The Walk of the Lord Jesus

John chapter 1 and verse number 35, Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God. Read another verse, And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? And they said unto him, Rabbi, which it is to say, being interpreted, Master, where dwellest thou? Now we know that God will bless his word, what we have heard.

I want to speak a little bit about the walk of the Lord Jesus Christ. There must have been a special attraction about the Lord, and I wonder, and maybe you've wondered, why did these two disciples want to follow the Lord Jesus Christ? When we read verses like this, I like to try and keep them in a context, and of course if you do, you'll see first of all in John chapter 1, the greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ. All things were made by him, without him was not anything made that was made.

And yet John, when he comes down, he'll tell us about how the Lord Jesus was in the bosom of the Father, the place of enjoyment and communion that he had at all times. And then to our amazement, he says, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. And these men were attracted to the Lord.

As I say, we're not told why, but there must have been something about his life or his walk. Of course, you know, walk is really a manner of life. And the Lord Jesus was unlike any other person.

He graced manhood with all the attributes of deity. And these men would see maybe his lowliness, if they had an appreciation of his greatness and of who he was, the eternal Son of God. Their hearts were touched when they saw God manifest in flesh and dwelling amongst men.

So their hearts were drawn out to him. And the desire was that they would be with him. Rabbi, where dwellest thou? And he said, Come and see.

My mind then goes to another scripture in the Gospel of Luke chapter 7. You remember there was a feast that was made in the house of Simon the Pharisee. And there was a woman that came into that house, and she was characterized in her unsaved days, I would take it, that she was a sinner. And it must have been very difficult for her to come into the house of a Pharisee.

That would be the last place where a person like that would want to be. But she was determined to get to where the Lord Jesus Christ was. And you remember what she did? She washed his feet.

Why did she wash his feet? I'm suggesting to you that she had an appreciation for the walk of the Lord Jesus, a walk that brought him from the glories of heaven, brought him right to where she was in all her sin and all her shame. And the result was she stood behind the Lord, and she washed his feet with her tears, and she wiped them with the hairs of her head. Wonder do we have that appreciation of the Lord Jesus Christ and all the greatness of his person? And yet he came into this world, and he took on flesh and blood just like you, just like me, of course, without sin.

But what an appreciation we should have of the fact that he came from the glories of heaven. What a change! What a different atmosphere! Breathing the atmosphere of heaven for all eternity, and then coming into this sinful world. But she had an appreciation that here is one that brought the gospel to me.

And we're glad, aren't we, that the Lord Jesus Christ came from the glories of heaven, and he came with the glad tidings of the gospel. And the result should be that you and I should bow at his feet and be so thankful for the walk of the Lord Jesus that brought him from heaven. But then I thought of another scripture, and that's found in John chapter 12, and that's in the house at Bethany.

And that's a wonderful place, you know. It's a lovely picture of the local assembly. When the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead, he took the disciples out.

Where did they go? He said he took them as far as Bethany, the place where he loved to be with his gathered disciples. And here's a woman, and she also anointed the feet of the Lord Jesus. I don't think it was so much there—well, I know it wasn't the fact that she appreciated him coming from heaven, I'm sure she did—but she appreciated the fact that he was going to Calvary, and she anointed him for his burial.

What a beautiful little picture, as I said, of God's assembly. I was thinking, when I was speaking yesterday about the priesthood, you know, you can't say everything that comes to your mind. Maybe it's a good thing sometimes you can't, but, you know, the priests, we read how that the blood was put on their ear, and their thumb, and the great toe of their right foot.

And every time I think of that, I think of Bethany. I think of a woman with the blood on her ear, that was Mary. She sat at his feet and listened.

Wonderful thing to be able to listen to the Lord Jesus. We do that as we read the Scriptures and all these beautiful truths concerning him. And then Martha, she was a woman that was cumbered with much serving.

If she had realized the truth of the blood on the thumb, or on the hand, well, she would have been so willing to serve. And then what about Lazarus? Well, he's a man that had the, I would say, the blood on his foot. He was raised to walk in newness of life.

So it's a beautiful little picture, really, of the assembly as a place of priesthood. And then when we think of how she broke her alabaster box of ointment, my mind goes back to the previous chapter. And the previous chapter, again, shows us some of the beauties of the Lord Jesus.

Those lovely words that we read, the shortest word in our authorized version, shortest verse, rather, Jesus wept. Isn't that amazing? In the Gospel of John, that is the Gospel of the greatness of the Lord Jesus, we read that he wept. The woman at the well said, Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us a well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? And you and I know the answer, far greater than Jacob.

Jacob had control of his feet at the end of his life. He pulled his feet into the bed, we read in Genesis, and expired. And he's called a worshiper.

In the chapter of John 4, it speaks of worship. When we go to Hebrews chapter 11, Joseph is the only one that's mentioned as a worshiper. And he worshiped, leaning upon his staff.

In weakness, he was a worshiper of God. But then when we go on down to chapter, John chapter 11, we read of Lazarus, and he's in the grave. And the Lord says, Where have you laid him? And they go out to the cemetery, and Martha again, she says, Oh Lord, he's been dead for four days.

She said his decomposing has taken place, his body is decomposed, an awful stench of death in that place. But the Lord called him up out of the tomb. My mind goes to what I read years ago, but an old preacher in Wales, a Baptist preacher, a one-eyed preacher called Christian, or Christmas Evans.

And I read his book, Mr. Albert Joyce, old Mr. Joyce. He said, Have you ever seen that book? Read it. And I read it.

I don't remember a lot about it, but I remember this. He talked about the power of the Lord over death. And he said, You know, Satan had the power of death.

He's just like that lion that goes about seeking whom he may devour. And he pointed out that the lion pounced on Jairus' daughter, but the Lord delivered her out of the paw of the lion. What a wonderful person the Lord was.

It is. And then he said, There was a widow of Nain, and the funeral is taking place, the procession's going to the cemetery, and the Lord stopped the procession. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, arise.

I could have said that, so could you, but I couldn't have given him the power. But the Lord gave him the power. And Mr. Evans, he said, The lion was trailing his prey to his lair.

But he said, The Lord delivered him out of the paw of the lion. What joy there must have been in that house at that day. And then he said, And Lazarus, Satan the lion, is feasting on his prey.

But he said, The Lord delivered him out of the paw of the lion. But what I want to bring before us is this. Here's the stench of death.

That's what God got from you, and that's what God got from me in our unregenerate state before you were saved. There was nothing in us to commend as to God, just that stench of death. But when we come into John chapter 12, we have the odor of the ointment that filled the room.

And when I gather together with my fellow believers, you know, it would be easy for many of us to criticize one another and for you to criticize me. But you know, I often think, My, what a transformation has taken place. What has the Lord done? Here we were, all of us.

God got nothing from us but the stench of death. And now we can break our alabaster box of ointment, and the fragrance filled the room. And as we gather together to remember the Lord, there should be a fragrance that fills the room.

But I'll tell you something else. I believe it fills the very throne of God in heaven. What a tremendous person the Lord is to bring such a change in you and such a change in me.

Raises from amongst the dead, dead in trespasses and in sins. She anointed him. She appreciated he was going to the cross at Calvary, to appreciate the fact that he came from the glories of heaven, from the highest place in the universe to the lowest place of all, to the cross at Calvary.

And then my mind goes again. One more scripture in Luke chapter 24. The two on the way to Emmaus, and the Lord walked with them.

Those feet that had been pierced by the nails. He walked with them on the way to Emmaus. And he didn't rebuke them.

What a wonderful person he is. He could have said, well, our Bible says, oh, fools and slow of heart to believe. I like the margins a little better.

It says, oh, unwise ones and slow of heart to believe. I don't think the Lord really would maybe call them fools in that way. They belong to him.

And what did he do? Well, he enfolded unto them from the scriptures, the things concerning himself. They didn't understand that he had to suffer before he would enter into his kingdom. And the Lord went through all those Old Testament scriptures in the Psalms and the Prophets and in Moses, and he would go through the offerings and so on, and he would tell them all the scriptures that spoke of his sufferings.

I'm sure their hearts were touched. He didn't rebuke them. They said, oh, you're the only stranger in Jerusalem, and you don't know what happened.

He was the only one that knew what happened. No one else knew at that time what really had happened on the cross at Calvary, where the Lord Jesus poured out his soul unto death and suffered agonies untold, so that the kingdom could be set up in the future. But here they are.

And what did he do in his priestly ministry? He trimmed the lamp. They had a testimony, and it seemed that the lamp was flickering. Maybe your test, lamp of testimony and mine, maybe it's flickering.

And maybe you wonder if it's going to go out altogether. But what did the Lord do? He did what the priest did. He trimmed the lamp.

Why? So that it would burn all the more brightly. And I'll tell you, not only did their lamp of testimony burn, but their hearts burned within them. May the Lord help us to have hearts that will burn when we think of the glories of the Lord and the greatness of his work.

And again, he not only was with them on the road, he was with them in the room. He appeared in their midst. And he's in the midst right now in this meeting.

He's in the midst of every gathering of the saints. And he's going to be in the midst when we gather together to remember him according to the desires of his own heart. We want to bring some refreshment to the heart of the Lord, to show our allegiance when the world is against him.

And our own great land seems to be doing everything to put his name away as far as possible. But you and I can show our allegiance to him when we gather together. And you know the end result if you go to the end of Luke chapter 24, where they went on their way rejoicing.

May the Lord touch our hearts as we think of the Lord Jesus. Saw Jesus as he walked. Attracted to him, they wanted to be with him.

May the Lord help us to covet his presence with us. He is with us, but we want to be brought into the realization of it. When he was revealed to them when they had the meal at Emmaus, he vanished out of their sight.

Mr. Newbery in his margin says, he ceased to be seen of them. He was still with them, but they didn't see him. And the Lord is with us.

So may the Lord give us a greater appreciation of him. See the beauty of his walk. How wonderful to contemplate the life of the Lord Jesus coming from the glories of heaven.

And then to contemplate him going to the cross at Calvary, bearing the wrath and the judgment of God for you and for me. May the Lord help us to break our box of ointment, that the odor of the ointment would fill the room and remember that the Lord is always with us. So that we'd be a testimony, would be testimonies for him in this dark world.

Now we're closing prayer. Our Father, we continue before thee, and we do thank thee for reminding us that we are a priesthood, a royal priesthood to show forth the virtues of him who called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light. And the desire of each one of us here this morning is that we would be more like thy well-beloved Son.

Give us greater desires to be like him, and grant our Father, as we gather together to remember him in a few moments, that our hearts might well up in praise and worship and adoration as we exercise our holy priesthood in thy presence. Grant that much praise and worship would ascend to thee and to thy beloved Son. And we do ask these things, our Fathers.

We give thee our grateful thanks again for Calvary, mercy's vast unfathomed sea, for the love that was displayed there, and the fact that we've been brought into the goodness of that love. We give thee our grateful thanks in the worthy name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.