May the Son of God be Glorified

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John chapter 11. We read this section this morning, but we will just for the remembrance read through verse 10 again.
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Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
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It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointments and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.
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So the sister sent word to him saying, Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick. When Jesus heard this, he said, this sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so the
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Son of God may be glorified by it. Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was sick, he then stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
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And after this he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again. The disciples said to him, Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?
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Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in a day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world.
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But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him.
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Now, this morning we worked through approximately verse four and five, but we did not make application to everything as yet.
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And as I mentioned this morning, my biggest concern is to make sure that we hear how the author sets up the entirety of the situation with the raising of Lazarus and then the resultant hardening of the hearts of Jesus' enemies.
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And we mentioned this morning that in verse three, we have the phrase, he whom you love is sick.
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And then we see in verse five, now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
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And so we noted this morning, the reality of the fact that the Lord Jesus had close personal relationships with individuals in his life, that this was an appropriate thing, that it is not appropriate for us to think of God's omnibenevolence as a denial, either of the personality of God and his freedom to enter into special relationship, nor the reality of the personality of Jesus as a human being living here upon earth.
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He's going to have a best friend. He's going to have people that are close to him in his life.
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And I didn't expand upon it, but it certainly crosses our mind as we think about the idea that people have, that omnibenevolence means that God cannot have special love.
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God cannot have redemptive love. You look at the whole Testament and you see over and over again, the statements from the prophets, the
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Lord through the prophets talking about his love for the people of Israel. And yet, how many times does
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God stop and say, now, I don't love you because you're more numerous than others, or you're a greater people than others.
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I love you because I've chosen to set my love upon you. The freedom of God in the ordering of his own love is right there on the surface of the text.
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And yet it's a danger that we see that there are many people who they will develop a theology.
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They will develop an idea, especially the idea of omnibenevolence.
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And they will say, well, if God is love, then God must be undifferentiated love.
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No, God is not undifferentiated love. And obviously, we see the horrific results of a unbiblical and unbalanced theology.
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And we look at what has happened in modern liberalism in our day. I couldn't help as I was,
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I took a different route to get down here this evening because of the stuff going over on I -17. And I just didn't want to risk it.
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I know it's the northbound that's closed, not the southbound. But a couple weeks ago, it was the southbound that was closed and the northbound was messed up.
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So I said, I'm just not going to fight with it. So I was driving down one of the surface streets and I passed by an old church of what we would call a mainline denomination.
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And we all know what's happened to all of the mainline denominations over the past 50, 60, 70 years.
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And if you want an illustration of what happens when you ignore biblical balance, look at what has happened.
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When you missed the balance of God's revelation of his love, his tenderness, his kindness, as well as his wrath and his holiness and his judgment.
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When you decide, I'm going to get rid of that, look what happens. I mean, this is absolutely foundational to everything else.
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And half the foundations cut off. What happens to the building? It starts tilting wildly the wrong direction.
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And we wonder today why we see arguments in these mainline denominations about every single aspect of Christian truth.
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It's because the foundations were cracked long, long ago. And so when we hear the scriptures saying, now
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Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. This is not a denial of Jesus's love for the world and his self -sacrifice and everything else.
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But it is a recognition that there was a special relationship. And it truly does make you wonder what a tremendous blessing and benefit there was to these individuals.
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They didn't deserve this, but they were given a tremendous blessing. And yet, and yet,
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I want us to think throughout this study, and I'll have to reiterate this a number of times because we're going through it piece by piece.
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If I was covering all of chapter 11 in one shot, which some people do, not
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Reformed Baptists, but some people do, I could do this all at once.
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But when verse 6 says, so when he heard that he was sick, now notice the connection.
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Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was sick, he then stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
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Do you see the connection? It sounds somewhat stilted to us, but there's a connection between the two.
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It was because of his love for Martha and Mary and Lazarus that he stayed where he was.
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You see, the temptation would have been, I am the incarnate Son of God. I could immediately relieve the distress of these individuals.
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In fact, he could have done it right where he was. He had done it before. There's another miracle of healing recorded for us in the
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New Testament where, go, your child's well. And it was a remote healing.
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So Jesus could have done that for Lazarus. That would be the temptation. I love these people, so I will keep them from going through this deep time of sorrow.
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But because he loved them, he stayed two days where he was. I hope you hear that, because when we think about what it's going to be like, two days.
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Now, the sisters would have known where Jesus was. Now, by the way, we're not exactly certain where Jesus was. Some of the interpretations of this have him right across the
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Jordan, very near to Bethany, a day's walk at best. Could have gotten there very quickly.
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Others say, no, it's much more likely that he was much farther away, a couple of days' walk.
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In fact, it is a little bit strange, because a lot of the interpretations over the years have been, well, he was very close by, and so he had to wait.
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And so what really happened is Lazarus died right after the messengers left, and so you have to find some way for the four days to be in the grave and all the rest of that stuff.
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The fact of the matter is, the text doesn't tell us any of that. It doesn't tell us exactly where Jesus was, but for Mary and Martha to send messengers, they had to have some idea.
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And they would have had some idea of how long it would take Jesus to get there, and Jesus doesn't come. Jesus doesn't come in the time that certainly they would have been hoping.
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They would have been looking at the clock, proverbially speaking, at the time, obviously, and, well, you know, he might be able to make it by such and such.
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You know, if he hurries, doesn't come, doesn't come. And Lazarus dies.
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They had had tremendous hope, tremendous hope.
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Now that hope is gone. And you can't tell me that as we read the words later on,
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Lord, if you had been here, there's some recrimination.
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There's disappointment. There's you could have done something and you didn't.
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What was more important than he whom you loved? Maybe you didn't love him as much as we thought.
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Now we can sit here with the advantage of tremendous amount of distance and go, oh,
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I would never do that. And yet we have one really, really bad day.
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And we find ourselves entertaining thoughts about how
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God doesn't love us as much as we thought he did, don't we? What was it like during that time period, right after Lazarus's death?
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And the hours keep ticking by. The day goes by. Another day goes by.
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They've had to prepare the body. He isn't even there for the funeral. He's now on the ground.
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Still hasn't come. Where's that love? Now keep something else in mind.
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They didn't have the New Testament. They don't have a full understanding.
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They don't have Romans and Colossians and Philippians. They're before the cross.
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When Jesus starts talking about being the resurrection and life, they're still functioning in a very Second Temple Jewish concept.
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Yes, there's going to be a resurrection someday, Lord, we understand that. They don't have nearly what we have.
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And it makes you wonder, in light of what we have, how could we ever judge them for having thoughts of unbelief and discontentment with God?
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In light of the fact that you and I so often have those thoughts and we have so much more and hence so much less reason to ever have.
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We already have this story. We can already look at this. We can look at Paul's long suffering in the face of suffering.
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We have church history. We have thousands of years of saints who have given testimony of the faithfulness of God.
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And yet we forget. So, man, we are in no position to judge them.
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So when he heard that he was sick because of his love, he stayed.
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He stayed. Because he knew what the final outcome was going to be.
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And the final outcome, obviously, was fully to be focused upon his glorification and the resurrection of Lazarus.
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But that doesn't mean that there weren't other purposes. Yes, that is the ultimate purpose. But God works it in such a fashion that I truly wonder, what was it like not just to be
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Lazarus? Yeah, we talked about that this morning. What was it like to be Lazarus?
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And yeah, it would have been a pretty cool thing except for one thing. Lazarus died twice.
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Ever thought about that? That's it. I'm not sure that's a really good thing.
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You know, I mean, I'm sure he was like, yeah, I'm willing to do that for my Lord. But he died twice.
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And if Mary and Martha outlived him, seems like he was the oldest, they got to see him die twice.
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How different was the second time Lazarus died than the first?
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What do you think? I mean, I can guarantee you one thing.
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If that happened before the writing of the Gospel of John, and it probably did, it wouldn't matter the
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Gospel of John hadn't been written because the words going through Lazarus's mind, and Mary's mind, and Martha's mind, that second time of Lazarus's death,
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I know what the words were. I am the resurrection and the life.
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And now they knew what that meant. Now they knew what that meant.
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What a change that would make. What a difference that would make. So because he loved them, he knew what needed to be done.
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He knew it was going to be done. He knew what the decree of God was. And he knew that they were going to be blessed.
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But they're going to have to go through a dark time. And it seemed like forever to them.
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And it seems like forever for us too. But the promise is, he does work all things together for the good.
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For them that love God, for them who are called according to his purpose. But that doesn't mean we don't go through periods of deep darkness.
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And we are tempted to question God's love. We are tempted to question
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God's timing. Remember those two days.
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Because he loved them, he stayed two days. It might be even longer for you.
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But you can always have in the back of your mind, must mean God really loves me. Because his purpose is going to be fulfilled.
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His purpose is going to be fulfilled. Then after this, he said to his disciples, let us go to Judea again.
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Now the disciples obviously were enjoying being somewhere other than Jerusalem.
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But what was it like to be one of Jesus' disciples in those situations? We always think about John 10, they're picking up stones to stone him.
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But the disciples had to have it in the back of their mind. When they're done stoning him, who's next?
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Seriously. And this is totally against what they're thinking. Sometimes the crowds want to make
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Jesus king. And then a few weeks later, the leaders are wanting to kill
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Jesus. And if they're going to kill Jesus, they're going to come after us too. And so they're sort of enjoying because many people are believing on him.
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This is a nice place to be. This is better than Judea. And so Jesus announces a return to where they just were.
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The disciples were like, um, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and you're going to go there again?
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In other words, Lord, things haven't cooled down any. It's going to be just as bad.
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It's going to be just as bad for you there. And I think unspoken, and for us too.
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Now Jesus' answer is interesting. I don't know if you noticed something. Are there not 12 hours in a day?
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If anyone walks in a day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world. Now, we're at that time of the year.
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Have you all seen the weather forecast? You seen the forecast for Friday? 104?
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Yeah, yeah, 104. I heard that gasp. Folks, we're Arizonans.
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What are you gasping for? Do you know what the dew point is right now? It's sub -freezing. It's below 30.
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It's 20. I think it was last time I looked, it was 29. It is so dry right now. It could be 110. It's like, eh, whatever.
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Come on, don't. We've got a long, it's a long time coming. That's just the way it is here, all right? And we're at that time when the day is getting longer and longer.
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It's still bright out right now. You remember just a matter of weeks ago, you could look at those windows back there and they'd be, they'd be dark.
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And that sun's staying up long. It's getting up earlier and earlier. It means I'm getting up earlier and earlier.
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12 hours in a day. That's how it sort of sounds like, how can that be?
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You know what's interesting? You know what they used to do? Because we don't, they were, we're a little bit like ancient man.
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We don't play with our clocks. And they sort of didn't either. But they did it, they did do it in a different way than we do it.
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An hour wasn't 60 minutes in that interest. What they did is you take whatever daylight you have, you divide it up into 12 equal parts and that's an hour.
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So that's what Jesus is talking about here. Are there not 12 hours in a day? Well, for us, we'd go, yeah, twice a year, you know, but then it'd change it.
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No, it's almost 12 hours in a day. You just take the time of light, divide it into 12 parts, there's 12 hours.
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A lot of us just sort of go waltzing past that and I, oh yeah, sure, daylight, night time. No, no, the point is there's, there's a time of, of, of light.
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And what you do is you, you do what you need to do during that time period when the light is there.
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And when Jesus talks about these things here and, and other places in the gospels, what he's saying is there is a right time for these things.
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I know what those times are. Walk while the light, you have the light, there's going to be a time when darkness comes, you don't want to stumble.
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And so to the disciples, he has to remind them again, he's the
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Lord, he knows the proper timing. And so now is the time.
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And I know what I'm doing. I'm walking by the light. And so what
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I'm going to do, I'm going to do purposefully. And you need to trust and follow after me.
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Now, it's interesting to me, yeah, the disciples went along, the disciples went along and, and we know that 11 of these disciples are going to be found faithful and when the spirit comes, they're going to be used mightily of God.
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And yeah, we don't know about some of them. We don't know a lot about some of them. I, I can't tell you if someday we're going to get a, a full accounting of everything that took place.
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I suppose it's possible. It's not like there's a promise given of that, that, you know, in the first 10 ,000 years of his, of eternity, we're going to get to find out exactly what each of the disciples did and how this church, we're not, we're not told.
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But they went along, they obeyed. Even though they knew that not only was his life in danger, but theirs were as well.
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What's interesting to me is Judas goes along too. Judas goes along too.
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And it's, it's, it's really at this point, just a matter of days before he's going to literally sell his soul.
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If I recall correctly, it's John specifically that relates that when Jesus spoke with Judas and Judas went out, there's this little phrase, and it was night.
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That could just be a description of the fact that the sun had set, but I'm not really sure that John was really interested in giving us a chronological note at that point, that the sun had set and it was dark.
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It just seems to me that he is probably saying something about Judas and what he's doing and when he's doing it.
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It's not long after this, and yet he stays with the group, stays with the group.
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Why? Well, we could sit here and we could try to psychoanalyze Judas all we want.
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The fact is the scriptures are pretty clear. He was the son of perdition.
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He had a role to play and God made sure that he played it.
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Now, how the decree of God works with the will of man so that Judas is held accountable for his actions has to do with desires and the will and the nature of an individual and all that kind of stuff, and it can get rather complicated.
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What we should never allow ourselves to slip into is this idea that Judas was actually this really good guy, just an innocent guy that just was at the wrong place at the wrong time, made a few little wrong decisions, you know, and got a little focused upon the money and carrying the money bag and stuff like that, but you know,
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God forced him to do bad stuff. No. That's a, that's a,
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I realize that's sort of a modernistic way of looking at things, and that's why a lot of people don't like the story of Judas.
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And it's not just modern people who did that. Remember the Gospel of Judas that was found, I don't know, 10 years ago or so now, made a big splash for a few months and then went the way of the world, but it was a fragment of a
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Gnostic story that basically glorified
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Judas. And there was a reason for it within Gnosticism that we don't have time to go into this evening, but it basically said that Judas was a good guy, that he was actually cooperating with Jesus because they needed to do this betrayal thing for Gnostic reasons, and so Judas was sort of doing what he was supposed to do, and Judas and Judas were sort of in this together.
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So early on were people trying to find an excuse for Judas. The problem is, when you really think about Judas, I think one of the reasons we don't like to think about him too much, how much light did that man have?
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How many blind eyes did he see open? Deaf ears, diseases, demons cast out.
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Just the number of gracious words that had flowed from Jesus' lips, not just while he was listening to the sermons, but as the inner group of 12.
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And I think one of the things that just sort of makes us recoil and stand back is, how could someone that close to the
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Son of God? I mean, we look at the Pharisees, we talk about the unpardonable sin, why was it unpardonable?
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Because they had so much light, they had all the scriptures, they're staying in the very presence of the Son of God. Well, okay, how about Judas? How about Judas?
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He is in the midst of blinding light. And how can it be someone that close to Jesus could still have loved money?
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30 pieces of silver? 30 pieces of silver?
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How can that happen? Well, that shouldn't be a tough thing for you and I to figure out.
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The answer should not be far from any one of us in this room. It's far from those who do not have a reformed understanding of man's nature.
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But it shouldn't be a problem for any of us. Because you see, you can put a stone in the sun.
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It doesn't matter how bright that sun is, it's going to remain a stone. It's unaffected because of its nature, because of its hardness.
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If you don't change the heart, all the light in the world isn't going to change the nature of that heart.
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And so, Judas can watch the very power of God being displayed all around him.
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He was in the boat when Jesus stilled the sea. He saw
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Jesus walk on water. He ate of the loaves and the fishes, fed the 5 ,000.
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Can you imagine? And yet, here?
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Who knows? Maybe he was one of those saying, Rabbi, the Jews are just now seeking to stone you. We're not told.
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There's all the disciples. And yet, he goes. He may have been the last one in line.
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Maybe he was. We don't know. We're not told. Nothing's mentioned. But he went. He went.
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He did as it was decreed of him. And we sit back and we go, well, it's not that he was an innocent man being pushed to do something he didn't want to do.
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God's got an evil gun behind him and you do it. No, that's. But boy, we do wonder about the motivations.
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We wonder about the motivations. What kind of motivations could drive someone to do these things?
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And yet, if we understand the deception of being dead in sin, you can be exposed to all the truth in the world.
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And unless the heart's been changed, you'll find a way to twist it.
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You'll find a way to get out from underneath it. We've seen it happen in our own experience.
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But it's still frightening to think about. It is truly frightening to think about what it's like to have that much revelation, that much light, and to do what
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Judas did. But at the same time, what we should be more thankful for is these other 11 guys, who don't deserve the fame that they have.
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They didn't. It wasn't anything special about them, have. What did Jesus say? You didn't choose me,
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I chose you. I chose you. And we look at their leader.
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And we look at how many times he stuck his foot in his mouth, and mistakes he made.
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Even once he's indwelt by the Holy Spirit, that upstart Paul guy has to slap him upside the head in Antioch and say, hey, you're not walking in accordance with the truth of the gospel.
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Thankfully, he accepted that. And we look at them, and what we should really, instead of recoiling at Judas so much, we should look to them and go,
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God can use people who mess up a lot. That's why he keeps using us.
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That's why he keeps using us. But you know, for years, the most widely accepted theory is three years in the ministry of Jesus.
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There are people who dispute that. Some say two. There's even one theory of one year. I don't think that works. But let's say it was three years.
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For years, he stood with that group. For years, the people looked and said, disciple of Jesus, and if you've walked with the
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Lord for any period of time, you can sit here with me. You can see the faces.
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You think of the names of people who once sat where you're sitting.
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Once partook of the Lord's Supper with us. They're not here any longer, not because they moved someplace else.
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They've walked away from the faith. That's what makes all of us sober when we think about Judas.
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It wasn't a failure of Jesus to keep his own. Judas had a role to play, and it was a necessary role.
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It was a prophesied role. That's what Jesus could say in John chapter 13. He had a role to play.
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That doesn't take away from the reality of religious hypocrisy.
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When Judas first started following, did he really think he was following Jesus for the right reasons? Was it just a switch?
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Got flicked one day while he was carrying the money bag and went, hmm. Or do you think it was a slow process?
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You think he rationalized it? We got plenty. There's lots of folks supporting us.
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Never going to be missed. And that love for the money, that love slowly became his idol, took over.
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We're not told we can't do deep, in -depth studies. But it does make us think.
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And we see the disciples here. They know they're going back into danger. And Judas goes.
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And it makes us think about the motivations. They were behind all of these things.
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I think all this is important in setting up what is going to happen.
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Jesus could go on and just straight on say to the disciples, no, you don't understand. Lazarus is dead.
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And I'm going to go raise him up. They knew what was coming. And yet when they stood outside the tomb, how many of them were nervous?
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How many of them were wondering? These are the things that John gives us this information.
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He wants us to be thinking about this. He wants us to be seeing this situation unfolding in our minds and asking these questions.
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Or he wouldn't be giving us this information. But for today, the main thing
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I want us to take away in closing is we don't know what this week's going to bring.
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The stuff happened to me over the past 10 days. If someone had told me that such and so is going to happen, and you're going to have a conflict, this individual,
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I would have gone, huh? I mean, some of it I could sort of get. You're going to be debating probably the largest cult in the
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Philippines. There's going to be some fallout from that. Okay, saw that coming. Okay, I expect that.
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But then other stuff? Didn't see that coming.
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You may have something going on right now. You may encounter something this week, and it's going to be your two days.
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Leaving you wondering, when's the Lord going to come? Looking at your watch, tempted to question
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God's goodness. Can you remember this? Can you remember what the outcome was?
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Oh, you mean I'm going to have a solution in a brief period of time? No, I didn't say that.
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Joseph didn't. Oh, it's going to be a really great miraculous thing like Lazarus.
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Maybe not. But the point is, what should be your desire?
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Those words of Jesus. These, this is happening, it's not about Lazarus. It's for the glory of God, the glorification of the
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Son of God. And our prayer, our attitude must be in all of those things.
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God, may your Son be glorified in how I respond to whatever it is we encounter in this life.
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It's not easily done, but it needs to be our prayer and our goal. Let's pray together.
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Our gracious and merciful Heavenly Father, we do desire that in this coming week as your servants, we would trust you.
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We would recognize your sovereignty in our lives. And Lord, as we encounter trial and difficulty, that we would not be questioning your goodness, but instead with patience, instead fastness, our attitude is to be, may the
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Son of God be glorified. May that be our hope. May that be our plea.
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And may you use us in that way through the power of your Holy Spirit. We pray in Christ's name,