Growth of the Soul

I'd like to speak today on the three persons of the Lord Jesus, graved from the dead. Now, I'd like to bring out in these three persons the growth of the soul. That is, if they're looking upon these three, I believe we'll see how it brings before us exactly how the Christian grows after he comes to know the Lord Jesus.

I think it's very nice to see this. So, our first scripture is Mark chapter 5. Now, we just read the end of the chapter because this is what we're supposed to speak on, not the whole subject. The fifth chapter of Mark's gospel, and verse 38.

And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and seeth a cumul, and then the westward wail breaketh. And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why makest ye this ado and weep? The damsel was not dead, but sleepless. And they laughed unto scorn, when he had put them all out.

He taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with him, and entered in where the damsel was lying. And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, How like that, cumul, which is being interpreted, damsel, I say unto thee, arise. And straightway the damsel arose, and watched.

For she was of the age of twelve years, and they were astonished with a great astonishment. And he charged them straightly, that no man should know her, and commanded that something should be given her to eat. Now I believe we can see in these few verses, the latter last verse of the chapter, something to do with ourselves.

That we were dead. We were dead spiritually. I wonder if we all believe that.

We all recognize that we were absolutely dead. And a dead man can do nothing for himself. He must get help outside of himself, since he can't do anything.

He's dead. And so spiritually speaking, we were dead. Though we were alive physically in our sins, I say again, spiritually, we were dead.

And I believe that today the United States and these other so-called Christian lands are dead with men and women who are dead spiritually. They're spiritual corpses. They know all about the Bible.

They've heard all about the death and resurrection of Christ. But they're dead. They've heard about Jesus.

But they've rejected him. And they've turned to some sect or some other false religion, which has made it far worse than ever, because they're more deceived and more dead than ever. Dead in trespasses and sins.

I want you to notice what happened here. There was only one person that had the power to do anything for this young girl, and he did it. Notice it tells us, when they left in the scorn, in verse 40, when he had put them out, when he had put them all out.

Well, that's what happens to those who laugh at Christ. That's what happens to those who make light of the Lord Jesus and his words. They're put out.

And someday they're going to be put out of the very presence of the Lord for all eternity. So he put them all out. And then he spoke to this dead girl.

And he said, I say unto thee, arise. Now, this is exactly what happened to you and to me who were dead spiritually. The Lord Jesus called us out of death, and he gave us life.

Now, this is a wonderful thing. There was an old brother in Montreal who's with the Lord now. He was saved when he was about 84 years of age.

He was a brother of our brother Willie Martin, who I understand has been here. And one night in the Bible reading, a brother said, we never know when we're born again. We never know that.

A Christian can't say, I was born again on the fifth day of January at 4 o'clock. We can't say that because it's the Lord that does this great miracle in our souls. And I remember a doctor told me once, a Christian doctor, he said it's like a child that's born.

When that baby's born into the world, nobody would say, well, that baby just began to live two minutes ago. That baby lived before it could be seen. You know, it lived with its mother, but nevertheless it had life before it was brought into the world, before it could be seen.

Then when it's born into the world, then it cries. We hear it cry, and we say, boy, there's a new life in the world. But the life was there before.

And so each one of us, God worked in our dead souls. And the Lord Jesus said to this girl, damsel, I say unto thee, arise. And straightway the damsel arose.

Now she got life. She got life from the very words of the Lord Jesus. The power of Christ gave her life.

She had that life now. Of course, it was a physical life. But we're likening this to the spiritual life.

Each one of us as Christians received when the Lord Jesus spoke to our dead souls. And first of all, notice what happened now. She arose in verse 42.

And the second thing she did, she walked. Isn't this true of what we who are Christians? Doesn't the world say something's happened to that man or something's happened to that lady? They're not the same anymore. They've changed.

And what tells them they've changed? The things we say? No. The things we do. And so this girl now had life, and she walked.

How wonderful. She walked. And then it tells us in the 43rd verse, the end of the 43rd verse, he commanded that something should be given to her to eat.

In other words, she was dead. She had life. She walked.

But now she had to have something to eat. This is very blessed. This is exactly what happens to you and to me when the Lord Jesus calls us out of that place of death.

We have life. Isn't that wonderful? Then we're able to walk for the Lord, and then we need something to eat. And we have the Word of God.

That's food for our soul. You know, there's no power shortage with God. Every one of us here today are conscious of a power shortage.

It's all around us. We see evidence of the power shortage. But there's no power shortage up there.

No power shortage. No power failure with God. He's all-powerful, and He's all-mighty.

And this blessed book is a living book. It's the only book in the world that's going to be in heaven. The only book in the world that stands the test.

All other books have to be brought back and revised, and changed, new editions. Because man's thoughts have always got to be changed and brought up to date. But this book stands supreme.

And that's why, and I say this, I trust with respect, I haven't got too much faith in these new editions of the Bible. I don't believe we need a new edition of the Bible. We have the Word of God.

It never changes. It abides eternal in the heavens. And Jesus said, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.

I'd like to say this for the young Christian's benefit. When you see these new translations, I always turn to Isaiah 7, verse 14. I said, I found in some of these new translations, the word virgin is changed to a young woman.

A young woman shall be with child. And when I see that, I close that Bible, and I reject it. I reject it because it's not true.

It's not true. Ever since Cain was born, young women have been bearing children. It's no miracle for a woman to bear a child.

There have been millions of children born of young women. But never before or never since, never in man's history has a virgin born a child. Now the modernist people, the liberals of this age, have dared to change the Word of God, and they've tried to tell us, it's a hypocrisy of the worst kind, that young people can't understand the word virgin.

And yet in all their education, in all the fact they went to college, they can't understand the word virgin. This is just a lie of the devil. It comes from hell.

And we reject it because the Lord Jesus was born of a virgin. He had no human father. I just mention this because it's so important that when we read the Bible, we turn to the Word of God and not to the word of man and man's reasoning and man's doubts.

The Word of God liveth and abideth forever. We have a book that will never change. It's the Word of God.

Do we read this book? Do we feed on this book? Do we read this book in the morning? Do we read this book at night? Are we reading the Word of God? The new life we have from God must be fed. Just as a little babe is fed after its virgin grows and is weighed by its mother and father to see how much it gains day by day, so God, speaking reverently, would weigh you and me, spiritually speaking. Are we growing? As we feed on the Word of God, we grow.

And so the Lord Jesus commanded that this girl be given something to eat. We all need to feed daily on the Word of God. You show me a Christian that doesn't read his Bible or her Bible, and I'll show you a Christian that's backsliding.

A Christian's getting away from the Lord. If you don't read your Bible daily, every day, the seven days of the week, then you're losing your strength and you'll start to drift away into the world. How nice it is to have the Word of God and to feed daily on the Word of God.

Now let's turn to the second and the seventh chapter of Luke's gospel. In the seventh chapter of Luke's gospel, we have another step here in verse 11. Luke's gospel, chapter 7, verse 11.

It came to pass the day after that he went into a city called Maine, and many of his disciples went with him and much people. Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother. Notice those words, the only son of his mother.

Now here's a wonderful thought. The only son of his father now came into contact with the only son of his mother. There was a dead man, the only son of his mother, now came down towards this little town Maine, the only son of his father.

And she was a widow, and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, notice, when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said unto her, Weep not. What a strange thing for the Lord to say.

There was a woman who had lost her husband, and now she had lost her son. And the Lord Jesus says to her, Weep not. Why shouldn't she weep? Her husband gone, the one on whom she depended, her son gone.

Now the son speaks of hope, I believe. The one she depended on was gone. The one in whom her hope was, was gone.

And yet the Lord says to her, Weep not. And he came and touched the beard and made it bare and stood still. Now notice, I like this little thought I enjoyed about this beard.

We know it was a coffin. We call a coffin or a casket. And it held this young man there in that casket.

But the Lord touched it. Notice that, the Lord touched it. And doesn't the Lord often touch those things that harm you and me? Those things that hold you and me in their power, the world, the world's customs, the world's dealings, the world's crooked ways, the world's crooked business deals.

Doesn't the Lord often, in the case of you and me, who are Christians, who are believers in Christ, doesn't the Lord seek to touch those things that hold us captive? Instead, he touched the beard and made it bare and stood still. Notice here, they didn't mock him. They didn't laugh at him like they did in the fifth of March.

And they were privileged to see the Lord's great miracle. Oh, how many Christians there are, who even though they're saved and they know the Lord Jesus, they don't always believe that with God all things are possible. They don't really believe it.

And they get disheartened and discouraged. And we all do, don't we? We all get discouraged at the things that happen to us. And we get down.

And we get sad. But how nice it is that we can believe that God is for us. And if God be for us, who can be against us? Can the devil be against us if God is for us? God is for us.

The living God is for us. How nice that is. And he's able to give us the victory.

And so he says, And he said, He had life now. He heard the very word of the living God. For this man was God manifest in the flesh.

He heard the very word of God. Young man, I say unto thee, arise. And what happened? He sat up.

He that was dead sat up. And what did he do? He began to speak. Now here's our next point.

He began to speak. And what does this tell us about the confession of Christ? Oh, dear young Christians, have you confessed the Lord? How many Christians there are that never confessed the Lord? I remember in Montreal, at the end of the gospel meeting, a young lad, whose father and mother had gathered to the Lord's name, approached me, and he was trembling. His lips were shaking.

And he twitched and trembled, and he said, Mr. Whitfield, I just want to tell you, Jesus is my Lord. Oh, he got the words out. It's a poor little song.

It's only a little small song, but he got the words out. He began to speak. Have you began to speak yet? Have you ever confessed the Lord Jesus? You know, many of us can look back to the old days, and we talked very highly of these great athletes.

We weren't ashamed to talk about these men. We weren't ashamed to talk about the great hockey players and the great prize fighters. We sort of got pride in that.

You think we could talk loud on the bus, so people would hear us talking about these great, notable men? But oh, how different it is when it comes to Jesus. The world, you could talk about anybody. You could talk about anybody under the sun.

But when you speak about Jesus, the world says, that man, you know, has lost his reason. He's gone crazy. He's a maniac.

The world never changes. It's still the same old world. It's enmity with God.

But this young man began to speak. And that was what the Lord did. And he delivered him to his mother.

Wasn't that beautiful? He didn't say, now I've raised this young man from the dead, and I want this young man to follow me. I want him to leave you and to come with me. And I want him to be one of my servants.

No, he didn't do that. He delivered him to his mother. The Lord Jesus knew that that mother needed that child, that son of hers.

She needed him. He was now her hope, a living hope. You and I have got a living hope and a risen Savior.

Isn't that wonderful? Jesus lives. He is risen indeed. And how lovely it is to know that our hope is now in a living Savior, a living Christ.

Oh, the world says, where is he? Why doesn't he show himself? Well, if he does, he's going to judge the world. If he shows himself to the world, he's going to judge it. It's a good thing for the world that Jesus doesn't show himself.

For to show himself would mean judgment to this poor world. But when he does come, he's going to come first of all and take all his ambassadors home to glory. That's what the nations do when they declare war.

They call their ambassadors home first. And you and I are ambassadors for Christ, and the Lord is going to call his ambassadors home before he pours his wrath and judgment on this poor world. And so he began to speak, which brings before us the confession of Christ.

Now we have death, and we have life, and we have walking, and we have feeding, and we have the confession of Christ. And now on the next one, which is well known, the 11th chapter of John's Gospel, we have something further in connection with our Christian lives, which I believe is very blessed. The 11th chapter of John, I'd like to read just a couple of verses before I go down further.

Let us notice that wonderful verse, the shortest verse in the Bible, Jesus wept. What a wonderful thing this is, that Jesus wept. The Son of God stood there weeping.

And it says in the next verse, Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved them. Isn't that nice? Behold how he loved them. And each one of us today can say by the grace of God, Behold how he loved me.

Behold how he loved me. And we will often say, in connection with John, the writer of the Gospel of John, that he called himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. Now, that was a wonderful thing.

And John didn't say, I'm the only disciple Jesus loves. But he said, I am the disciple whom Jesus loves. Now, each one of us here today who know the Lord, we can say, and I'm the disciple whom Jesus loves.

I am the disciple whom Jesus loves. And how nice it is when we look in the looking glass and we see ourselves in that glass and say, There is the disciple whom Jesus loves. How nice, that is you, and that is me.

We are the disciples whom Jesus loves. Now we go down to the chapter. In the 39th verse, Jesus says, Take ye away the stone.

Marsha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time ye stinketh. We have been dead four days. Now we know the third day is resurrection.

So the fourth day is the day beyond the resurrection. Hopeless, absolutely hopeless. And yet there was hope because there was one here who had the power over death.

Even though it was the fourth day, the Lord said in the 40th verse, Jesus saith unto her, Oh, what a statement. Thou should see the glory of God. Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid.

You see, they were able to take away the stone. They could roll away the stone. They had power to do that.

But there was one there who had power, and he alone to give life. This is good, isn't it? For those who teach Sunday school, for those who preach the gospel, there's only one who can give life, and that's the Lord Jesus. Nobody else can give life but him.

You can preach and preach and preach. You can preach a simple gospel, so if you were to go outside and say, you know, even a little five-year-old child could understand that. Yet nobody gets saved because only the Lord can open the heart.

Only the Lord can give life. All the great discourses and all the great sermons and all the education and everything else put together will never save one soul unless the Lord speaks. It has to be the Lord's work.

If it's not the Lord's work, he'll never stand a chance. And that's why in Christendom today, we have so many men and women who profess to be saved, but they've never received Christ. And so they're lost.

They're lost. It's better, you know, just to touch the hem of their garment and have life and to know all about the Lord Jesus and be lost. Because the more we know about the Savior, the more responsible we become.

Oh, beloved, is there somebody in this little audience today that says, I don't know everybody here. It's not saved. You will never get saved unless you have personal contact with the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I believe the devil today is attacking with all his power, and sad to say, he is succeeding to bring in false doctrine all around us, the slaves of the devil. And a dear brother in Montreal who is now with the Lord used to say this, Man is never ashamed of a false religion. How true that is.

I'm not ashamed to say in front of a crowd, you know, I was born a Protestant. No shame in that. Why, the world is so, and we, we're all Protestants.

Or another man says, I was born a Roman Catholic, and I'm proud of it. There's no, no, no, there's no reproach in that. But to say this, I'm only a poor, hell-deserving, wretched sinner who deserves to have the fury and wrath of God poured on me for eternity.

But my precious Savior died for me. He bore my sins in his own body in the tree, and the wrath of God fell on him, and he saved my soul, and I believe in him, the Christ of God. That will bring the hatred of this world, and the fears and the laughter of the ungodly.

And as we're just talking before dinner, this enmity comes not from the criminals in the prison. This enmity comes not from the drunkards in the gutter, or the men and women of society. It comes from men and women of religion.

For the worst enemies of the cross of Christ today are men and women of religion. And religion has done more to damned souls than everything else in the world. I believe there's going to be more people in hell because of religion than every other sin in creation.

And we know that sin is going to come under the judgment of God. But what I'm pointing out is religion has blinded men and women all over this world. And the problems I've come from in Canada is a great example of what religion, absolutely statues and monuments and all kinds of idolatry all around the city of Montreal, it means nothing.

And I believe that God hates it with all his power. So we must have Christ. Not religion and Christ, or Christ and religion, but only Christ and Christ alone.

And so here we have in the 41st verse, in the middle of the verse, Jesus looked up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always, but because of the people which stand by, I said it. They may believe that thou hast sent me.

I like to point out to the young Christians that in John's gospel, the Lord Jesus has sent them. If you have your Bible, start at the first chapter and go through, you'll be surprised how many times the Lord Jesus in John's gospel is referred to as the one that was sent. Especially in the 6th chapter, he was sent one from his father.

Verse 43. When he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. Now in the other two cases, there was no name given.

But in this case, this man is referred to as Lazarus. Somebody has said, if the Lord had just said come forth, all the graves would have emptied. But he called one person out.

And how nice it is that he's called you and me. He's cheap. He's called us by our names.

This is he called Lazarus out of death. So he's called you and me out of that place of spiritual death. And by the grace of God, we have life.

And our life is Christ. How lovely that is to see that we have a brand new life from God. Not the old life patched up and fixed up.

But a brand new life that came from above. The very life of God himself. He said, Lazarus, come forth.

And he that was dead came forth. And notice, in this case, because this goes on to the other two that we mentioned in chapter 5 of Mark and chapter 7 of Luke. Here's another case now.

This man, verse 44. And he that was dead came forth. Now notice, bound hands and foot.

He was bound by his hands. He couldn't serve the Lord. His hands bound.

But he was also bound with his feet. So he couldn't walk for the Lord. Even though he had life, he was bound hands and foot.

What with? Grave clothes. As we mentioned last night, the great number of Christians today in the United States are just like this man. They trust in Christ.

They see something in Jesus that has won their hearts. But they're bound in the grave clothes of religion. And they're under the law, many of them.

Many of them are trying their very best having received Christ to stay saved. And they're fighting, they say, desperately and doing everything in their power to stay saved lest they might lose this wonderful gift of God, which they say is eternal life. Isn't that true? Yes, you know it's true.

The great mass of so-called Christians I speak of as those who really are saved. They're bound in the grave clothes. And who bound them there? Well, we know the devil is behind it all.

But again, I have to say, religion has bound them up in their grave clothes. And all the superstitions of religion so-called around us have them bound in the grave clothes. He was bound hands and foot with grave clothes and his face was wrapped about with a napkin.

Well, he couldn't serve the Lord and he couldn't walk for the Lord. His mouth was bound up, too, gagged up with this napkin. He couldn't speak for the Lord.

Now, isn't this true, beloved? Now, I don't want to be unkind, but I came from the systems of men. And one man, one governor, he does all the talking. Everybody else has to be perfectly still.

Now, I'm not running these men down. Thank God for every one of them that knows the Lord Jesus. And we thank God for them.

Every born-again Christian, we praise God for them. But I believe that the system they're in is binding God's people. I was talking to one this past summer, down in the Maritimes, and I said, but you are replacing the Holy Ghost.

You are replacing the Holy Ghost because you run everything. You choose all the hymns. You do all the praying.

You do all the preaching. And the poor men in your congregation, they can't say anything. They can't say a word except amen to what you're saying.

They have no liberty. They're bound up. Well, this is true, isn't it? Many of us came from these places, these great systems.

And you'll find, beloved brethren, if you don't mind me saying this, that those who came out of these systems, by the grace of God, don't want to go back again. It's the children of the brethren who have been brought up, gathered to the Lord's name. Those are the children who go to the so-called temple around us.

For those who came out of that spiritual darkness where we're bound with grave clothes, we praise God for the liberty we have in Christ. That we're freed from man's religion and superstition and one-man ministry where the Holy Ghost himself, God himself, the Holy Spirit, not the third person of the Godhead. For the Bible never uses that expression.

But God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, one God, yet three persons. And we can't define it. We can't explain it.

But the Bible sometimes uses the Spirit first and the Son second and the Father third and so on. And so there's no such a thing as the third person of the Godhead. They're equally God.

And that's... And God the Holy Spirit lives in our bodies. For our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost. And He, a person, a divine person, God himself, He unites us to Christ who is the head of the church.

And He's the only head that God knows. Very often we're asked, what church do you belong to? Because when you meet born-again Christians and you find out that you're a saved man and they find out that we're both believers, eventually, within ten minutes at least, they say, and what church do you belong to? Well, we always say this, we belong to the only church in the whole world that God recognizes. Well, some of them say, you must be a Protestant.

Others say, you must be a Catholic. We say, no, we're neither. We're neither.

We belong to the only church that God recognizes. What is that church? The church of God. It is made not of stones and bricks and wood with a foundation of cement, but men and women who are saved by the grace of God.

Living stones forming that great church by which Christ is the head. No Pope or no Bishop, but Christ himself is the one. And the only head of the only church in the whole world that God recognizes as his church.

The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 16, I will build my church. And he said, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now, the Professing Church, we know the gates of hell, not only have they prevailed against it, but they smashed it to smithereens.

But the church that Jesus is building, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. How wonderful. Living stones.

Well, now, we notice here in our chapter, the end of verse 44, Jesus said unto them, Loose him, and let him go. Notice the Lord didn't loose him. He told them.

I like to think that probably Peter, or one of the apostles, took the grave clothes off this man, and now he was set at liberty. Now, where do we get the grave clothes taken off? Where do we get the grave clothes? I believe at the Bible readings. And I believe this is very important.

Young Christians who don't go to the Bible readings, they never get out of their souls. I remember a young man, I met him on the streetcar in the old days in Montreal, and he said this to me. You know, Mr. Wakefield, I'm not going to the meeting tonight.

And I said, well, why not? He said, because I get more at home. I said, more? How do you mean, you get more at home? Well, he said, when I read my Bible in the living room, I learn more than I ever learned in the Bible reading in the hall. Well, he said to them, young man, the Lord Jesus is in the midst of those who are gathered to his name.

And the word of God is there. And the Holy Spirit is there. And you should be there too.

And he said, thank you, brother. I'll be there. Well, how nice it is to be at the Bible reading where the Lord will take away from you and from me the brave clothes.

You don't mind me referring to personal incidents. I came out of the system, I had never heard these things. I didn't even know what John 3, verse 16 is.

Oh, you say, that's hard to believe. I tell you, there's multitudes in the United States don't know what John 3, verse 16 means even. They never heard it in their lives because they go to places where it's just not spoken about.

Not spoken about. Thank God, as I came to the Bible readings in the city of Montreal, gradually the brave clothes were taken off me. I believe that Jesus, I believe that Jesus was a spirit in heaven.

He was a risen spirit in heaven. But I found out at the Bible readings in the young people's class meeting in Montreal that there was a man in the glory. I never heard that before.

And so that little brave clothes was taken off me. Gradually these brave clothes. I have to say to you young Christians, be at the Bible readings.

Don't let the devil keep you home. Now you must study to go to school. I know you must study.

But you know, this is true. If you honor God, he will honor you. Isn't that true? That's what the Bible says.

They that honor me, I will. There's no question. I will honor.

If you put the Lord first, you'll never have to say to him someday, you know, I could have got on better school if I had done my lessons and skipped the reading meeting. But I put you first, Lord. And because I put you first in my life, I failed.

No. God is no man's debtor. If you put the Lord first, he will bless you.

The Lord will bless you. He demands the first place. And he's worthy of the first place.

He wants the first place in your life. And by putting the things of God first, the grave clothes will be loosed from you. And you'll be brought into that place of joy and happiness and freedom that only the Lord Jesus can give you in this poor, sad, thin-furred world.

Now the 12th chapter, we notice now that Lazarus would have been a dead man. Now he was a risen man. And now he, certainly, he was an unloosed man.

He was loosed. But now we have something else in the 12th chapter, verse 1. Then Jesus, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. Here is the Son of God.

He doesn't go to Jerusalem where the great temple was. He doesn't go to that great city of religion. Where did he go? To this little town of Bethany, the man, the blessed Son of God, humbled himself.

And he goes to this little place of Bethany where there was a home, where he was always welcome. Is the Lord Jesus welcome in your home, in my home? Is Christ welcome with us? He was here. And it says here in this first verse where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.

Verse 2. There they made him a supper. Isn't that nice? It doesn't say there Martha made him a supper. It doesn't say there Mary made him a supper, or Lazarus made him a supper.

But there they made him a supper. That is to say, they all had a heart for Christ. Isn't that nice to see an assembly of all the brothers and all the sisters have a heart for Christ? There they made him a supper.

Have you got a heart for Christ? Have I got a heart for Christ? This is what God wants. We may know all about the Bible. We may be able to quote the verses.

But God wants us to have a heart for Christ, a warm heart for the Lord Jesus Christ. Have we got warm hearts for the Son of God? Well there they made him a supper. And it tells us and Martha served.

Now Luke 10, remember Mary rebuked the Lord because he allowed Mary to sit at his feet while Martha served. And the Lord rebuked Martha and told her she was of a much serving. But Mary had chosen the better part.

And that part would never be taken away from her. Well that's nice, isn't it? Because the things that you and I discover by the grace of God in this book that God gives to us, we're never going to lose them. Isn't that nice? We're going to have them for eternity.

And I believe in the glory land when we meet Mary, she'll be able to tell us exactly what Jesus told her in the 10th chapter of Luke's gospel. So the Lord said that it shall not be taken away from her. Are you enjoying Christ? Oh how good it's your portion to enjoy Christ.

It'll never be taken away from you by the grace of God if you seek to go on and please the Lord in your life. Then it says this in the second verse, but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. Isn't that wonderful? Now there were some in this room this morning that never took any part in the meeting.

You know the sisters never do, and some brothers do not either. But who can say what they're doing as they sit there in the presence of the Lord Jesus? Well I believe that Lazarus was just sitting at that table and he was enjoying the presence of Jesus. He just sat there and he enjoyed the presence of Jesus.

And I'm sure if we could read the minds and the hearts of many of God's dear people on the Lord's Day morning we would be amazed that they were just sitting there maybe never giving out a hymn, never standing up to praise the Lord, but they were just sitting there at his table and they were enjoying Christ. What an encouragement for the sisters to be able to come here on the first day of the week and just enjoy Christ. And Lazarus did that.

He just sat at the table with him. Notice he sat at the table with him. This brings up again what we mentioned last night, beloved.

Do we really believe the Lord is here? Have we come to this place of this poor world that reasons everything out and they reason out and they say well how could Jesus be here and be up in San Diego and up in Los Angeles and up in Montreal and down in the Maritimes and over in England? Because he's God. That's why. He's God.

He can be any place and every place. And we believe by the grace of God when we come together that the Lord Jesus himself is in the midst. He's in the midst and we believe it, brethren.

If we did, we'd be here to meet him. And this is what Lazarus did. He sat at the table with him.

He was with Jesus. And oh how he must have looked upon him and said I was dead. I was in my grave but this blessed one called me out of death, gave me back my physical life, ordered me to be set loose and now I can sit in his presence.

Are you remembering the Lord, dear Christians? The devil says but you're not worthy. No, and you'll never be worthy. Never be worthy.

We're never worthy for the Lord Jesus, are we? Only in him. He is the one who makes us worthy. If we wait to be worthy in ourselves, we'll wait for all eternity.

But we'll never be worthy of being in the presence of this glorious person who loved us and gave himself for us. The blessed eternal son of God. Oh dear young Christian, may the Lord lead you to desire to be at his table, to sit in his presence and to enjoy Christ.

To be able to enjoy Christ. Now notice what it says here in the third verse. Then took Mary a pound of wine.

Now notice God measures the weight. He said it's a pound. Oh the Lord takes note of everything we do for him.

He said that there's a pound here. He weighed it. There's a pound of ointment, a fleck of iron.

Very costly. Now notice what Judas said in verse five. Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor? You see Judas placed a value on the ointment.

He said it's worth three hundred pence, but God placed no value on the ointment. He said it's very costly. And dear young Christian when you come to remember the Lord and your heart goes out in praise and adoration for the Son of God the world says it's a waste of time.

It's a waste of time to be here. Why don't you get out and preach the gospel? That's what the world says. They'll tell you anything under the devil's power.

But God says this worship, this praise of this redeemed heart to me is very costly. It's very costly. Why? Because it's spent on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the Lord Jesus Christ is God's Beloved One. Heaven's Beloved One. We could never speak highly enough of Him who's God's Beloved Son.

Heaven's Beloved One. Words fail. The English language has not got enough words in it to describe the wonders and the beauties and the glories of God's Beloved Son.

And so it tells us, And anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair. Notice now, for the third time, Mary's at the feet of Jesus. What did she do at the feet of Jesus? She lays her glory there.

So the woman's hair is her glory, and she lays her glory at the feet of this glorious person. This woman excelled in all glory. Mary lays her glory at the feet of this glorious person.

And it tells us that she wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the order of the ointment. Everybody in the house was affected by this act, of which the Lord Jesus said it ought to be told wherever the gospel is preached. And here, nearly two thousand years later, this afternoon in San Diego, the very words of Christ are being fulfilled in the very letters where we're talking about what Mary did nearly two thousand years ago.

How wonderful this is to see the words of the Lord Jesus fulfilled in the letters. And the house was filled with the order of the ointment. Now, when we go outside after being in the Lord's company, doesn't the world see that we've been in the company of Jesus? Doesn't the world take knowledge of us that we've been with Jesus? There are Christians who say, I stand for my rights.

Nobody fools me. I demand the last penny, but I don't believe that they're following Christ the right way. The Lord Jesus was gracious.

When it came to the things of God, he stood for the glory of God. But he was gracious and kind and loving and tender and merciful. We read so many times that he was moved with compassion.

Does the world see in you and me that spirit of Christlikeness that they marvel at us and say, oh, these people, they're sort of queer, but at least they've been with Jesus? Have we got that reputation that we've been with Jesus? Oh, the disciples had that reputation. They wondered at them. They took knowledge of them as they had been with Jesus.

How lovely that the world may laugh at us and sneer at us as they only can sing. There's something about these people that's a little bit different than the rest of us. They don't drag us to court.

They don't sue us for our money. Why, when we do something wrong, they're so gracious, and they forgive us. You know, there's a man who was in the prison all along, and he had been saved by the grace of God.

And this young man, as I sat talking to him, he told me something that was very sad. He said, you know, my girlfriend's mother and father have warned their daughter to have nothing to do with me. I'm just a poor criminal.

Just a poor criminal. He said, what do you think about that, Mr. Wakefield? What do you think of that? Well, I said, Chuck, what can you do about it? What would you do if it was your daughter? Would you do the same thing? You know, I said, Chuck, you can't very well expect them to believe you when you speak about Christ. But you can live Christ.

You can live Christ, and then they'll see Christ in you. Well, our brother Al Roche was there, and he said to him, you told me the other day that your nose was broken. How did you get your nose broken? And he said, well, there was a group of men standing around, and one of them suddenly, I don't know why he did it, but he suddenly punched me right in the nose, and he said he cracked my nose.

But he said, I never hit him back. Wasn't that nice? He said, I never hit him back. And a few days after, he came to me and said, can I borrow your New Testament? I'd like to read the New Testament.

And I said, Chuck, that's what they call living Jesus. That's what Jesus would have done. And this man wanted to read the New Testament because this convict didn't hit him back.

How wonderful that is. How wonderful to seek to be like Jesus. And then we have, and now we have Lazarus, the dead man, the living man, the bound man, the loose man, and the man who worships.

And one more point we close, down in verse 9. Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there, and they came, not for Jesus' sake only, so they might see Lazarus also, whom they had raised from the dead. But the chief priests consulted, that they might put Lazarus also to death, because that by reason of him, many of the Jews went away and believed on Jesus. Now, this brings us to the end of the war of our Christian life, so called in this poor world.

We were dead, life, bound with the grave closed, unbound by the truth of God, and let loose. Then a worshiper, then one who was persecuted. The tenth verse, that they might put Lazarus also to death.

They had planned to put Jesus to death, and now this man was going to be put to death, too. And I tell you, young Christians, the world has never changed. The world has no room for a young man or a young woman who loves the Lord Jesus Christ.

You'll never be popular in this world if you stand for the rejected Son of God. You'll never get the hand clasped in the back slaps of a world that crucified the Son of God. The same old world that hasn't changed one little bit.

The world that enmity with God today. And you and I are not of this world. We're called out of the world to follow Jesus.

He was a man with a testimony. How wonderful. This brings us, I believe, to the very climax of these three persons, each of them dead physically, each of them raised by the Lord.

Are we weak? Has the grave floor been taken away from us of religion? We sometimes look upon religion as like the tins of fruit and vegetables and the Safeway store. You can fix your wagon, you can go down the aisle and pick off the shop what you want. So it is in the world today.

You can take any kind of religion under the thumb. The devil has invented religion to meet the needs of every person in the world. Those who want to be popular in the world and drink and curse and swear, they can go to the tens and get their religion.

They can be religious and they can hate Christ. And they can go on in all these different religions and these new cults. Oh, beloved, beware of these new cults.

The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 13, they're going to be put into bundles to be burned. And I believe that these cults are now being put into bundles to be burned. They're all around us.

And remember, remember this, they're very, very earnest. They really put the born-again Christians ashamed. I was in Victoria, British Columbia, and I was walking down the street and I saw a young man with a magazine called Awake.

And I asked the Lord, I said, Lord, if you want me to speak to this young man, may he stand out, may he come out from the building which he's standing at, come out to the sidewalk and may he speak to me. And sure enough, he hit me with a wide sidewalk as I got beside him and he came right up to where I was standing. And he said, will you buy one of my magazines? And I said this to him, do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? He said, I do, sir.

Well, that's what they always say, you know. But this is subtle, this danger. Then I said to him, do you believe that Jesus Christ is God? And he said, no, sir, I don't.

Jehovah is the living God. Well, I said, who is this person, Jesus? He said, well, he's the Son of God, but I said, is he eternal? He said, no, he was created. He was an angel, and he was created by God, by the great Jehovah.

And I said, young man, you're on the way to hell. Now, this is what this young man, this is what I want to tell you this for. He said to me, sir, I've been spit upon.

People have come by to speak and punched me in the face. My mother and father have disowned me. They've put me out of their home.

I can't live at home anymore. They've disowned me, my father and mother, because of the stand that I've taken. And you stand here and tell me, after all this persecution, this hatred that I've gone through, that I'm going to hell.

And he was weeping, this young man. And I said, young man, without Christ you will perish, not because I said so, but because he said so. If you believe not that I am the great Jehovah, the Lord Jesus, you shall die in your sins.

And where I am, there you cannot come. And I said, young man, I'm going back to my hotel room to pray that God will save your precious soul from this wicked cult that dares to deny the Son of God. And all around this young people be not deceived by these false cults.

Jesus is the eternal Son of God. He's the great I am. He's the creator of all things.

He upholds all things by the word of his power. And the very fact that we worship him this morning and we praise and adore him proves that he's God. If he's not God, and we who worship him this morning are idolaters because we have no business to worship anybody but the living God.

And Jesus Christ is the living God, as we find in 1 John chapter 5. Oh, beloved, anything else is an idol. And God said, little children, keep yourselves from idols. May the Lord help us, then, to see the loveliness and the beauty in this glorious person.

And if there's one in this room today that's not saved, religious but lost, remember hell is going to be filled with religious people who knew the Bible but who didn't know the Savior. Do you know the Savior? Are you born again? Does Christ live in here? If he doesn't, you're not saved. Does Christ live in your heart? Have you been born from above? Are you on the side of the Lord Jesus? Are you this religious and lost? Friends, the Lord is coming and he may come today.

What a terrible thing if he came right now, and the shelf was given, and the room was empty except you. And you sat here alone in this room. You didn't see one person move.

All you saw were these chairs with their clothes left behind for judgment. How terrible, how solemn to live without Christ. If there's one here today who is on the way to hell, I pray God that the Spirit of God will do something that I can't do, that he will convict you on the spot and give you no rest or no peace until you receive this blessed one who is worthy of all praise for eternal ages.

May God bless his words for the honor of this blessed and worthy name.