The Apostle John's dependability and stability under pressure are highlighted through his actions during Jesus' trial, crucifixion, and the discovery of the empty tomb. Despite the immense stress and fear surrounding Jesus' arrest and death, John remained steadfast, unlike many other disciples who fled. His fidelity at the trial, where he entered the high priest's palace and vouched for Peter, his steadfastness at the cross, standing with the women while others wavered, and his belief upon seeing the empty tomb demonstrate his unwavering commitment. The sermon concludes by emphasizing that true Christian strength is found not in succumbing to pressure but in being pushed closer to God, urging believers to emulate John's dependable faith.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 1.68 → restored 4.45
and set unto them they have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher and we know not where they have laid him Peter therefore went forth and that other disciple and came to the sepulcher so they ran both together and the other disciple did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulcher and he stooping down and looking in saw the linen clothes lying yet went he not in. Then come of Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulcher, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulcher, and he saw and believed. For as yet they knew not the Scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. I was going to read to you also from Galatians two and from Luke twenty two, but I think we'll leave that reading for the time being and let us have a word of prayer together as we think about these scriptures and about this life through which God once again tonight to speak to our heart. Our Father, we ask thee for a very real sense of thy presence.
We do not pray that thou will be here, for we know that thou art here. We do not ask for the presence of thy Holy Spirit, for we know that he too is here, and it is his ministry to take up the things of Christ and reveal them unto us. So we ask that thou wilt, who knowest our every need, see fit tonight to meet that need for thy glory. and for the good of each one of us. For we ask it for thy name's sight. Amen. Now we've talked about the fact that John was devoted, and we've talked about the fact that John was beautiful, and tonight we're going to talk about the fact that John was dependable.
I wonder how long you folks sitting here tonight have been taking into your home that little magazine that used to be called Letters of Interest, but is now simply called Interest and has been for the last few years. I wonder how many of you have been taking it for the last ten years. Let me see, put your hands up. How many of you have been taking it for the last fifteen years? How many of you have been taking it for the last twenty years? How many of you have been taking it longer than that? It's been so long you couldn't even reckon it up. You don't remember the first day the magazine came into your home, do you?
Well, most of you have been getting it long enough for a lady's name to have crept into one of your magazines that maybe you never noticed, and the owner of which you probably never met. But she was a very simple lady, commended to the work, and she lived in that dreadful place called Brooklyn, and it was her work to labor quietly among young people in Brooklyn. And her name was Helen Petral, spelled T-E-T-R-A-L-E.
I wonder if that rings a bell with anybody. Does anybody remember that name? Yes. Did any of you know Helen Petrault? Yes. Then you know the reason why, since I also worked in New York, that I learned to appreciate Helen. One day she turned up in my office with a young man. He was, I suppose, at that time, about eighteen years of age, and she had been hanging on to him like a leaf. My time after time he had disappointed her. Time after time he had grappled with the drugs that he was in vain struggling against.
Time after time she had picked him up after he fell flat on his face. And this day feeling that she had gone as far as she could with him, she brought him to my office and she said, Mr. Woodhouse, I want you to meet Jose. She said, Jose, I believe, is ready to kick the habit, but I don't feel that I can supply the help that he needs because he has to be gotten away from his home. And so I made arrangements with her, and that day I took him in. And we worked with Jose, we talked with him, we prayed with him, we read the scriptures with him, and sure enough, That young man came to know the Lord Jesus as he saved him.
But my how the pushers chased him all over. They found out where he was. They would lay him and try their hardest to press a free bag on him so that once again he would go back to mainlining and shooting heroin. He did come in after two days away from the mission one day, and the first thing I said to him was, Jose, push up your sleeves. And he pushed up his sleeve, and sure enough, there in the joint of his elbow was the telltale mark. But he said, Mr. Woodhouse, it's the last time. Last night he said, I thought I was going to die. It has to be the last time.
We kept him around for several months, and then we sent him up to Word of Life. And Jack Woodson kept him the rest of the summer, and then back again he came. and we put him back again into his bed in the mission. And by this time I felt that he was at a place where probably he could at least for a length of time hold down a job. So I put on my hat and coat one day and I left the mission and I walked about twenty minutes down to a little office on Reed Street. I went to see Mr. Fred McKenzie. I said, Mr.
McKenzie, I'm a young man, and I would very much like you to give him a job. I said, I have to tell you there is one word that I cannot use concerning him, and it is the word dependable. He might leave you tomorrow if he comes to work for you today, but if he can work for you a month and live at the mission, I believe we can introduce some semblance of normality into his life. I told him a little bit of his history. He said, well, Helen worked with him and Jack has worked with him and you worked with him. Why shouldn't I work with him? And so right there and then he gave him a job.
And two or three times that young man just disappeared for several days. But every time Mr. McKenzie took him back and slowly but surely the Lord laid hold of his life And the last time I saw that young man, he was speaking at one of our mission banquets, employed by the Salvation Army as a worker among drug addicts. And at last he had earned the word dependable. Took a long time. But not until we could say of him he is absolutely dependable did we feel that we could say, that he was out of the woods.
There are lots of Christians that are not dependable. Somebody has coined the word stickability. And I'm sure you know a lot of people who will start a thing, and before they are halfway through, they put it down and they start something else. Then they put that down and they start something else. They don't seem capable of staying with a thing and seeing it through to the end. And yet I am confident that the man who is really going to make his mark for God is the man who is prepared to tackle a thing and stay with a thing until it has been completed. Now I know that the Apostle John had his failures.
We're going to look at some of them, I think, tomorrow night. But I believe this man was a dependable man. And there are four things that I want to point out to you. And again, we're going to come back to that story. This is the third time we've done it. And the fourth time we've read it about the Lord Jesus and his mother and John, because it comes into this picture too. It was because he was stable, that the Lord Jesus chose him to look after his mother. But I'm going a little ahead of myself. First of all, I want you to think about John and his fidelity at the trial of the Lord Jesus.
Secondly, I want you to think about John and his steadfastness at the cross. And then thirdly, I want you to think about John and his dedication at the future. And finally, I want you to think about the Apostle John and his triumph in the tomb. Now, actually, there are three different places, though there are four separate things. We first of all see the Apostle John at the trial, then we see the Apostle John at the tree, and then we see the Apostle John inside the tomb. And in each of these instances, I believe that this man's stickability and dependability stands out.
Now I call this his stability under duress. Now what is duress? Duress, of course, is pressure. And that is when we so often give way. It's when pressure is brought to bear upon our lives that we begin to falter, that we begin to hesitate, that we find ourselves confronted with the temptation to throw in the sponge and to give up. We know that we are living in days of pressure. That's the reason why there is so much hypertension all the way around us. That's the reason why there is so much heart disease.
That's the reason why there are so many ulcers. Haven't I reminded you before that you don't get ulcers from what you eat? You get ulcers from what's eating you. And so it is in these days of pressure, all the way around us there is evidence of that pressure. Now we as Christians are expected to withstand it, but we are only going to be able to do that as we depend upon the Lord Jesus. What did the hymn writers say and say so truly? The arm of flesh will fail you. You dare not even trust your own.
You lean on your own arm or somebody else's other than the arm of the Lord Jesus, and before you know where you are, you'll be like Jose was so many times flat on your face. Now it was not for nothing that John was called a pillar in the church. Now he had to be stable to be a pillar. A pillar, you know, is something that supports though I think of an illustration and realize there are some pillars that don't support. How many of you have ever heard of Sir Christopher Wren? W-E-R-E-N.
I'll learn how to spell it one of these days. He was a man who designed St. Paul's Cathedral and so many of those other wonderful London churches, but he didn't confine his architecture to London. If you ever go to Windsor, you will eventually find yourself in a very ornate town council building, undoubtedly, because Sir Christopher Wren designed it. But you know, when the city fathers went in to the finished building, they saw the huge dome of the central hall there supported by only six pillars. And they called the architect back and they said that's going to collapse around our years.
The Christopher Wren said that is scientifically designed, and those six pillars are stout enough to support that dome. But they said it's so vast. It needs another six pillars. And so eventually he bowed to their request and had the builders put in six more pillars. But what the city fathers did not know was this. Those six pillars were made three inches shorter than the other six fillers, and the three inches was filled in with plaster of Paris, and every one of them died before the discovery was made. But when you go to see that building, they'll point out those six fillers, and now there's a gap of three inches above every one of them.
Sir Christopher Wren intended that time should vindicate him, and so all along though that great dome has been supported by only six and not twelve pillars. Why, if the city fathers had known, they would have died in their tracks? Where ignorance is bliss? His father did he whine? But there were six pillars that did the supporting, and six pillars that didn't. Now, John was called a pillar because he was a support. And he was a support because he was dependable. He had stability. Upon a pillar there is that which rests.
The function of the pillar is to support. Some of these lovely pillars in the building that I've mentioned. In fact, the twelve of them are a very real adornment too. And I suppose in a sense John was all of those. But I'm thinking of his function of supporting. Now first of all, his fidelity at the trial. We're reading John chapter eighteen, and perhaps you'd like to turn back to the story again, and notice we have Peter and John together. Now during the life of the Lord Jesus, Peter and John were very often together.
After the Lord Jesus died and was raised from the dead, we find them again very often together. It seems as though there was a special something that existed between these two men, and so they are found together in this story. But although they were together, there was something that wasn't quite togetherness between them. In the first place, we find these two men following. In that they were one, but they were not following together.
Take a look at John chapter twenty and verse three and verse four, will you? This is the same expression here. Peter therefore went forth and that other disciple and came to the sepulcher, so they ran both together and that other disciple and, oh, they ran both together and the other disciple did outrun Peter. So they were together, but they were not together. And it was the same in following the Lord Jesus. In a sense, they were together. In another sense, they were not together. Do you remember how Peter followed the Lord Jesus? Of course you do.
We read in Matthew, and we read in Mark, and we read in Luke. that Peter followed afar off. You know, Peter wept some very bitter tears about that a little later on. But he was the disciple who followed. But he followed afar off. Go back again to our chapter eighteen, will you? And notice the expression here, verse fifteen. And Simon Peter followed Jesus and So did.
Now notice those two words are in italics, will you? Let me read it this way. And Simon Peter followed Jesus and another disciple. Now they followed, but they did not follow together. Because while Peter followed afar off, John was very close. In fact, we find this one when all the other disciples fled from the Lord Jesus at the time of the cross, that he with the women was at the foot of the cross. We're going to come to that in a moment or two. This man was true to the Lord Jesus at the trial.
You will notice that while Peter is standing outside the high priest's palace, John is on the inside. Now in view of what had happened to Peter, I think that Peter was probably rather relieved that he was not permitted to come inside. But you'll recall that in our first study we saw how that John, being devoted to his religion, was known to the high priest and he had no problem getting into the high priest's palace. And eventually, realizing that Peter had come to the door but was outside, John goes, picks to the girl who keeps the door and brings Peter in.
Now notice the words of this girl to Peter. The damsel says, verse seventeen, Art not thou also one of this man's disciples? In other words, there's somebody else here who's one of his disciples. Who do you think she had in mind? The one who would just come to her and said, Let this man in, for he's one of Jesus' disciples, along with me. Now Peter responded by saying, I am not. But I believe that John had already revealed the fact that he was a disciple of the Lord Jesus, and that's why the damsel said, Art thou not also, that is as well as him, one of his disciples.
And Peter says, I am not. John was true to the Lord Jesus at his trial. These two had not followed together. They didn't follow together. One was near, the other was afar off. They didn't enter the high priest's palace together. One stopped at the door, I think rather willingly. The other one unhesitatingly went into the high priest's palace. They didn't stand together. When Peter got in, he stood with those that had rejected the Lord Jesus, warming himself up their fire.
John wasn't there. John was elsewhere. And I believe he was as close as he could get to the person of the Lord Jesus. So these two men who spent so much time together didn't follow together. They didn't enter together and they didn't stand together. While Peter chose to stand with those who had turned their backs upon the Lord Jesus, John wanted to be close to his master. You know, we could digress a little here, but there isn't time. You read about Peter and that experience, and you'll find that he walked with those that had rejected the Lord Jesus.
You will find that he stood with those that had rejected the Lord Jesus, and you will find that he sat with those that had rejected the Lord Jesus. Do you remember what we read in the Psalms? Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor siteth in the seat of the scornful. I believe that this was one of the things again that Peter wept about at a later date. So John, I believe, showed fidelity at the trial of the Lord Jesus. Now think about his steadfastness beside the cross.
John chapter nineteen is where we read about it. First the trial and now the tree. When Peter sat down, this to which I made reference a moment or two ago, it says very significantly that Peter sat down to see the end. Doesn't that sound significant? John had chosen a place of closer, but was closer and nearer to the Lord Jesus. And now when eventually the Christ of God is led out with two malefactors and I sometimes try to imagine that scene.
I don't know whether you ever sit down. I'm sure that you do, because you love the Lord Jesus, and you sang so feelingly. I didn't think, didn't feel I could lead that hymn, and you sang it so beautifully. All make me understand it. Help me to take it in, what it meant to be the Holy One, to bear away my sin. I sometimes picture Calvary, and I I think I can see the soldiers struggling with one of those thieves and flinging him down upon the cross and kneeling across his arms and driving the spikes through his hands and through his feet amid his screams and his writhings of agony. And the same thing with the other thieves.
He thinks the soldiers must have been very, very surprised when they did not have to fling the Christ of God to the ground. They must have been astounded when he spread himself across the cross, spread out his arms, and allowed them to drive the nails through those hands. I'm sure that the tears of agony started to his eyes. I'm sure that he bit his lip with the pain and the anguish, but not a cry escaped him. That must have spoken to the centurion, who eventually was going to say truly this. was the Son of God. But you know, most of the disciples had turned tail and run away, afraid for their own skin.
But when the Lord Jesus is hanging on the cross, there are several faithful women standing at the foot of the cross, and just one man with them. Now John could have excused himself. He could have said there are only women here, and he could have left the scene. After all, there was a wife, but no husband. There was a mother and no father. There was an aunt and no uncle. There was a follower, several of them, but they were all women, not a single man, but John.
But in spite of that, he stayed right there. He could have excused himself. but instead he chose not to spare himself. That's the reason why the Spirit of God, God calls him, the disciples standing by. Why should he know ease he was standing? Why should he even sit and know ease while his master was suffering? And standing there, as it were almost on tiptoe. Was he not ready to fly to do the master's bidding should some word of command leave those dying lips? And after all, was not his standing at the foot of the cross an identification with the one who was suffering such agony and such anguish there?
I believe so. I feel that the one who showed fidelity at the trial is now manifesting steadfastness at the cross. There were some who walked to and fro, and the Bible speaks about them. There were those who sat, and the Bible speaks about them. But John was the disciple standing and standing by. If the Word of God exhorts us all to be steadfast, there was never a time when John needed more to be steadfast than at this moment. And I don't believe there was ever a time when his steadfastness meant as much to the Lord Jesus as it meant during these moments.
He manifests that by committing his mother to John. And here again you see the stability of John, the one who had shown nothing. this fidelity of the trial, and who had shown such steadfastness at the cross, now is willing to lay his whole future on the line. So the third thing is the dedication of his future from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. Now, actually, he didn't do that, because he was there more than an hour after this. And so, but the thought was, the thing is, of course, that it was already in this man's heart.
And as far as God was concerned from that very hour, that disciple took her to his own home. John knew as his mind was made up, as the moment the Lord Jesus spoke to him, he knew that this woman was going to need comfort. What mother wouldn't need comfort? Who had seen the darling of her heart, nailed, impaled upon a gibbet, made an object of scorn and derision, his heart torn asunder. John knew that she was going to have a desperately deep spiritual need, and he was going to call for sacrifice on his part to meet it, but he was ready to do it.
He knew not only that she would need comfort because she had given up this son and she had watched him die in this horrible way, but he knew that she would need care. Not only was she going to have spiritual need, she was going to have material need. It's from this point on he was going to have to make it possible for this woman to be fed. and to be clothed and to be housed and to be materially ministered to. And in order to bring that about, he was going to take her into his own home. He was going to spend time comforting her and caring for her because he knew she would have another need, not only for comfort and for care, but also for company.
And so he was willing to devote his time and spend it at her side. This was the dedication of his future. This was the job the Lord Jesus had given him to do, and he was going to do it to the best of his ability, God helping him, and he was going to devote whatever was necessary of his future to doing the job properly. So from that hour, that disciple took her. unto his own home. He was just as stable in this instance as he had been at a trial and in standing there beside the tree.
Now let's go to the chapter from which our phrase for tonight comes, and this just emphasizes this man's stability under duress. This is the story of the resurrection, of course. But my, what dreadful moments there are in the story. I see four things at least. There is, first of all, the darkness of the day. The first day of the week, cometh Mary Magdalene early when it was yet dark. Other people were sleeping. Even Peter and John at this moment may well have been sleeping. But Mary Magdalene cannot sleep.
She comes down to the grave and to her horror she sees a gaping hole and the stone is rolled away. She immediately runs to find Peter and John and she tells them they have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher and we don't know where they have put his body. It was dark very early in the morning. But how much darker that day seemed because the tomb was open and empty. After the darkness of the day comes the dread of the circumstances, who do you think is going to be blamed for rolling back the stone?
Who do you think is going to be blamed for removing the body? Had not the stone been sealed with a Roman seal? Of course, the Christians are the ones who are going to get the blame, and only God knows what persecution is going to come down upon them. This is the thought that sees his Mary's heart. This is the thought that gets the heart of Peter and that lays hold upon the heart of John. There's no doubt about it. The day was dark and the circumstances were dread. The feel is broken. The stone is rolled back. The tomb is open and it is empty. After the darkness of the day and the dread of the circumstances comes the discovery of the menfolk.
John, being younger than Peter, outruns Peter, comes panting to the tomb, but he doesn't go in. Peter eventually arrives there and doesn't think a second thought about it. He plunges into the tomb, and then John follows, and their worst fears are confirmed by one glance, the body is not there. But, you know, what they discover is very striking. They discover the grave clothes. that had been bound around the body of the Lord Jesus from the throat down and the napkin that had been about his head. Now when it says it was folded in a place by itself, I don't believe the Lord Jesus took that napkin and folded it up and placed it in some other part of the tomb.
I believe that the reason why it was in a place by itself, which means it was separated from the other clothing, was this. When the Lord Jesus rose and came out of that clothing, it just collapsed right where it was. and because his head had been bound with the napkin and his body from the throat down with the rest of the grave clothes they simply collapsed where they were. And so after the discovery of the menfolk comes the decision of John. He says there is only one way that my master could have left that clothing like that and that was to have risen from the dead and slipped out of it. And it says he believed from that moment of seeing and he saw it says and believed so once again this man's stability comes to the fore he doesn't say that about peter now although the lord jesus had told them that he was going to go away, he was going to rise from the dead, they had been so overwhelmed by what had taken place, their hearts had been broken by what they had witnessed, their master had been snatched violently from their side, and they haven't gotten over the shock.
And the verse that follows, the one I just made reference to, this verse nine, indicates that John and Peter didn't yet appreciate the scripture, that the utterance of the Lord Jesus, he would rise from the dead. John has just believed the evidence before his eyes, and he says there's only one way it could happen. Jesus is risen from the dead, he saw and believed. I suppose the word of the Lord Jesus was to come back to him to reinforce that belief very, very shortly. But you can see that once again, as of the trial and of the tree, so in the tomb this same dependability rises to the surface, and John says in his heart, and says, with wonder and triumph, he is risen.
Now he hadn't heard the word of the angel. He had not yet seen the resurrected Christ, but his faith has laid hold of the fact. Jesus has overcome death. He saw and believed. But Lord Jesus said, Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. Good to God that we were as stable as John proved to be. At the trial that was a very, very severe testing. At the tree that was an even more severe testing.
and with a heart as overwhelmed as his, possibly the tomb. And what had happened there was absolutely crushing. But John rose above it all. Now we've called this his stability under duress or pressure. Do you know what the problem with us Christians is? We so often submit to pressure instead of exerting it. We talk about the pressure of time, and we talk about the pressure of circumstances. We talk about the pressure of this and the pressure of that, I can't go this way, I can't do this thing, because I'm too pressed.
Do you know what the Apostle Paul said? He said, forgetting the things which are behind and reaching forth under the things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Do you know what pressure does to the cork on the water? It passes it up. It sends it up to the surface. It's pressure that does that. The cork rides on the top of the wave. Now we are not meant to be crushed by pressure. We are not meant to be pushed down by the pressure that he's brought to bear upon our lives. It's God's intention that we should be pushed up.
And when we're pushed up, we're pushed a little closer to him. It may well be at this very... In fact, I know it's true. There are hearts around us that are under severe pressure at this time. There are those around us living among us whose hearts are breaking at this time. It's very wonderful to hear them say. I think of Mr. Lend here on the phone as I've talked to him each time I've talked to him. He has said, What the Lord has in mind, I don't know.
But it has to be for the best. Though he slay me, yet will I trust him? God is looking for stable Christians. God is looking for dependable Christians. Even when the storm gets rough and the wind gets high and the burden gets heavy, it is still true. Jesus says, I will never, never let go your hand. And the scripture promises us, as thy days, so shall thy strength be. God help us to trust him and to be true to him.
Shall we pray? Our Heavenly Father, we know how important it is in a world that is so vacillating, that the Christians stand unmoved. We know how vital it is in a world that is groping in darkness, that the Christian manifest the fact that he has the light of life. And, O Lord, we recognize that our own lives tonight are challenged as concerning the things that so often threatened to destroy our peace, and so to spoil our testimony, grant that we may not fail, but that we may be true in the real sense of that word, to reverse, to thy word and to thy people.
We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Thank you.