Now to John chapter 11. Our text begins and it says,
Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus of Bethany, the town
of Mary and her sister Martha. This was the Mary which anointed
the Lord with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair, whose
brother Lazarus was sick. And it said, Therefore his sister
sent unto him, saying, Lord, Behold, he whom thou lovest is
sick. What a petition. What a petition. Usually the greatest need is
expressed in the shortest petition. We just saw one, God be merciful
to me a sinner. That's all it said. We saw the
thief on the cross. He said, Lord, remember me when
thou comest into thy kingdom. short to the point. And here
we have, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. By saying,
Lord, they had confessed that they were in submission to Him
as their Lord, and they His servants. By saying, behold, they expressed
their need for Him to look upon them and see their need, and
they based their petition on the best thing they could have.
He whom thou lovest is sick. And verse 4 says, And when Jesus
heard that, He said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the
glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. Now believer, when a trial comes,
just know this, it's for this reason. It's for this reason. It's for the glory of God that
the Son of God might be glorified thereby. That's what the trial
is for. And anything that brings us to
behold God's glory and to praise Him for His glory, it's also
for our good. And that's what He says, shows
us next. It's for our good. He says, verse 5, Now Jesus loved
Martha and her sister and Lazarus. He loved them. He loved them. When he had heard, therefore,
that he was sick, right away he rushed to the place where
they were. Right away he just spoke the word and made Lazarus
whole. No. Because he loved them, he abode
two days still in the same place where he was. That's not how we would expect
somebody to show love to us, is it? You send somebody word
that you're in a dire need and it's urgent and you need them
there now, and they wait two days to come. That's what Christ
did. I want to preach this morning
on Christ's love in waiting. Christ's love in waiting. This is why He waits. When we
enter a trial, we send our petition to God and through Christ our
mediator, just like they send a mediator to Christ. We send our petition through
Christ our mediator to God. And God's going to send word
to us again through Christ our mediator. It's going to be Christ
that comes to us, just like it's Christ that goes to God for us.
But why is it sometimes the Lord, you put your petition up to God
and you ask the Lord to help you and it seems like He does
not help. It seems like it goes on forever.
You are in the trial and He does not come to your aid. And sometimes
it gets to the point we even feel like all communion with
Christ has been cut off. And we don't have communion with
Him. And we don't have any strength in ourselves anymore. Here's
what it's about. Our Lord's delays are not denials. Brother Bob Coffey gave me that
the other day that somebody said. And ever since he told me that,
it's been two or three weeks ago, I've been working on this
message. God's delays are not denials. He waits because He loves His
elect. He waits that He might be glorified
and that He might work good for His child. This is always the
case, brethren. Now, I want to show you four
reasons our Lord reveals here in this passage why He waits. These are four things the Lord
teaches us in trial. Number one, He's teaching us
to lay down our lives just like He laid down His life for us.
Number two, He's teaching us to believe His Word. And number
three, He's teaching us to behold His glory. And number four, I'll
wait to the end to show you. First of all, by waiting, the
Lord teaches us to deny ourselves for His sake, to lay down our
lives for His sake, to take up the cross of suffering for His
sake. like He laid down His life and
suffered for our sake. That's what He's teaching us
in the trial, verse 7. Then after that, saith He to
His disciples, Let us go again into Judea. And His disciples
said unto a 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 any 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's no
light in him. What does all that mean? Lazarus and Mary and Martha
were in Bethany, which was near Jerusalem. That's where they
were. And that whole area was called
Judea. That's where they were headed.
And that's where the self-righteous Pharisees were. That's where
the Jews were that hated Christ the most. That's where they were. And they had lately sought to
stone Christ. That's why they said, are you
going to go there again? They just tried to kill you.
That's the place that they rejected the giver of the law. And they
rejected the fulfiller of the law. And they rejected Christ
who is the righteousness of the law for Moses and the law and
their own law keeping. That's why they hated Christ.
Because He said, I came to fulfill the law. Now understand, Christ
is God the Son. And He's all-knowing. He knows
everything that He's about to do. That's why He said, this
is not unto death. It's for the glory of God that
the Son of God might be glorified thereby. He knew what everything
was about to transpire. He knew it. And He knew He was
about to raise Lazarus from the dead. He knew that when He did,
His Father would use it to bring many to believe on His name.
He knew that. And He knew this would be the
last straw for those Jews that hated Him. This would be it. This would be the last straw.
This would be when they decided they were going to crucify Him.
Look there at the end at verse 46. Some of them went their ways
to the Pharisees and told them what things Jesus had done. And
then they all gathered together in a council and they said, What
are we going to do? Verse 48, If we let him thus
alone, all men will believe on him. And the Romans shall come
and take away both our place and our nation. One of them named
Caiaphas being the high priest that year said unto them, You
know nothing at all nor consider that it's expedient for us that
one man should die for the people and that the whole nation perish
not. Now he did not mean to preach the gospel of substitution. That's
not what this man meant to do. He was saying politically it's
better for us if we crucify this man and get him out of the way
so that we can spare this nation and keep our little playhouse
intact. That's what he was saying. But this is one of those cases
where the Lord put the word into the heart of a Christ-hating
rebel just like he did Balaam so that he actually preached
the gospel of substitution. That's what the next word says,
and this spake he not of himself. God put this word in his heart.
But being the high priest that year, he prophesied just like
Balaam did. God can use a self-righteous
religious man to declare His truth. He put that spirit in
him. He prophesied that Jesus should
die for that nation and not for that nation only, but that also
He should gather together in one the children of God that
were scattered abroad. And then from that day forth
they took counsel together for to put Him to death. Now Christ
knew that. He knew that's what was going
to happen. But even though He knew this, even though He knew
going there and raising Lazarus, was going to cause these Jews
to turn their back on Him and gather together in one to crucify
Him, even though He knew this. He waited two days, so He made
sure there was plenty of the Jews that hated Him there when
He raised Lazarus. He was doing that on purpose.
He was laying down His life that He might give Lazarus life. And all of this is a picture
of what He did for His people on the cross. He laid down His
life. suffering for knowing what He
was going to suffer. He laid down His life for us
that He might give all His elect life. And that's what we see
Him doing here. He was speaking about doing God's
will in this saying, He said. He was talking about doing God's
will. Look what verse 9, Jesus answered, Are there not twelve
hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he
stumbleth not, because he sees the light of this world. That's
another way of saying, whosoever shall seek to save his life shall
lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve
it. That's another way of saying that. How so? Let me give it
to you in terms we can understand. Christ is saying, God sent me
to do His will. He sent me to finish the work
He gave me to do while it is day. Remember He said that before? While it's day. For His sake
I must deny myself, I must lay down my life to give my people
life. And I will not stumble because
I'm doing my Father's will so His light shall light my way.
That's what he's saying. I got to finish the work while
it's day. This is God's will. And as long as I'm doing God's
will, God's going to keep His light upon me and I'm not going
to stumble in the way. But if a man walk in the night,
he stumble up because there is no light in him. If a man go
against God's will, attempting to prolong his day or save his
own life, save himself from suffering, that man is going to stumble
and fall because there is no light in him. God is not blessing
whatever is going against His will. So, in this very first
thing, we see that his waiting was to teach us to deny ourself. Because He was denying Himself.
He was laying down His life. He was preparing to go to the
cross to suffer for His people. And so He's teaching us to lay
down our life. He's teaching us to take up the
cross of suffering and suffer for His sake. This is what He's
going to teach you in every trial. Let's take Chloe for an example.
Here we all have been praying to the Lord and the Lord could
have come like that and healed her right away. He could have. But by waiting, what's He making
us do? He's making us deny ourselves.
He's making us deny what we want to happen right now. He's making
us suffer. He's making us take up His cross. And He's doing that so that we'll
be reminded in the midst of that of how He laid down His life
for us. This is what He's causing His
people to remember all the time. He said, Whosoever shall save
his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake
and the Gospels, the same shall save it. Did He save us by losing
His life? Did He save us by losing His
life? Did He save us by denying Himself? Absolutely. He completed our redemption.
Scripture said He purged our sins completely. He obtained
eternal redemption for us. He perfected us forever, all
God's elect. Yes, yes. So seeing that our
eternal good came from Him denying Himself, we can be sure, brethren,
that in the trial we're in right now, when He waits and makes
us deny ourselves, it will be for our good. We can be sure
of that. And it seems like Thomas got
the lesson. I don't think Thomas is being
sarcastic here. I think Thomas got the lesson, at least for
a little while. He said in verse 16, let us also go that we may
die with Him. Paul, remember what Paul was
taught? He said, I want to know the fellowship of His sufferings.
that I might be made conformable unto His death. I want to suffer
with Him, Paul said, so that I can be molded to God's will
and submit to God's will. And that's what He's doing to
us in our suffering. Now secondly, by waiting The
Lord teaches us to believe His Word. He teaches us that He is
our resurrection and our life. That's what we're to believe.
This is the gospel. He's our resurrection. He's our
life. This is the Word of God that we're to believe. Now, His
apostles thought that He said Lazarus was asleep. But look
here in verse 14. Then said Jesus unto them, Lazarus
is dead. And I'm glad, now watch this,
for your sakes that I was not there. To the intent for this
purpose that you may believe. He waited to teach his apostles
to believe his word. That's what he was waiting for.
And then look here in verse 17. He teaches Martha and Mary the
same. In verse 17, then when Jesus came, He found that He
had lain in the grave four days already. Bethany was nine to
Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off, and many of the Jews had
come to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother.
See, He waited, so some of these are His elect, He's going to
save. But some of these are His enemies that are going to be
instrumental in His crucifixion. And so he waited until they all
came there. They're all at this place. And
it says, verse 20, Then Martha, as soon as she heard it, she
ran out to him. And look what she says in verse 21, If thou
hadst been here, my brother had not died. But listen to this
statement, But I know that even now whatsoever thou wilt ask
of God, God will give it thee. And Jesus said unto her, Thy
brother shall rise again, Martha said unto him, I know that he
shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto
her, I am. I am. When she was saying, oh,
I know if you pray to God, God will give it to you. He said,
Martha, I am God. I am God. The resurrection and
the life. He that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. Believest thou this? You see,
when the Lord is increasing our faith, when He is bringing us
to believe on Christ more through the trial, the first thing He
is going to do in increasing our faith is to show us not to
trust our faith because we just don't have much. These things
Martha said was not faith. at first. But when he looked
her in the eye and said, I am God. I am the resurrection. I
am the life. Believest thou this? He that
believeth and believeth on me shall never die. Believest thou
this? When he said that word, he spoke that word into her heart,
affectually. And look at the result. Verse
27, She saith unto him, Yes, Lord, I believe that thou art
the Christ, the Son of God, which shall come into the world. See,
he accomplished his purpose in Martha now. She believes. In verse 28, and she sent word
to Mary. And then in verse 32, when Mary
was come where Jesus was, she saw him and she fell down at
his feet. What did she say? Same unbelief. Lord, if you had
been here, my brother had not died. And look at this, ìWhen
Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which
came with her, He groaned in the Spirit and was troubled.î
What made Him groan? Their unbelief. Their unbelief
made Him groan in the Spirit. And He said, ìWhere have you
laid Him?î And they said unto Him, ìLord, come and see.î And
Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how
He loved him. And some of them said, Could
not this man which opened the eyes of the blind have caused
that even this man should not have died? They think all hope
is lost, see. They think that He could do that
beforehand, but He can't do it now. Verse 38, Jesus therefore again
groaning in Himself because of this statement of unbelief. And
I'll tell you something else He's groaning for and why He's
weeping. He knows what He's going to have
to pay to be able to do what He's about to do in raising Lazarus
and giving His elect faith. He knows what it's going to cost
Him at the cross. He's troubled. And so He comes
to the grave and it was a cave and a stone lay upon it and Jesus
said, take away the stone. And Martha said to Him, Master,
By this time, he stinks, for he's been dead four days. It
doesn't take long for our unbelief to come back, does it, in the
midst of a trial? The Lord just talked to her,
just spoke this word in her heart and brought her to confess, yes,
Lord, I believe. And she did. She believed He's
the Christ. But when you're in a trial, what
happens? Real quick, here comes unbelief
again. And here it is back. And Jesus
said to her, verse 40, said I not unto thee that if thou wouldst
believe, if you would believe, thou shouldst see the glory of
God. We ought to repeat this to ourselves as Christ speaking
to us in our trial. We ought to continually repeat
this word of Christ to us. Said I not, if thou wouldst believe,
thou shouldst see the glory of God. bring ourselves to just
believe on Him, trust Him. Keep repeating that to yourself.
Verse 41, ìThen they took away the stone from the place where
the dead was laid, and Jesus lifted up His eyes, and He said,
ìFather, 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.î Christ
was waiting here And he said everything he said here. He preached
the gospel there in these little things he said. And he did that
so that he could bring those to believe his word that were
standing around. This was some of his elect there,
along with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And he's going to bring
these Jews that don't yet believe, he's going to bring them to faith
in Christ. It's the gift of God by grace
apart from our works, lest any man should boast. Faith is the
gift of God. It's apart from our works so
that we don't have any room to boast. But listen to this, brethren. So is the maintaining of our
faith. It's the gift of God. It's by
God's grace apart from our works so that we don't have room to
boast in our faith being strong. We glory in God only. God promised
Isaac. I want you to think about this.
Illustrations in the Scripture help us. God promised Isaac that
he was going to have children more than the stars in the sky
and the sand of the sea. He was going to make him a great
nation. And Isaac marries Rebekah and
he finds out Rebekah is barren. So, Isaac and Rebekah wait. And in the meantime, Ishmael,
the son that God cast out, Ishmael had twelve sons that were princes,
that grew up to be princes. And Isaac and Rebekah are waiting. They waited twenty years. Scripture says he was 40 when
they married and he was 60 when Isaac was conceived. They waited
20 years and then God resurrected life in her womb. In her dead
womb, He put life in her. You see, God's delays are not
God's denials. God's delays are not God's denials. God was teaching Isaac and Rebekah
to believe God's Word. That He alone is able to give
life. That He is the life. That He
is the resurrection. That He alone is so. And that's
what Christ is teaching us in the trial, brethren. He's teaching
us by waiting. He's teaching us to believe His
Word. He's the only one that can give
life. He does it in regeneration. He does it continually as we
go through this life. He does it when our bodies die,
it won't have any effect on our spirit. Our spirit will go be
with Christ immediately, just like He said. Thou that believest
when you die, you won't die, you'll live. You'll be with Him
immediately. And then He'll come and He'll
raise our dead bodies from the grave, just like He's going to
do Lazarus. See, He's the life and He says this in His Word.
He's teaching me and you to wait and He's going to show you He's
the life. He's going to bring our strength
to nothing so He can show us He is the life. And then thirdly,
by waiting the Lord makes us behold His glory. And that's,
in this case, it's His power to raise the dead to life. That's
His glory. Look here in verse 40. Jesus
said unto her, said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest believe
thou shouldst see the glory of God? See there the emphasis now
is on the glory of God. He told Martha, if you believe
you're going to see the glory of God. Just wait, you're going
to see the glory of God. Verse 43, and when he thus had
spoken he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth. And he that
was dead came forth. A dead man came out of the grave,
bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face still bound
with the napkin. And Jesus said, Loose him and
let him go. What does the Scripture tell us? As the Father raiseth
up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom
He will. He quickens whom He will, brethren.
Christ is our life in every way. Regeneration continually throughout
the life of faith. He is the one who strengthens
us day by day. He is the one who quickens the
inner man and renews the inner man day by day throughout the
life of faith. He is the one who is going to
make us cross that river Jordan called death when we get there.
He is the one who is going to bring us across. He's the one
that one day is going to unite our buried body. It's going to be in the ground
a lot longer than four days. And make it perfectly glorified
like His glorified body and one with our spirit. And I was talking
to Will about this going home the other night. I don't know
what heaven is going to be like exactly, but according to Scripture,
it's going to be like the world we live in now. Except there
won't be any sin. There won't be any disappointment.
There won't be any sorrow. It's not going to be floating
around on clouds. It's going to be us in a world
where we function and do the things we do here, except perfectly. And when we come to worship,
we're not going to be hearing a man preach. We're going to
be hearing our Redeemer. Won't that be good? When we sit
down to eat together, He says, you're going to sit at My table
in My kingdom and I'm going to serve you. That will be a first Sunday to
remember, won't it? That will be a first Sunday that
lasts forever. He is the life, brethren. He is the life. Over
in 2 Corinthians 4, we saw this. Paul talked about how we always
bear about in the body the dying of the Lord. He is saying we
are always persecuted and go through these different trials
so that we faint, we die. Our outer man, our fleshly man
becomes weak. You know how we become in a trial.
We're always praying about the dying of the Lord Jesus. But
he says, it's so that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest
in our body. He said again, we which live
are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake that the life
also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. What's he
talking about? this dying in our flesh and this
life of Christ being manifest. What's he talking about? He said,
though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed
day by day. Christ is the life who quickens
our inner man. Just like He's the one who gave
us life in regeneration. I thought the Holy Spirit did
that. It says Christ does it too. Christ and the Spirit and
the Father are one. When you talk about one, you
talk about the other. Just like He gave us life in regeneration,
brethren, He continues to give us life in the inward man so
that our faith is sustained and we don't perish. But at the same
time, He's subduing our fleshly man. And so to teach this, brethren,
He waits. And what happens? What we see
this morning? Pride. And our old man becomes
alive and becomes strong and becomes, you know, we start figuring
out ways to get out of the trial and we start second-guessing
the Lord and we start thinking, well, what if I had done this
or maybe I should do that? And we start thinking all these
things in our unbelief. And then the Lord comes and He
strengthens your inner man and He puts that old man down And
He makes you so strong in faith, in Him, in the inner man, that
you cannot mistake the fact that the Lord alone did it. And that's
why He does it that way. And that's what brought Paul
to say, I glory in persecution now, and I rejoice in these things
because by the power of Christ now, I'm taught that when I'm
weakest, That's when I'm the strongest because Christ is all
my strength. He's all my strength. With Lazarus,
the Lord waited until it was obvious Lazarus was dead. We were talking Friday night.
I've seen this. I've seen the Lord whittle a
church down to over half of what it was before where it looked
almost dead. And then the Lord quickened the
members in that church. And the Lord did more with less than He would have done with
all that great number. And He did it in such a way that
everybody involved were brought to say, the Lord did this, we
didn't do this. And that's what they saw. They
saw this was the Lord that did this. He'd been in the grave
four days. You think about how long you
were in the grave of sin. Think about how long when you
were in rebellion and sin and death and didn't know Christ.
And Christ was able to come to where you are, bring His gospel
and speak life into you. And He's able at any point, the
trial's not beyond Him. We just sang the song, the one
that ruled the seas when He walked this earth, He's still ruling
the sea. He rules the trial. He sends it. And he walks on
it. And he puts it down when it's
time to be put down. When he's worked what he's going
to work in his child. But he waits so you know he did it. He did it. Isn't that great when
he does that? Don't you rejoice when you see
his glory? The children of Israel were looking
to Egypt instead of waiting on the Lord. Remember that we looked
at in Isaiah 30 when we went to Isaiah? The Lord told them,
ìYour strength is to wait on Me.î And they didnít. They started looking at Egypt
and to the horses that Egypt had and they said, ìThis is where
weíre going to get strength from.î Thatís what we do. Thatís what
we do. We hear the Word of the Lord.
We hear the Gospel preached. Your strength is to stay under
the Gospel, wait on the Lord, and Heís going to work all this
in His time. And we get to thinking. We know a better way. You know
what the Lord did when they did that? Listen to this. Isaiah 30.18, And therefore,
because they wouldn't wait, therefore will the Lord wait, that He may
be gracious unto you. And therefore will He be exalted,
that He may have mercy upon you. For the Lord is a God of judgment. He knows what's best. Blessed
are all they that wait for Him. Since they wouldn't wait, He
waited. And when He waits, He doesn't
just do nothing. His waiting was, He said, I'm
going to bring you to be like a tree with all its branches
broken off. And that's what He did. And He did that so that
they would see it was His grace by which they were saved. And
so He was exalted, not them. That's what He's doing. That's
why He's waiting. Now here's the last thing. Here's
something you may not have considered. By waiting, the Lord not only
blesses you who are in the trial, but He also blesses your brethren
that are around you. He not only blesses you, He's
blessing your brethren around you too. Look here in verse 45. Then many of the Jews which came
to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on
Him. The Lord gave them faith. And
He used this miracle and He gave them faith. The others went away. They went away angry, went away
and told the Pharisees. He didn't give them faith. He
gave His elect faith. One time I was in a trial. And
I had a dear brother who was suffering in a trial just like
I was suffering in it. And the Lord used that brother
who was suffering and strengthened him and made me see how my brother
was enduring and persevering even in the midst of this trial.
And Christ used him and how He was quickening him to strengthen
me. To strengthen me. Bob Morrell. If you haven't met him, you're
going to meet him when he comes up to the Crawfish Bowl Memorial
Day weekend. The Lord blessed him and used
him in the midst of this trial to talk to me and the Lord strengthened
my heart. There's nothing, brethren, that
will strengthen the heart more and nothing strengthens my heart
more than when I see the Lord's little, helpless, His helpless
child, enduring great trial and great trouble, and yet I see
how that they're standing with Christ even against their dearest
loved ones. They didn't want it to come to
that. They didn't want it to come to that, but it came to
that. And they do so. And I know it's trouble. I know
it's a trial. I know it's affliction. I know
it hurts. But I also know this, brethren,
He says, ìEven the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young
men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings
as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall
walk and not faint.î Yes, in our flesh, weíre going to faint.
Weíre going to fall. But the Lord is going to renew
us. And He's not only going to renew you who are in the trial,
He'll use it to renew your brethren around you too. Now brethren,
these are four things. There's a lot more our Lord does
in trial, but these are four things I know the Lord does in
trial. Number one, He teaches me to deny myself, take up the
cross of suffering, lay down my life for His sake, just like
He laid down His life for me. Number two, He teaches me to
believe His Word. He's my life. He's the one that
quickens me. He's my resurrection. And number
three, He shows me His glory. How He alone is the power to
quicken from the dead. Brethren, that is Christ's love
in waiting. That's why He waits. I pray. I really do. I pray for you. Let's pray together. You have so many of Your people
who are suffering in trials and the trials You've sent. And now
we see why You're waiting to comfort some, why You're waiting
to work Your will. Lord, help us now as we wait. Help us to trust You. and to know all
these things are so. And to know that You really and
truly are going to work this for our good and show us Your
great, great glory. I don't know what else to say,
Lord. Make us cast all our care on
You. Lord, forgive us our unbelief and forgive us our faltering.
Forgive us our sin and our stumbling around. Lord, we trust You. Even when
we don't trust You, we trust You. Even when our flesh is ruling
us and we're in unbelief, we trust You, Lord. Forgive us our
unbelief. We ask this in Christ's name.
Amen. All right, brother.