Who Did It?

Transcript

Alright. Thank you very much and hello again, radio friends, how in the world are you? You doing alright today? Well, if you struck a rough day, as sometimes happens, look up and say, “Lord Jesus, see me through this one,” and He will. He hath said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” My good friend Merv Rozelle said that, up in Minnesota when he was a young preacher, there was a dear old Swedish brother that would quote that verse and he’d say, “He’ll never sake you nor forleave you.” [chuckle] Well, however you say it, it’s true, isn’t it? Jesus never fails.

Well, this is your good friend, Bob Cook, and I’m glad to be back with you for a few moments to share from the Word of God. We’re in John Chapter 12 and my thought was stimulated to look up some of the occasions when our Lord Jesus shouted. You find in John 12:44 it says, Jesus cried. That’s our word ‘shouted,’ and said… Now, just by way of review, He said, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” If you really want to know God you can and the Lord Jesus Christ will reveal Himself to you and when you commit yourself to Him as Savior, the Holy Spirit of God comes to dwell in your life and makes you a resource person. “Out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. This spake ye of the Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive.” Then our Lord Jesus shouted about the matter that He said, “You know me and you know whence I am. I’m not come of myself but Him that sent me.”

He shouted the fact that he is God, in the flesh. Anybody tells you that the Lord Jesus never claimed to be divine, you tell him read the Bible, so it’s all through there in the gospel records. “Then He shouted out,” and we find this in Luke 8:8, the parable of the sower and the seed. The seed that fell by the wayside, the seed that fell on shallow ground, seed that fell among thorns and the seed that fell on good ground and brought forth fruit. A parable of the way the Word of God works and He shouted, He said, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Let him really hear, let him pay attention, in other words. The Word of God works if you put it in good ground, Jesus shouted out that truth.

Then in John 11:43, you find Him shouting again at the grave of Lazarus. He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.” And that reminds us of the other passage that says, “The day is coming when all that are in the grave shall hear His voice and they that hear shall live.” That shout, the resurrection shout. For he says, “The trumpet the Lord shall sound, the Lord shall descend with a shout. The voice of the archangel and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain under the coming of the Lord shall we caught up together with them in clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord wherefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4, is that passage, you know. The shout of resurrection. There is a life beyond the grave with the Lord, hallelujah!

I remember so clearly approaching my father’s room when he lived with us in Chicago. Go up the stairway and try to be quiet so as not to disturb him, stand at the doorway, see him sitting there in his old rocker holding his old Thompson Chain Reference Bible to his heart, and talking to it and saying, “Oh, book, I can’t see to read you anymore but I love you.” [chuckle] How he loved the Word of God. Then he’d hear me, maybe I shifted my weight and the floorboards creaked or something and he turned his sightless face in my direction and says, “Is that you, boy?” [chuckle] I stole from Victor Borge that wisecrack. He always called me boy, he never could remember my name [chuckle] That’s Victor Borge’s line. But anyhow, he’d say, “Is that you, boy?” And I’d say, “Yeah, it’s me, Pop.”

And like as not he would say, “You know one of these days, I’m gonna get a brand new pair of eyes, my boy. And I’m gonna walk down the golden streets of glory with your mother and we’ll sing together again that duet we sang 10 days before she left us, I shall know Him by the print of the nails in His hand.” And his face would light up with a radiance born of his faith in the living Christ who has promised that we’ll live beyond the grave forever. Jesus shouted the shout of resurrection. He shouted in this passage that is immediately before us, John 12:44, concerning the fact that there is a way to know Almighty God. I want to dwell just for a few moments on that, as we go along. There is the possibility of commitment. “He that believeth on me, believeth not on me but on Him that sent me.” Believeth on me. That word ‘believe’ is not a mental word only, it is a word of commitment. You might paraphrase it, “he that commits himself absolutely and without reservation to me in faith.” He says, you are in touch with Almighty God. Commitment.

And then there’s the awareness of His presence, “He that seeth me, seeth Him that sent me,” the awareness of God in your life because of your commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. How many people there are who have that vacuum, that God-shaped vacuum in their lives and they’re seeking to fill it in ways other than in faith in Christ. They say, “Why do I have to confess my sins and why do I have to repent and why do I have to believe on Christ in order to get through to God? I’ll find some way.” Well, our Lord Jesus spoke of that kind of behavior as being like a thief that comes to steal the sheep, “He entereth not by the door into the sheepfold but climbeth up some other way.” A small thought here: Always be wary of people who offer you an alternative to the simple Word of God. They may say to you, “Oh, that’s good but this is better, try this.” Some other way. Any attempt to satisfy your heart without Christ leads to tragedy and frustration and unfulfillment and a sense of having been cheated because you don’t really achieve what you want. To know, to be aware of God, trust the Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart. He said, “I am the way, the way, the truth and the life, no man,” that’s nobody, “Nobody comes to the father but by me.”

Well, that’s 12:45, then you have the idea of illumination, 46, “I am come as a light into the world that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in darkness.” Illumination. Commitment, awareness, illumination. This is the way God works when you commit your life to the Lord Jesus. First, there is the step of faith, don’t expect God to play games with you and you say, “Show me and I’ll believe.” No, it doesn’t work that way. God says, “Believe and I’ll show you.” Take that step of faith today, beloved, where are you, what is your condition? I don’t know.

Across the miles, I’m speaking to thousands. Some of you have never committed yourself in faith to the Lord Jesus. You’ve never invited Him to come into your life. You’ve never received Him, that’s the scripture word, “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” You’ve never trusted Him to do what His name means, to believe on His name means to trust Him, to do what His name means, you’ve never done that. You’ve never asked Him to come into your life, you’ve never trusted Him to save you, do that today.

The step of faith is first, then the awareness of God’s presence. The spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are the sons of God and if sons then heirs, joint heirs with Jesus Christ. You will have what the Bible calls the witness of the spirit after, after that is, you have taken the step of faith and committed yourself to the Lord Jesus. Love and peace and joy and all the fruits of the spirit are by-products of commitment. Romans 15:13 says, “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.”

So hope and peace and joy and the presence of the Holy Spirit are by-products of what the Bible calls believing, which as I have explained to you is commitment of yourself and all that you are to the Lord Jesus in faith. This then is the process: Commitment to the step of faith; awareness, the knowledge that you really are in touch with God and you feel His presence; illumination, the beginning of understanding of God’s purposes and God’s plans in your life. That is the order in which our Lord wants to work in your life. Then of course, just finishing out the list of times when our Lord Jesus shouted, there were twice at the cross. Matthew 27:46, “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” In that dark hour when God the Father turned His face away from the son who was dying on the cross as God’s passover lamb, “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us,” says Paul.

In that dark hour when God the Father turned His face away from His only son in order that it might be fulfilled, Himself took our sins, carried our sorrows, He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him and by His stripes we are healed. Jesus, my blessed Lord, took my place and took your place there at the cross. And in that dark hour Jesus shouted, He said, “Oh, God, why? Humanly why? Divinely, I am come that they might have life.” I suppose throughout all eternity, you and I will never be able to fathom the depth and the intensity of the agony that the Lord Jesus bore on the cross for all of the sin of all of the world, of all time, past, present and future was laid upon Him in that moment by God the Father, who was once and for all, paying the infinite price of sin. God said, “You can’t pay for it, I’ll pay for it myself in the person of my Son, the Lord Jesus.”

And so you and I can gladly sing, “Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.” Thank you, Jesus, for dying for me. Then there was that final shout, He cried with a loud voice and dismissed His spirit, He said, “Father, into thy hands, I commend my spirit.” Matthew 27:50 and Luke 23:46 tell us about it. The final cry was a cry not of desperation but of victory. “It is finished,” He said. The work is done, the sacrifice has been offered, the price has been paid, the devil has been defeated. Remember, beloved, the devil is a defeated foe. The Lord Jesus had victory over him there at the cross and Paul says in Colossians, “He spoiled principalities and powers, triumphing over them in His cross.” Hallelujah. It was the shout of victory, the work is done, the victory is won. Always victors in Christ.

Father God, today, oh, may we appreciate the work of our Lord Jesus. I pray in His name. Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!