The sermon transcript discusses the importance of not building anything of wood, hay, and stubble, but instead allowing the Lord to work and have His way. The speaker emphasizes the deceptive nature of the world we live in and encourages listeners to stay balanced. The sermon also touches on the prophecy that Jesus would die for the nation and gather together the children of God. The speaker urges the audience to understand the truth and highlights the divinity of Jesus that allowed Him to subdue his humanity.

Now most people would say I should be exhausted. I'm being pampered and nursed. They're all dead scared lest I get another stroke or something. So let's go on, shall we? In Chapter 11, I want to come into Chapter 12. Yet I can't leave the subject, it's so wonderful to me. John 11. Alright, let's carry on from where I was, or where we were, I hope. Thirty-eight. Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, take ye away the stone, Martha, the sister of him that was dead. That's not mere repetition, you understand, when you say Mary, there were thousands of Marys in Israel, there were thousands of Marthas, you understand that. So to be absolutely distinct, here we are, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, said I not unto thee, this is the unmentioned conversation that went on beside the conversation that he had with Martha when he first appeared. He also said this to her, not recorded. Now it's being recorded, of course, if thou wouldest believe, verse 40, thou shouldest see the glory of God. Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid, and Jesus lifted 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, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, loose him, and let him go. Now the special thing about this is to remember that Jesus was not looking in the tomb. He had lifted his eyes to heaven. Everybody else's eyes were on the tomb. You must read your Bible very carefully and understand. He called him forth from heaven. His body came forth from the grave. Your eyes would have been all on that big dark hole. When they'd rolled the stone away, we're going to see another miracle? Oh no. Just talking about the conversation that went on between Jesus and his father. That's all. That's what Jesus is concerned about. You be very concerned about that for yourself, unless you'll find yourself constantly looking into black holes, and you'll say I'm depressed or something. He lifted up his eyes to heaven. That's where Lazarus' soul was. And he said, Lazarus, come forth. And Lazarus' soul came down, rejoined his body, animated it, and he walked out of the tomb. Please don't go about looking into black holes and tombs. Here, then, is the thing you can always see. You can get a sort of a smell of it. He stinketh. It's a marvellous thing, beloved. Jesus gave them a flat-out demonstration. The final miracle, except for the healing of Malchus' ear in the garden that he performed. He brought everybody there. It's the last grace miracle. The consummation. The resurrection. I am the light, he said. He started with, I am the light, he finished with. The resurrection and the light. Now, just keep your life orientated. It may mean a reorientation, but you'll have to do it. You keep your eye there. I know that there are sadnesses that affect you, loved ones, and all kinds of things, but you've got to think there. That's what you must do. And that's about all that life is worth to you, except preaching this glorious gospel. Keep your eye there. You can marry, you can love, you can have children, you can have a home, you can have a family, you can have a car and it'll be a headache to you until you die. But if you keep your eye fixed there, God help me too, I'm as human as you. That's the secret. The trouble is, knowing these secrets, I wonder if I always accomplish them. That's the point. Beware of knowing too much by this. Oh, I'd better say by your mind, because our precious sister couldn't see my gesture. All right. Beware, I guarantee if you went alone in your aroma, sat and thought about it, you'd say to yourself, oh, I've not had my eyes in the right place. That will explain your personal misery. Am I talking harshly to you? I'm saying it very sotto voce. I want to be like that, because we're all human beings. But you see that Jesus, his deity, divinity exceeded his humanity. That's why he succeeded in subduing his humanity to deity. You and I have to see this glorious thing and know perhaps where we've been failing. I don't know. But here's the truth. And after that, I want to point you to something else too, that's in this chapter. I'm just being a preacher, that's what I am. I never say point one illustration, point two illustration, teaching you how to preach, construct a sermon. Point three illustration, conclusion, if you're an evangelist, invitation. That's the way to construct a sermon. So on. Jesus never preached one. He wouldn't have done for any pulpit today, would he? He didn't preach in the proper way, according to modern teachers. Here then, beloved, is the big thing. We go on from there. You could almost stop on every verse and that would take us a whole month together. But we'll proceed. Missing so much, but there it is. Time is short. The first 47, the Pharisees gather the council. They realize they've got to stop him dead now. They've got to do it. And in verse 48, Romans will come, take away our both our place and nation. And then listen to this, and let the significance of it sink deep into your heart. Especially if you are Pentecostally orientated. And I say, I'm Pentecostal, small p, of course. I wouldn't be capital P, Pentecostal. But here then is the thing. He says, Caiaphas, the high priest, you know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this, listen to this, this is what I want to draw your attention to. This spake he not of himself. For being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation. Prophecy? He wasn't baptized in the Holy Ghost, was he? So now it will sort out your thinking. It did a lot of sorting in mine. Prophecy? Without being baptized in and filled with the Holy Ghost? Hoo, yes, I was telling Derek this morning, this is what kept him, I think, enthralled. He kept saying, go on. I suppose it must have been, I mean, I've heard wonderful prophecies coming from spiritist mediums. As you know there, just keep your balance. Hmm, long prophecy. A lot of it was true. But you see in real prophecy it's all true. Don't lead you on by a deception. It's all so wonderful and then pops in something else as well. That's what you've got to beware of. If you have the gift of prophecy, nurture it, don't practice it. What I mean, you don't have to go into your bedroom and practice it, or something like that. Or go and sit at the grand piano learning to play. I don't mean that. But that man could prophesy. Wonderful, wasn't it? It was absolutely right too, wasn't it? Yeah? Well, where did that come from? Just keep yourself in balance, beloved. It's a nasty, deceptive world we're living in. Don't build anything of wood, hay and stubble. Just let the Lord work and have his way. I could discuss that now for another hour, but I won't. I'll resist the temptation. But here is the marvellous truth. He prophesied and he was right too. But the trouble with this prophecy, and this is the human deception that comes in, it says that he should die for that nation, verse 51. That's one man. And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that was scattered abroad. How about that? That seems to follow on from John 10, doesn't it? You know, one flock, one shepherd. Seems to be. But you see, he's only prophesying from his Jewish knowledge. You prophesy, if you do prophesy from your Christian knowledge, examine yourself and see. John Wesley, if I may quote the famous John, never went in for the gifts of the three. He did have healing take place during his ministry and so on. But he never went on for what he would call the Pentecostal stuff and the gifts. Because he said he's heard nothing in churches through so-called prophecies that he couldn't find for himself in the Bible. Now you think back over the prophecies you've heard and see whether you might not say what John Wesley said. I'm not inviting you to be a Wesleyan Methodist. I'm only saying let's keep everything in perspective and with much knowledge of what the written word says. Remember always in all prophesying, I hope not to talk about this gentleman, he might scold me, only we won't tell Barry. The thing is that you've got a more sure word of prophecy according to Peter and it's not what's said in a local church. He said, holy men of old wrote, alright, as they were born along, carried along by the Spirit of God. And that's the Bible. This is the more sure word. Anything that could locally be said in the assembly or anything. In other words, don't ever do something, because somebody prophesied it, unless this Bible guarantees and backs it up and you won't go far wrong. So wonderful, that's the more sure word of prophecy. Isn't that tremendous? I think that's all I want to say on chapter 11, there's much more there. And finishing up in the chapter with Jesus walked no more, verse 54, openly among the Jews, but went thence into a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples. And the Jews' Passover was nigh at hand, and many went out of the country, up to Jerusalem before the Passover, to purify themselves. Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves as they stood in the temple, what think ye, that he will not come to thee? Now both the chief priests and Pharisees had given a commandment, that if any man knew where he was, he should show it, that they might take him. And so into chapter 12, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been raised from the dead. Or he had raised from the dead, there they made him a supper. Do you know where precisely the supper was prepared? This is where you must do comparative reading in the scripture. It was made in the home of Simon the leper. And when I tell you that Lazarus is a word connoted with leprosy, it's the basis of the word leper in the original. I wonder if Bethany was a refuge for lepers, I don't know. Weren't they put outside the camp? Yes, but people who are healed of leprosy, when it turns their flesh white without killing them, the disease has died. And they can still continue, though terribly disfigured, without one ear, perhaps, or perhaps one foot, has dropped off his terrible disease, leprosy, in those days. I don't know. And keeping this very clear in your mind, read verse four. One of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son. And I wonder whether this was the basis of his jealousy. That Judas originated in Bethany as well, because it was held in the home of Simon the leper. And Judas was Simon's son. So your scripture says that. Now how did I find that out? Oh, simply by reading the Bible. Keep reading. Just keep reading. It's so tremendous. Yes, erstwhile lepers could go back into their homes and live, terribly disfigured, of course, and so on. You know how leprosy is in court, don't you? Mostly through the mucus dropping from the nose. In those days they never had paper handkerchiefs or proper handkerchiefs. Just keep it clear. I have some dear missionary friends, had as they've gone on. And they were out on the hill, and their people, their children, used to let their children play with the native children Blind Man's Puff. And they used to put on the same cover over their own nose and mouth. And they never caught leprosy. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't it wonderful? Yes, wonderful. Well, I'm just telling you this, I'm sharing thoughts now. I don't know whether anybody talks like this, but this only comes from saying, Simon Thyssen, wonder if that works? And was this the source of, a lot of the source of Judasism? Judas really means, in a sense, a Jew. It's a Jewish name. It's the Jew. He was a terrible, terrible example of the Jew. As Jesus was the most wonderful example of the Jew. And he was a thief as well. Let's read this story. They made him a great supper. Mark 3, verse 2. Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him with Mary. Oh, she's missing again. But do you know where she's gone? To get her ointment. There she is. No talk of Mary till now. She takes a pound of ointment of spike lard, very costly. You will know that that was a very, very costly item. Costlier than your face cream. And very much more costly. Almost worth a queen's ransom. She'd get a pound of it. And do you know how spike lard, what spike lard is? It's a plant called nard. And it is pierced with a thorn. And out comes the juice, if you like. That's the basis of spike lard. So it comes from a piercing. In those days it was pierced by a thorn. They never had a lovely scalpel to do it with. You just see that. Spike lard. Very costly. The flower and the plant lost its life in order to provide the ointment. Just bear it in mind. Understand the sweetness of the scripture. If you just give yourself to it. Don't, don't. Please give five minutes in the morning or last thing at night before you go to bed. Don't do that. Well, you know what I mean. Sometimes it may be necessary. You should make it very, very rare. In your experience. This is the thing. Beloved, she takes this powder of ointment, very costly. Anointed the feet of Jesus. Wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then says one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son. Which should betray him. Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor? I must stop here. Pay Judas at least this or compliment or make a concession to him. That if you read the comparatively in all the gospels you'll find that they all said it. They all said it, including John. He couldn't understand what was going on. But listen. Mary did. Mary, that's what makes me say what I said earlier. I tell you what you men, are you listening to me? If you haven't got a Mary spirit in you, I'm talking about a human spirit now. You've not got very far. Do you know, one of the great outpourings of the Holy Spirit in England, perhaps the greatest, was not the Welsh revival. It happened to a church, in a church. And the man that was the vicar was called Oddy. All right. And they've got a plaque built into the wall, where the fire first fell, in the church of England. Yeah. Where the fire first fell. That's where, why people that come from Sunderland have got quite a... Of course if you're civilised you say Sunderland, but they say Sunderland. And that's where all fell. Just say, Church of England? Aren't you disgusted? Surely your fellowship is the highest thing you know. You see, this is the thing for us to understand. Dear man, get it into your heart. Why am I talking this way? Because it was reading a book of his that helped me many, many years ago. He wrote a book about the Mary life. You just think about that Mary. Be done to me according to thy word. And that was for the Holy Ghost to come on her. And Jesus to be born. And I want to say to you, whether you be male or female, unless you have a Mary experience in that sense, you're not in the Kingdom. Can't expect to be. Although you may be built up by sundry servants to think otherwise, can't happen to you. The Mary life had a big effect on me. I picked up the book second hand and seeing that you're such a group here that believes in a stack of second hand books, your search for it, Canon Ody. O-D-D-Y. I've forgotten his other initials. It was so wonderful. So wonderful. Well, they all said, why wasn't your ointment sold? Now listen. Jesus said in verse six, Judas said what he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had the bag. And bear what was put therein. Now listen. You tell me, if you knew you've got a cheat of a treasurer holding all the church money, would you keep him in your company? Jesus kept him for three years. Stealer. Stealing. Knowing he was a thief. How about that? Just how about it? Just think. He kept him there. And Jesus said this, verse seven, about that. Let her alone against the day of my burying. As she kept this. And remember, she'd just lost a brother, Lazarus. And he had to have spikenard. He had to do this, but somehow she knew she should not give her spikenard for her brother after the fair. She kept it for Jesus. How about that, friend? Yeah. She's kept this against the day of my burying. Somehow she knew. Have you got that in you? Somehow you know something. Somehow. With the restraints of the Lord upon you. Somehow. I don't know. You've got a feeling somehow. Don't you get it? If not, you must have rhinoceros hide. I mean, inside. If you haven't got this kind of feeling, I'll talk about it a little more deeply in a moment. You can't say you have the Holy Ghost, though you may say so. You, most of you probably, or some of you anyway, will have heard me say, you should read John's epistle over and over and over again. My head's nodding anyway. The thing is, beloved, it's John. If you want to know anything about John's Gospel, read John's epistle. It's his commentary on the Gospel. Ignore it at your peril, spiritually. I say to people, oh, I won't say it, but I'll say it. They say, what shall I read? Read John's Gospel. They come back, they say, I've read it. I say, read it again. Instead, they want to be reading Revelation, especially the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse or something. When they got sick, they treat Revelation as though it's a crystal ball. They can see into the future. Everybody wants to know about the future. Ignore it. You'd better know about the past, I say. About that babe that was born in a manger. See, you'd better know about the cross. This mysteriously living in the present, as well as in the past. Don't try and foresee the future. Don't, please don't. Oh, well, it's in the Bible. Yeah, I'll point out to you, it's the last book in the Bible. Not the first for you to grab. You see, beloved, and that's how, I've read it again, brother, I say read it again. I keep telling them that, I've told them ten times. Then when they've finished, I say, good. Now read his epistle. First epistle. They say, well, I've read that, I can read that in a day. Good, now read it again. And I tell them to read that ten times. They say, oh, that's no way. I upset them in a, well, I upset the general teaching in a place in Australia, which shall be nameless, but you know the person that's there. And they just started a Bible reading scheme, you know, so much about Genesis to Revelation in a year or at least a couple of years, you see. I said, pack up all these Bible readings. You get reading John. You haven't got time to ignore what John's writing and say, oh, read Genesis. You think you have. I don't. Now in John's epistle, he talks about the anointing. Whether this was the inspiration of it, I don't know. But there are always reasons for the writing in a writer's mind. Having done a little myself, I know. Here's the thing, beloved. He talks about the anointing which you have received of him. And that brings this knowing faculty and you know all things. Have you ever been surprised at that, reading it? That is if you've read it. What his meaning is, it's to be an instinctive thing. Like I might say this, I'm sorry. You might think my illustration is, it's not a thought up one. I always preach spontaneously. Like if you have fish in the house, if you've got a cat, it'll find it. It's true, isn't it? Yeah, it'll find it. I won't tell you a funny story about that. But here is the thing, beloved. You're supposed to have this instinct. It's called the unction. I know it's a banal way to talk about it. You've got to have this knowing faculty in your heart. And if you live by that, you'll never go wrong. But if you try to live by a concoction of your mind, built up upon several scriptures of what, true or not, I don't know. You will go wrong. I'm not talking about whether your preaching is appreciated or not. He gives this unction, it's called, anointing. Same word, translated differently. All in one chapter. You wonder sometimes why they did it. But it's put there to keep you right. And because you don't have this unction, or you've been trained to ignore it, or you have stubbornly refused to recognize it, this instinctive thing, I'll call it, I don't know the word for it, could say all kinds of things. You know. You know. You know what I'm talking about. But if you haven't been in this instruction, you haven't got the Holy Ghost. And without the Holy Ghost, it can be turned into spiritism. All right. You've got to see this, beloved. You were made so that you take God. Adam and Eve were both created with this. God used to walk with them in the garden in the cool of the day. They never saw him. But they knew he was there. It died. Nearly got flattened out by sin. It's lingered on through the race and it got turned to evil spirits and things. But when you've been purged of everything evil and sin, there is a reviving and a refreshing. And there is that that brings you back into not the Edenic condition but into something which was before there was an Eden in God. And you are his child. And he has begotten you after his own likeness. As he made Adam and Eve in his own image in the beginning. This is the truth. And when Christians go wrong, go wrong, or I can tell them they've had the baptism and they spoke in tongues, but I don't believe them. Not unless they've renounced it and have lived a holy life. I don't believe anybody's baptised in the spirit that doesn't live a holy life. I don't believe it. Here's the thing, beloved. Now I know we can all stumble and do all kinds of things. I'm talking now about the basic construction of the spiritual man. Sorry ladies, but he's called a man in the Bible. In you. That's right. Isn't it wonderful? Oh, I delight in this gospel. It's marvellous. It's beyond words. I'm such a poor preacher. I can never put into words what's in my mind and heart. Never. It's bigger than language. Because it's of God. You have to know this, beloved. Mary knew that Jesus was going to die. In a wonderful way. It's a wonderful way. Anybody knew that. The way he was carrying on. He upset all the powers that are and will be and so on and what not. Yes, I suppose so. I expect somebody came whispering some day, you know, you'll get yourself into trouble the way you're carrying on. He didn't care about that. He'd come with a purpose. It's so beloved, it's so glorious. She, this remarkable word, against the day of my burial, as she kept this. She kept it. It was a tristing in heart. Whether she was aware of the things that were going on in her own being, in her inner being, I don't know. What? You kept it when your brother was buried. Why didn't you hand it over for your brother? You tell me. Knowing somewhere. Somewhere there was a great restraint in her. Francis Ridley Havergould. Once wrote a hymn, and a lot of it's gone from my failing mind these days, but one of the lines was it, was it was only for Jesus. Keep it forever engraved on my heart. Great woman Francis Ridley Havergould. That's it. Only for Jesus. Marvelous. Let her alone, he said. Let her alone. Nobody else is doing it. Let her alone. Mary understood. She never preached a sermon in her life. She preached more than a sermon, yeah. Great faith. Well I ask her when I get there, but I say to her, Mary, let's see if I can find her. Was it great faith? She would say no. No, I sort of felt that's what it was going to be. Better that than all the other blah blah. You see, beloved, you are first of all to God a being, a lovely human divine being. You are not a preacher, though people think I was a born preacher. You're not that to God. You understand that? To God you are a lovely being, a child of his father. That is, if you are born again, I don't know whether you're a mere believer. I don't know. Gee, I don't know this, but when all the disciples, including John, said, why ever is she doing this? Look at the waste of the money. It could have been this, we could have done this with that money, we could have done that with that money. You don't understand Peter, John, Matthew. You don't understand. And he was saddled with twelve men like that, and one of them was devil possessed. Hmm. Because you do know that there aren't any women's spirits. You understand that? Spirit is neither male nor female. You understand that? I look at you women, and I can see how pretty you are, and how nice you are, but you haven't got a woman's spirit inside of you. Yet I've talked about how delicate you could be, in conformity with your gender. I don't use the word sex, it's too slanted towards certain things. Gender is the word. But these wicked people today, sex in front of everybody's eyes. Sex. Sex. You don't really talk about gender. That's different. But that's mere body. You understand that? Hmm. You and I need to know, there's not a man's spirit, or a woman's spirit. Just a spirit. Hmm. Isn't that wonderful? Aye, he's wonderful. This is the only ground upon which we can have fellowship. We don't have fellowship on gender. You might have marriage on that, I don't know. But in the Church of God, it doesn't exist. Hmm. Hallelujah. And that woman had it. I'd have loved to have been in that house. Filled, filled to heart. Very, very wonderful. Now all you spirits in this room, you listen to me. I'm talking the spirit inside your body. You listen to God. You see, I know this. That according to the purpose for which man was made male and female, I'm talking mankind, in relationship to that you will build up a soul. You understand that? And it was from the spirit, your spirit. And being in a female body, I'm coming back on the same issue, it will gender things along that line, according to the exquisite wonder of the human being. If you have a man, it's when you get these stupid spirits inside men, that go gay and they want to dress up in women's clothing and all that sort of business. It serves the women right, they wanted to dress in men's clothing. Before women ever, men always wanted to wear women's. In my lifetime, that's happened. Here is the thing for you to see, beloved. Don't despise that, the women brought it on themselves. They wanted equality with men. I must preach, must ask, 5 to 11. Don't look, I'll finish in a minute or two. Here is the big thing. To get this into the grit of your bones. I haven't got grit in my bones. When you're about 80, you'll think you have sometimes, when you want to sit down or stand up. You'll think there might be some grit in there. No you won't, I've just put it into my imagery. You've got to, I call it screws or rheumatism or something like that. You think about it. Go on and understand truth. I wonder if the Lord would say, if he spoke out loud in this room this morning, let him, let her alone. She kept this Christ with me, against the day of my burial. I wonder if he would. This is the big thing, beloved. When you take that book in your hand and read it, you rely upon the Holy Ghost. And that which he will store up in you, which is of God your Father. And don't be afraid. And grow, and grow. And do you know what I think? You can say that's only with thinking. All right, let me tell you what I think. I think through all eternity you will grow. There's only one absolute, and it's God. Goodbye everyone. The class is over. I shan't see you again. I nearly said I hope, but you know what I mean. I should be on other business. You will be.