Well, it's good to be able to open our Bibles again this morning. I want us to turn to John chapter 11. John chapter 11. And I want us to read this morning from verse 11, or excuse me, verse 7. Verse 7 down through verse 15. John chapter 11 and verse 7 through verse 15. And let's stand together to read the Word of God John chapter 11, beginning in verse 7. Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judea again. And his disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee, and goest thou thither again? Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If a man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him. These things said he, and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep he shall do well. Albeit Jesus spake of his death, but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest and sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. and I'm glad for your sakes that I was not there to the intent you may believe. Nevertheless, let us go unto Him. Let's look to the Lord in prayer this morning once again. Heavenly Father, as we begin to look into Your Word this morning, and even as we've read it, I pray, Lord, that our hearts would be touched by it and our understanding would be open. Help us, Lord, as we As we try to present Your Word today, I pray that You'd help me to make the message clear. And Lord, that Your Holy Spirit would use it to open the understanding of every individual that is here. And for those that are lost, I pray that Your Holy Spirit would open their hearts to receive the message of Christ. We pray, Lord, that Your people would be encouraged by what we see presented in Your Word today. And that those that are lost would be caused to realize how much they need the Lord Jesus Christ. For it's in His name we pray and for His sake. Amen. I want us to consider this morning the subject of preparation through testing. God prepares us as the children of God for the next things that are coming up. Now that's one of the things he does, but that's one of the major things that happens in our life. If we can really get a hold of that, it will help us tremendously. The fact that you're here this morning, God is using, God intends to use his word to prepare you for things that are coming. I don't know what it is, I'm not going to try to be a prophet this morning, but I can tell you that the fact that you're here this morning, and I'll say this especially to those who are the children of God, you're here this morning because God is preparing you for something. Everything that happens in your life, and I want to speak especially this morning about the fact that everywhere, the way that God deals with you in your life and the way that he leads you in your life is preparing you for something down the road that you don't know anything about. Now, I'm not trying to be secretive this morning or anything like that. I'm just saying that's the way it is. None of us know what tomorrow holds. As a matter of fact, none of us knows what this afternoon holds. And as a matter of fact, you don't know if you'll make it to the end of this service. I'm not planning on doing anything. I'm just saying you don't know how long your heart's going to tick. The Lord Jesus Christ addresses those things here. We live in a world that is full of uncertainty. And I hear people talking about it more and more all the time, how uncertain things are, how chaotic things are. But what I'm talking about this morning has always been true. I'm talking this morning especially because the Word of God is here showing us the Lord Jesus Christ dealing specifically with His disciples. So it's the life of a child of God. It's the life of a Christian. This is part of it. And there's some tremendous things we can see here and we can benefit from it if we have eyes to see and our hearts are open to receive it. There's testing that's going to take place. I want you to notice what we just read. Verse 7 says, and this is the first section of this actually, down through verse 10. He's testing them. He said, let us go up to Judea. And they had an immediate response to that, didn't they? It was a response of fear, actually. His disciples, now it had been about two months, but it's still fresh on their minds. How do I know that? Because it's the first thing that came out of their mouth. When he said, let us go up to Judea, they immediately responded, the Jews of late, master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee and goest thou thither again. Amazing how fast people change. Previously, they told him Lazarus was sick, and they were surprised that he didn't go to do something about it. And now he says, we're going up to Judea, and they say, wait a minute. The Jews of late, just two months ago, they were trying to stone him. As a matter of fact, twice they tried to stone him. There's only, I want you to see something here. The Lord Jesus Christ is only given some general direction. He doesn't say we're going to Jerusalem. He just says we're going to Judea. That means if we're going to Judea, we're going beyond Jordan. In other words, they'd gone to the other side of Jordan where John baptized. Now he says we're going, so they're going to go back across Jordan and they're going to go into the land of Judea. That's all they told them. We look at the whole story, if you've read it before, and you know where they ended up going, what they ended up doing, but they didn't know that. All He told them is, let us go up, and that wasn't a suggestion. He's commanding, let us go. It's like when God said, let there be light, there was light. And so He's telling them, we're going back up to Judea. Their immediate response was fear. He didn't say, we're going to see Lazarus. I'm going to heal him. They didn't know that he was dead. We know that because he has to tell them that. So they didn't know that he was dead, but he didn't say, we're going to go to see Lazarus. I'm going to heal him. He just said, we're going to Judea. He didn't tell them what they're going to do. What I'm trying to get you to see this morning is his direction at this time was very general. He didn't tell them what they were going to do and what he was going to do when he got there. He just said, we're going to Judea. A lot of times, that's the way God directs. As a matter of fact, most of the time in our lives, We have a lot of general direction in the Word of God. The Word of God doesn't tell you, tomorrow morning, get up and go to work. Tomorrow morning, when you go to work, this is what's going to happen. It doesn't tell you in the Word of God, when you go to work, talk to this person. It doesn't tell you that. But it does tell you how to live your life. It does tell you we walk by faith, not by sight. We don't walk by what we see and what the world presents to us. We walk by faith in the Word of God. So whatever circumstances arise, we have a Bible that's full of general direction for our life. We need to read it, study it, make it part of our life, and live by it, regardless of what happens. The Lord has given us His Word. He's commanded us to read it. He's commanded us to study. He's commanded us to pray. We're to take advantage of all those things. He's given us His church with pastors and teachers. for your use, for your benefit. He's commanded you to take advantage of that. He's given some general direction about why we're here and why I'm here and why other teachers are here. So follow it. We live in a world where through fear people stop going to church. because they're scared. And yet, God said, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. There are churches, I talk to pastors sometimes, and their churches are still only half the people they used to have, which means they really only had half the people they thought they had in the first place. But the rest of them are still staying home for fear. They're scared. Well, these people were scared too. But he said, let's go to Jerusalem. We're going up to Jerusalem again. Not Bethany, but Judea. We're going back where they tried to arrest me twice and tried to stone me twice. We're going back where my most avowed enemies, that's what they knew. The people that hate you most are in Judea. You're leaving where you already have a good ministry. Your ministry here is a lot better than it was when you were in Jerusalem. Why would you go there when it's going well here? I can't tell you how many times I've heard that in my life. Why would you go there? Because that's where God's leading. His hottest enemies were where he's going to go. Why would you leave here? It's testing their faith. It's testing their faith. We're going to go back to the place where you think I should be the most afraid. He wasn't, but they were. He wasn't afraid, not at all, but they were. These are his closest disciples. He's testing their faith and their confidence in him. Can you simply take my commandment and follow me? I'm not going to tell you what's going to happen. Nothing was known about what we know that happened. But I'm going to Jerusalem. Are you going to follow? Now that's what God expects of us. We don't have to know the details. Just do what we're told. Do what God leads. Follow Him. And in verse 8, you see the trepidation or the fear of the disciples. There was a great sense of foreboding that gripped them. We are in trouble now. We go back up there, we're probably going to die. The one we're following is going to get killed going back up there. We call common sense, or I should say what we call common sense, is many times a restriction on the leadership of God. Going back to Jerusalem doesn't make sense. Going back to Judea does not make sense. Don't you realize what's there and what's here? This makes no sense. And we often do the same thing. We use what we call common sense. And what we really mean is we're walking by sight rather than by faith. Did you know that we live in a world that thinks the whole Bible doesn't make any common sense? So if you follow the thinking of this world, you're going to think the Bible doesn't make sense. And if you're sitting here this morning and you're thinking, oh, there's some things in this Bible I just don't think make sense, or you think you've got to change what it says to make it make sense to you so you can do that instead of what it clearly says, that's the same thing. We live in a world of Christianity today that follows more of our culture, not the vilest of our culture necessarily, but our culture. What makes sense according to what the world says. If somebody were to ask, why are you doing that? Well, that's just what you have to do for a thing. That's just the way it works in the world. That's just what you have to do. And as soon as you say, no, the Bible really doesn't say that's the way we ought to do, you're going to be confronted with, that doesn't make sense. That just doesn't make any sense. No, it doesn't make sense to the carnal mind. There's fear of possible or even probable danger. It hinders many people from following the Word of God, from following the direction of God. There are people who refuse to follow what they say God has directed them to do in serving Him. And they refuse to do it because it's too dangerous. In their mind, it's too dangerous. They don't realize it's much more dangerous to disobey God. It's much more dangerous to walk by sight and not by faith. We are naturally, we weigh over, we are people that weigh over risk and reward. We weigh over risk and reward. What's the risk involved here and what's going to be the reward? There was a rich man that ended up staying eternally lost because he weighed over the risk and the reward with his physical sense, what he could see with his mind's eye, and said, he went away sorrowful. Not worth the risk. I'm not selling all I have to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. Not worth the risk. He was more interested in time, the wealth of time, and the riches of the world. He was not able to trust Christ. Not interested. Faith sees Christ, hears His direction, and follows with our eye on Him. Our mind's eye is fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all they had. They didn't have a map drawn out. They didn't have a plan for the future. They just had, let's go up to Jerusalem. That's all they had. Proverbs chapter 3 and verses 5 and 6 says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. It may make, it probably does make sense to you to categorize what areas of your life is going to be your religious life and what part of your life is going to be all yours. That may make sense to you. It may make sense to you that this much goes to God and the rest of it's all mine to do whatever I want to do with it. That may make sense to you, it probably does. But it's still not true to the Word of God. Lean not unto thine own understanding. Where do you get your understanding of how you ought to live your life? In all thy ways acknowledge Him. That doesn't mean just recognizing everything and you realize that God's still alive. No, in all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy path. Acknowledge that God is who He says He is. Acknowledge that God is a holy God. Acknowledge that God is sovereign. That God has the right, and it is only right for you, for Him to direct all your way. In all thy way. Daily, as you go through the day, You know, Nehemiah stood before a king, and when the king asked him what was troubling him so much, he breathed a prayer before he answered. He saw the answer to his prayer to God being answered before his eyes, but it's still, Lord, help me to answer the king properly. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Have him in view. Seek the face of God in everything you do. See Him, hear Him, trust His direction and His understanding in everything you do. I want you to notice also in verses 9 through 10, the Lord Jesus Christ answered their fears. Now this is, we're seeing how God works in our life. God will test you. As a child of God, God's going to test you. He probably already has. How do we respond? He tests us. After—it doesn't matter how many—it's been a long time. After a lot of years, I can tell you God's tested us a lot. I've been tested a lot. I wish I could say I've always passed the test of flying colors, but I haven't. But I've been tested a lot. And I'm glad that by God's grace, many people have asked me, how have you done that? How'd you deal with all of that and keep serving God? My answer is, what else would I do? Am I supposed to turn my back on God? Am I supposed to reject the Lord Jesus Christ now because it's difficult? Because it seems like something that, humanly speaking, I'm supposed to, what, quit? Now he answers the question this way. He doesn't answer the question with, well, now here's what's going to happen. Let me just calm your fears and let you know nothing's going to happen to you. He didn't say that at all. Not at all. He gave them a principle that you and I can live by and they could live by and follow Him. If you trust Him, if you trust Him, you can live by this. Now the day has an allotted time. That's what He says. Are there not 12 hours in the day? This is an interesting factoid I'll throw out there. How many hours of sunlight are there in this day to day? You don't have to answer that, but just think about that. I checked that out. There's more than 10. Today, June 1st, there were more than that. But in January, it's gonna be just the opposite. And did you know that if you were in Alaska where they Where I was in Eagle, Alaska, there are some periods in the wintertime, they never see the sun. It gets daylight, but they don't see the sun. But there are just as many days in the summertime that it's never completely dark. And I was there then. You gotta have the windows blacked out for it to be dark enough for me to sleep. And it's amazing how few windows they have in their bedrooms. Because it's not going to get dark. And if you average that out, everybody gets 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours of dark. Now that's a fact. Now, that's a point, that's a fact that he states. As the Creator God, he knows that. I didn't have to go to a science book, but it's true. Now, notice this. Here's what that means. It's not just information you can have a good time with. The Lord Jesus Christ often said, My time is not yet come. Because God gave Him a work to do. He had a work to do. He was not going to be done on this earth no matter what anybody did, no matter whatever anybody threatened or tried to do. They had tried to stone Him twice and failed. They tried to arrest Him twice and failed. He just walked away. They couldn't do a thing about it. When they told the Lord Jesus Christ, Herod's after you, He said, go tell that fox. I work today and tomorrow and the third day. I'm going to do what God told me to do. I'm going to do what the Father told me to do. I don't care what Herod said. I'm going to do what the Father told me to do. But he said he's coming to get you. No, I'm going to work today and tomorrow and the third day. That's it. Nothing was going to stop him into the very second that God had purposed that his soul would depart his body on the cross. And nothing was going to stop that until he was not going to die until it was the day for him to die and the hour for him to die. And nothing was going to stop that. Because God is in control. You say, well, that's Jesus Christ. That's true of every child of God. That's true of every one of us. So why are people so scared? They're still afraid to go to church even, because they might get sick. You're not going to die until it's your time. I'm not talking about being careless. I'm talking about afraid to go to church. I'll bet you those people still go to the grocery store or order it in. Somebody had to handle it. God gave him an allotted time, and his work was going to be accomplished. The day he speaks of is a metaphor of your life. You have a day to live. You have a 12-hour period that represents your life. That's what he's talking about. There's no sense in wasting brain power concerning yourself with when you're going to die. God has already determined that. Now there's a principle for us to have, though, for a safe walk. That's what he's talking about here. There's a good principle to follow to walk safely in this life. Again, Jesus had a work to do and he worked while it was day and nothing was going to stop his work, but now he's not talking about his work. Now he's talking about your walk and mine and his own walk. This is about man's walk. If a man, he says there are yet 12 hours in a day, if a man walk in the day, in verse 10, but if a man walk in the night, it's talking about the course of your life, the manner of your life, the way you live your life. How do you walk in this world? How do you live your life? And it's not just talking about what you do with your feet, it's talking about in your mind, Listen, our mind controls what our feet do. Our mind controls what we say. Our mind controls whether we serve God or don't serve God. So in our mind, we're either walking with God or we're not in our mind. And so there's daylight, there's sunlight. You want to avoid, in the real world, you want to avoid the obstacles in life? Man, I've been walking down the hallway when it's pitch black and my eyes haven't adjusted yet. Walk right into the mirror at the end of the hall. Why? Because, I was going to say I was too dumb to turn the light on, but I didn't want to wake anybody up, so I left the light off and they just let my eyes adjust. I didn't put my hands out. I didn't put my hand against the hallway, you know, the wall. I just walked. That's a pretty dumb thing to do. Well, it's also a dumb thing to do to walk through this life spiritually blind. To walk through this life trusting your physical eyesight, your own physical understanding. That's foolish. You need some light to walk by so you don't stumble. 1 John 1 verse 5 says, This then is the message with which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. You don't have any light in yourself. I don't have any light in myself. We must have God. We must have the illumination of God Himself. If we walk in the presence of Him, in obedience to Him who is light. If we have fellowship with Him who is in the light, who is light, and walk in that light, we cannot stumble because we're walking in fellowship with Him. What does it mean to stumble? We live in a spiritually dangerous world. It's a spiritually dangerous world. You know why it is that people fall into sin? They stumble over stuff in life that causes them to sin. You know why it is that people stumble over doctrinal error and go off into doctrinal error and churches that don't believe anything about the truth of God? You know why that is? Because they're not walking in the light of God. It's because they haven't read and studied their Bible. They haven't listened to preaching and teaching enough to pay attention enough. They're so poor spiritually, they don't have enough spiritual pay, if you will, or riches to pay attention. That's why they stumble. You want to keep from stumbling over the stumbling blocks of this life? The sins that cause God's people to fall into sin? to fall away from the truth of God, walk in the light of the word of God and in the presence of God." That's exactly what he's talking about. He's saying, listen, I don't have to tell you what's going to happen tomorrow, but I will tell you this, if you want to keep from falling away from the truth, you better stay with me. Did he not say, I am the light of the world? If any man, follow me. Follow me. Oh, I'll be okay. I'm a child of God. If any man, follow me. Those who truly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ seek to follow Him. If you don't walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, the light of the world, you are going to stumble. You are. There's no doubt about it. You can see when people drift away from the Word of God, drift away from the house of God, they're not spending time personally in the Word of God, studying the Word of God, they're going to stumble. Unfortunately, so many times they're so blind, by that point they stumble and don't even recognize it as stumbling. We have no light in ourselves. The Word of God says there is no light in him. No light in him. Seems like a strange statement, doesn't it? He talks about there's a light of the day and then he says, if any man walk in the night, he stumbleth because there is no light in him. Not just a light to light his path, although that person needs that, we need that. What he's saying is The light we need isn't in you naturally. It isn't in you naturally. You may be the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to mental acuity. You may be the sharpest person, the smartest person in the world. I'm not sure who measures that, but anyway, you might be. But without the light of the Word of God, without the light of God in your soul. Not with your Bible sitting in your pew at church. With your Bible in your heart and in your mind, because you read it all the time. And you pray over it all the time. You hear the preaching of the Word of God every opportunity you have. It's part of your life. It's what directs your life. 1 John 2 and verse 11 says, But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth. Because that darkness has blinded his eyes. The darkness has blinded his eyes. I want you to notice what he said. He that hateth his brother is in darkness. When a person claims to be a child of God, And they do not consider the impact of their life on other Christians, on other saints of God. They're walking in darkness. Because if we weren't walking in darkness, we would love God's people. And we would desire to have a life that is holy before God and righteous in God's sight so that our life would not be a stumbling block to somebody else. But the evidence of a child of God is we love one another. If we love one another, we'll do everything we can to make sure our life is not a stumbling block to somebody else. And you cannot do that, I cannot do that, unless I know what the Word of God has to say and I'm willing to follow the Word of God whether I can see the end of the tunnel or not. There's a very clear lesson. I'll close with this. I didn't get to the last point, but I'll close on this. You can take a deep breath. Exhale. If a man walks according to his own understanding, according to the course of this world, he walks in darkness. When you think this, when you hear this, well that's the way the world works. That's walking in darkness. Darkness is any disobedience to the will of God that does not follow the will of God regardless. There's a real clear lesson in this whole thing. We must not allow fear or threats of discomfort or inconvenience or danger to deter us from from following the will of God. That's the message to them. If you want to be safe, you better stay with me. That's what he's saying. David told that one priest, one of the priest's sons that was left after that Edomite killed off all the rest of them. And he fled to David and he said, you're in safekeeping. Now, looking by sight, Ida said, are you kidding me? You got a few men here at that time, two or three hundred men at that particular time, and you're telling me I'm safe with you? Yep. Yep. With that poor little group following David, he said, you're in safekeeping with me. Why? because David was in safekeeping with God. You follow the Lord Jesus Christ, you're in safekeeping. You stop following the general direction and even the specific direction of the Word of God, you're in trouble. And if you're here this morning and not a child of God, you've never been born again in the Spirit of God, you can't do any of this. There's not a promise here for you. Everything you do is outside of the light or the knowledge of God. You may know some facts, but you need it in your heart. You must be born again, or you are totally walking in darkness. Without the Lord Jesus Christ, without being born again in dwelling presence of the Spirit of God, you walk in darkness even until now. You need to know the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to know what it is to have the free pardon of sin. It comes through the blood atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's stand and have a word of prayer. Gracious God and Heavenly Father, we just ask you now that your Holy Spirit would take the message of your word, the message of Christ, and apply it to every heart here. Open our hearts and minds, we pray, to understand and to receive your word in Jesus' name.