Sudden Impact 4 Series

Sudden Impact part 4 in "I AM" Series

Thesis: The "I Am" proclamations of Jesus in John’s Gospel reveal that Jesus is the Messiah and that He is the same God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush in Exodus 3. His sudden impact statement 5 rocked the crowd when he raised Lazarus from the dead!

Texts: John 11

Key Verses: John 11:25

"Jesus said to her, ’I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies. . ."

Review: I AM the bread of life

I AM the light of the world

I AM the door (of the sheepfold)

I AM the Good Shepherd

Introduction:

Through our last teachings from the Gospel of John and Christ’s I AM statements we see that John’s structure is very plain. He is from beginning to the end consistently emphasizing that the readers are to believe on Christ because He is the great "I Am", He is the Messiah, He is the living Word manifested in the flesh.

The Gospel of John emphasizes the deity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. No other Gospel portrays more clearly His humanity, nor does any other assert so directly the prerogatives of deity (198, Tenney).

Illustration:

The Resurrection of the Dead

Avijah Powers felt moderately sure nobody would recognize him when he registered under an assumed name at the little inn. It was more than twenty years since he had left the town--a hard,

reckless boy, running away from a good father and a devoted mother because he hated goodness and loved lawlessness and his own way.

For years he had led the life of a vagabond. Then the spirit of adventure was aroused in him by the stories of the wealth of the Klondike. He joined one of the earliest parties, in that hazardous search for gold, and succeeded beyond his dreams. Now he had come back, with his old instincts, but with the wealth of a millionaire, and some strange compulsion led him to the village where he first drew breath.

He did not even know whether his parents were living or dead. It was altogether likely they were dead. With that conviction and without asking a question, he made his way in the August twilight to the graveyard, and to the spot where for three generations his ancestors had been laid.

Yes, there were new stones placed since he had been there. The sight moved him strangely. He bent to read the inscription on the first one. It was to the memory of his father, "Died, 1884. ’Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.’"

The date cut the man to the heart. His father had died a year after the only son had run away! And his mother had been left alone! But perhaps she had followed her husband mercifully soon. Again he bent to read, this time with tear-filled eyes, "Died, 1902. ’And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’"

His mother had been alone for eighteen years! She was but just dead -- in poverty, perhaps; certainly in loneliness. He drew himself up as if to shake off a hideous dream.

But the other stone - whose grave could that mark? They had no relatives except some distant cousins. Perhaps some one of them had done for his mother what he ought to have done in her long, desolate years. Again he stooped to read - his own name. "Abijah Powers. Born 1870; died--. ’The only son of his mother, and she was a widow.’"

It was his own gravestone, set up by his mother when her hope of his return was dead. Out of the depth of his memory there flashed up the story of the widow of Nain, and the gracious presence which spoke the word of life to her dead son. How many times his mother must have read and re-read the page, and how frequently she must have prayed that her boy, bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh, might be given back to her arms!

The thought was anguish to the graceless son, and it brought him to his knees beside his own empty grave. With his hand resting over his mother’s head he wept as he had not wept since he was a child. They were gracious drops. Out of the mother’s love, which had found its cold comfort in the words of scripture for the grave that was no grave, there came, indeed, the resurrection of the real, living soul.

The widow’s son went out of the graveyard that night a new man. The world wondered what had happened to him. Money did not often make a man over from a devil to a saint; but that miracle seemed to have been worked in Abijah Powers. Nobody knew that the transformation did not come from the touch of Klondike gold, but from the power of love -- reaching from beyond the vale, and speaking from the cold marble of a gravestone.