thought a lot of ourselves.
We thought a lot. There's that little song that
the kids used to sing, I'm special, I'm so special. That's how we
think about ourselves by nature. I'm special. Surely God would
take me. I'm special. No. You're not special. You're dead. Dead. My little children, I love
them dearly, but they're dead. They're dead. They have no life. They inherit that from their
father. And I got it from mine. And he got it from his all the
way back to Adam and so did you. So did you. We're by nature dead
in past feelings. Paul said that we have our understanding
darkened, being alienated from life. The life of God through
the ignorance That is in us because of the blindness of our heart
being past feeling. Past feeling. If I were to lay
a corpse in front of you tonight, lay it down there in the ground
in front of you, and you could kick that corpse, you could spit
on that corpse, you could plead with that corpse, you can do
anything you want with that corpse, and he's past feeling! And so
it is with us. So it is with those who are lost
in this place tonight. I'm not here to kick you, I'm
not here to beat you. Because that ain't gonna do no
good. You're dead. You're dead. You can plead, you can beat them
over the head with this Bible. I know that some of you have
probably tried with your friends and neighbors. You tried to take
this book and tried to beat them and cram it down their throats
and hopefully they'd get life. That's not the way life comes.
Don't do that. Don't do that. I can preach the most beautiful
message. That's not going to happen. But if I could, if I
can preach the most eloquent message, that in itself is not
enough to give life. I can tell of the cross where
they nailed Him, writhing in anguish and pain, tell of the
grave where they laid Him, and tell how He's risen again. Love
in that story so tender, sweeter than ever was heard. Stay, let
me weep while you whisper, love paid a ransom for me. But the
dead cannot know or cannot see any beauty in Christ. This evening,
do you not see any beauty in Christ? You don't have any interest
in this. You know why? You're dead. You're
dead. Oh, sinner, behold your condition. Behold, man is not in need of
reformation. If you're dead, you don't need
to be reformed. You need to be resurrected. You
need to be resurrected. Sinners don't need some clever
preacher. They don't need to walk some
church aisle. They don't need to make no decision. They need
life. They need life. Second of all,
Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life. When Jesus came
to this tomb of Lazarus, He commands some men to roll away the stone. Go back to your text and look
at this, go over. Now he's come down, he's got to the tomb, and
now he's weeping. And he's weeping not for Lazarus,
but he's weeping because of the unbelief of the people. Matter
of fact, he said his spirit groaned. That's an anger. It was not necessarily
like you would groan in sadness. It was more, it was hostile. He wept because these people
wouldn't believe. And then he says in verse 39,
take away the stone. Take away the stone. Martha then
speaks up. She says, oh Lord, wait a second.
Wait a second. Maybe you need to do something
else. Because when you roll away that stone, he's been dead for
four days. Four days. My brother stinks. He stinks. His corpse is already
starting to rot. It smells. You don't want to
open that to him. Whatever you need to do, maybe
you just need to leave that door shut and do whatever it is you're
going to do. No. But isn't that true of our
nature of sin? I'll tell you, your sin stinks. It smells like a rotten corpse
in the nostrils of God. But these men who were sent to
roll away this stone, that's me. That's every gospel
preacher. All we're sent to do is be stone
rollers. We're going to roll away the
stone of your tomb and the rotten stench of your sin will be exposed. That's what we do. Now, when
they rolled away this stone, did that give him any life? Did
that do anything for Lazarus? Absolutely not. And so this evening,
as I preach to you and tell you how dead you are, how rotten
your sins are before the nostrils of God, I'm just exposing what's
there. I'm not creating your sin. I'm
not making you a sinner. You are a sinner. They didn't make Lazarus stink.
He already stunk. They just exposed it. They were
commanded to roll away the stone and expose it. And that's what
I'm doing. That's what I'm doing this evening.
Rolling away the stone as I preach the word to you. The dead, dry
bones. That doesn't make much sense,
does it? To preach to dead people. Yet that's what Ezekiel was commanded
to do. Preach to those dead bones. Can these bones live? Lord, you know what you're going
to do. Lord, thou knowest. I have no
clue. Is there anyone tonight that's
dead that's going to be raised from the dead? I don't know.
The Lord knows. The Lord knows. All I'm sent to do is tell you,
behold, Jesus Christ alone is the resurrection and the life.
And as He stood at the tomb of Lazarus, even so at the appointed
time does He stand before the tomb of His elect, though they
were dead, though they were without hope, without faith, without
power, to give themselves life. At the time of love, Jesus Christ
comes to every one of his elect and says the same thing, Lazarus,
come forth. That's what he said. Verse 43,
he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. See that salvation,
my friend, is not an invitation. It's not a request. Spiritual
life is not dependent upon the will of man or the power of man,
but life comes by the power of the Word of Jesus Christ. If you are going to have life,
He must speak life to you. If you only hear Me, I pity you. They record my messages. I don't
listen to them. I can't stand to hear my own
voice. So if all you hear, that's why I pity you. But if you hear
his voice, you will live. You will live. Faith in Jesus Christ, my friends,
is the most simple thing in all the world. Just like our brother
said, it is like a childlike action. A childlike faith. Faith is very simple. To believe
on Christ is to fall out on Christ, to rest on Christ. It is to believe
and trust in Jesus Christ alone. That's what it is. Faith is to
believe. To completely lay on His perfect
salvation and find rest. It is to come to him as a child
would his mother and father and ask of him and he would give
you life. Yet this faith is not possible
for men to produce in themselves, just as the dead cannot breathe
without life being given to them. Neither can you believe except
life be given to you. No man can come to me except
the Father which has sent me draw him. O son of man, can these bones
live? Lord, you know. And when the Son of God calls
men from the grave, what happens? What happens? They come. Command, follow. Command, action. Let there be light. And there
was light. Lazarus come forth. And look
in your Bible, make sure you said the same thing. And he that
was dead came forth. Came forth. Even so it is with
salvation. Not all men are raised from the
dead. I know this, that if the Lord
Jesus Christ didn't put Lazarus in front of that, that every
grave would have been opened. Come forth! And every grave would
have been opened. But this was specific. He named
him. And that's what He tells us in
John chapter 10. He said, the sheep of the shepherd
hear His voice, and He calls them how? By name. By name. It's a particular call. It's
an effectual call. Behold, the Son of God came to
honor the law, to provide a perfect obedience that His people could
not. His blood made an atonement for
their sins. Therefore, He has risen from
the dead, ascended into heaven, sits on the throne of God, and
has sent His Spirit into the world to do what? To give life
to His people. To give life to His people. The
Holy Spirit is sent to give life. And as life filled this corpse
of Lazarus, even so does the grace of God come and give us
a new heart and a new nature at his word. Now, Lazarus was
no longer smelly. When he came forth out of that
grave, he was alive. His flesh was clean. That's what
it is to have a new nature. It's to be given a righteousness
that you didn't have before. is to be given a new heart, a
heart that loves God, a heart that serves God, a heart that
longs for Christ. That wasn't there before when
you were dead. But now that you have life, you
also have faith to believe. Lastly, notice how Lazarus came
forth. Verse 44. He came forth bound
hand and foot with grave clothes." He's bound hands and bound feet, and yet he came forth. How is
that possible? He was bound. How did he come
out? I tell you, it was a miracle.
It was a miracle how He came out. He was bound hand and foot,
and that's how we come to Christ. We come to Christ bound. We come
to Christ as we are. We come as sinners in need of
mercy. We come bound by sin, bound by
Satan. We come without any hope in ourselves,
and we come begging for mercy. Scripture says it is not of him
that willeth nor him that runneth. I was bound. My feet were bound. I couldn't run. It's not by the
works of my righteousness. My hands were bound. I could
do no work. Do you see then that all salvation,
every part belongs only to God. Every part. So where is your glory? What glory do you get out of
this? Nothing. You don't get any. Jesus Christ gets it all. He said, I'll show you the glory
of God. Didn't he show us the glory of God? Isn't this how
we were saved? And now he says this to you, loose him and let him go. That's what we're commanded. We who roll away the stone, we
are commanded to comfort God's people. How? By telling you you are free. You're free from sin, free from the law, free from
judgment. You are free to love God with
all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength,
and your neighbor as yourself. Isn't that what the new man does
all the time? If you have a new nature, he's
holy. He loves that law. He's still got that old man. He's still got the grave clothes
on. May God give us grace to continually
take off that old man. And we might go free. And later
on the scriptures you read of Lazarus sitting down at the table
and eating with the Lord Jesus Christ. You know what he said,
Lazarus? Nothing. He said nothing. He just wanted
to be with Christ. Oh, I want to be with I want to love him and just keep my mouth shut. When you do that, everybody else
will want to kill you. That's what the Pharisees wanted to
do. They wanted to find a way to kill Lazarus again. This world is not going to understand
you, nor your love for Christ, because they're still dead. But now you're loosed. You're
free. I'll let you go. And God bless
you.