A couple weeks ago, Tony preached
a message here on love and how Christ is love. And in chewing
on that for the next week or so in preparation for this, I
couldn't get my mind off of it. But something I kept going to
and I kept thinking about was how poor, or pathetic, or whatever
the right term is, my love is. How we use that word a lot, and
I say how I love people, and how weak it is, and I don't really
understand the word, and I spend a lot of time looking in the
scriptures and thinking about that. Well, in what we're going
to do today, in the story of Lazarus, I did something that
Martha did in here, and I focused so much on my inabilities and
my love and ours as a group, I was gonna kind of use that
and compare it to the Lord's love. Well, I can quickly summarize
everything I found out looking at what the Lord tells us about
our love. He tells us to love our family,
love our neighbors, love our enemies. He tells us not to love
the things of this world. And it quickly all came summarized
into a real quick statement that says, He told us to stop loving
ourselves and the things that we have and look to Him. So in
doing that, in coming up dry over and over again, I thought,
let's go to a place where it says in John chapter 11, Verse
36, it says, Then said the Jews, Behold, how he loved him. That's how Christ, the Lord Jesus
Christ, loved Lazarus. So let's look at this story,
and His love for His children. And what I want to focus on here,
and I'm going to go through this story, is verse 3 says, the message
from Mary and Martha says, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is
sick. Let's look at what the Lord does
for those he loves. Okay, look at verse one here.
Now a certain man was sick named Lazarus of Bethany, the town
of Mary and her sister Martha. And it was that Mary which anointed
the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose
brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore his sisters sent unto
him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. Lazarus lived just outside of
Jerusalem in Bethany. It's just a couple miles outside
of there. And it tells us who Mary and Martha are, especially
Mary because there's numerous Marys. This is the Mary who we
will see in the next chapter of John who broke that box, the
ointment, and put it on the Lord's feet and washed his feet with
her hair. They say they send a message, Mary and Martha send
a message to the Lord saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest
is sick. This message is very important
because they knew that the Lord was the only one who could help. They didn't plead their merit.
They didn't tell Him what He needed to do. They didn't tell
Him what He could do. All they did was they pleaded
to His love. They pleaded to His goodness,
His love for one of His children in Lazarus. So let's see what
the Lord does for someone He loves. Verse 4. When Jesus heard
it, He said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory
of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. The Lord
knew Lazarus would die, and He also knew that He would raise
him from the dead. The Lord works in mysterious ways, and it's
always for His glory and our good. the Lord could have healed
Lazarus. He didn't even have to go. He
could have gotten the message and just said, okay, and then
Lazarus would have been healed. Well, most people, if anyone,
would not have given the Lord the glory for that. They would
have been like, wow, Lazarus came back. That's awesome. That's
great. That's all they would have said.
They would not have even thought, just like we don't think so often
when something happens and it goes good after that. We don't
think, I'm glad the Lord did that for me. No, we think, man,
I'm really glad that I chose the right way to help myself
out. The Lord does these things in
specific ways to get the most glory so that we see it. An example
of this is the Red Sea. The Lord was leading all those
people out of Egypt. He was going to deliver them
to safety. He didn't just go around a corner with them and
all of a sudden realize, what are we gonna do now? And then
open the sea. He took them to the place where
they had no hope. Then he opened the sea so they
would know the Lord was taking care of them. God is glorified
when the Son is glorified. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
glorified when His divine power here is manifested and then men
acknowledge it and they see who He is. So look at verse 5. Now
Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. When he had heard,
therefore, that he was sick, he abode two days still in the
same place where he was. This seems to be contradictory. If it says, the Lord loved not
just Lazarus, but Martha and Mary, and then it says, so he
stayed where he was for two days. I try to put this in perspective
of myself, of if I knew there was one person who could help
me, and I called upon that person and said, I need your help. What
would I think if that person said, well, give me a couple
of days, okay? I would think they don't care about me. I would
think their love, I was not an object of their love. But we
know that the Lord loved them, but he just didn't go right away.
This is important for us because we cannot judge the love of the
Lord to us and His care for us by the outward circumstances.
We can't look around and judge whether or not He loves us or
not or how much based on what's happening. These trials are for
our good just like they were for theirs. They prove and strengthen
faith and to glorify our God and they accomplish His eternal
purpose. Okay, look at verse seven. Then after, that saith he to
his disciples, let us go into Judea again. His disciples say
unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee, and
goest thou thither again? The disciples here are trying
to protect the Lord. The last time they were in Jerusalem
or in that area, the Jews tried to stone the Lord. So their natural
reaction was the same as mine. Lord, are you sure? Like they
were trying to kill you. I don't think we should go back
there. What they didn't know was that He was going to Calvary,
that He was going to Jerusalem, that on this trip to see Lazarus,
that was His last trip. He was going to Jerusalem and
He was going to save their souls there. Now look at verse 9 and
10. 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 the world. But if a man walk in the night,
he stumbleth, because there is no light in him. A couple pages
back, John writes, I must work, or the Lord says, I must work
the works of him that sent me while it is day. The night cometh
when no man can work. These two verses are simply telling
us that the Lord has a certain time. His time was already pre-written. He was gonna come on a certain
day, He was gonna die on a certain day, and He would accomplish
His entire purpose in that time period. That these men were trying
to help Him. He was saying, my days are numbered,
and no matter how hard you try, you can't lengthen them, and
how hard they try, they can't shorten them. My days are numbered. All right, look at verse 11.
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 his sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord,
if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death,
but they thought that he had spoken of taking a rest and sleep.
The Lord uses the word sleep to describe Lazarus as being
dead. The disciples, they just don't
understand it. They're just like us. They're
taking this literally, and they just don't see the big picture.
But they're hopeful for Lazarus. When the Lord says he's sleeping,
they're like, oh, that's great. If he gets some rest, he can
get better. And I don't know if they meant it this way. But
the way this really happens, the Lord says, I'm gonna go wake
up Lazarus from sleep. And the disciples immediately
say, no, but sleep is good. Like they object him immediately
after objecting him the time before. This is as if they know
better what Lazarus needs. This is a great little illustration
to us of how we, how man, find so much comfort in our sleep,
in ourselves, in what we can do, when all we really need is
just to be awakened by the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse 14. Then said Jesus unto them plainly,
Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes that I was not
there, to the intent ye may believe. Nevertheless, let us go unto
him. Lazarus is dead, and it's good
for everyone involved. there is another statement that
I'm sure those disciples couldn't figure out. We keep seeing how
the Lord loves these people, and then he just said, no, no,
no, Lazarus is dead, and it's really good for all of us that
he's dead. Again, it just doesn't show. So the Lord says, if I
had been there, you would have seen a miracle of healing, which
they'd all seen plenty of times. But now you will see the miracle
of the resurrection from the dead, that ye may believe that
I am the Son of God, the true Messiah. Okay, look at verse
16. Then said Thomas, which is called
Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, let us also go that we may die
with him. This is Thomas who's given the
nickname Doubting Thomas. Thomas was sure that if they
went, the Jews would kill him, which he's right, they would.
But again, we just don't realize the project of the Lord, the
prospect, how it goes in a certain way. We just don't see it. So
Thomas, in a bit of gloom, it kind of feels as if he says this
like, well, if the Lord's gonna go die, let's just go with him.
He doesn't see the providence of the Lord in it. So look at
verse 17. Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in
the grave four days already. Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem,
about 15 furlongs off, about two miles, and many of the Jews
came to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother.
Our Lord waited to come to Lazarus until he'd been dead four days,
until the body had already started decaying and decomposing. He
did this on purpose. There would be no way to doubt
that Lazarus was actually dead. This would not be a trick of
any kind. As I heard one man once say, Lazarus at this point
was dead dead. And there were many Jews who
had come these two miles to be with Martha and with Mary to
mourn. It was tradition. These Jews were all about tradition.
The religious Pharisees, if they could appear to be doing something
good, they would do it. So depending on how great the
man was, everyone would mourn. So if you were kind of a nobody,
they might show up and say, hi, we're sorry. But apparently Lazarus
was someone who had their respect. So they had been there for days
mourning with him. All right, look at verse 20. Then Martha,
as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him.
But Mary sat still in the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus,
Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But
I know that even now whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will
give thee. Martha, being the first to hear
about the Lord, she left immediately and came to him. And she expressed
her belief that had the Lord been there, Lazarus would not
have died. Undoubtedly, Martha and Mary
had spent all those days while Lazarus was alive when they sent
to the Lord, sitting around thinking, if the Lord just comes, he's
going to be okay. They had hope. Can you imagine
if you had someone you cared about that was deathly ill? and
you knew of someone that could heal them? Would you be doing
anything other than spending every moment thinking, please
come, please come, please come? That's all you'd be doing. Well,
we do have someone who can do that. And Mary and Martha were
doing that. But then when she saw the Lord
and Lazarus was dead, she went ahead and said those things.
She believed. But then she changed her prayer
and said, I know that even now whatsoever thou will ask of God,
God will give thee. Martha here did not openly ask
the Lord to raise her brother from the dead. But I think it's
very obvious that's what she was implying. She came to him
and said, if you would have been here, he would not have died.
But then she says, even now, I know if I ask something of
you, you'll give it to me. I think Martha actually shows
wisdom here to leave it in the Lord's hand. She says, I know
you can do it. And then leave it in the Lord's
hand. In verse 23, Jesus saith unto her, thy brother shall rise
again. And Martha saith unto him, I
know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last
day. The Lord answers Martha's prayer. Martha says, I know that
even now, whatsoever thou will ask of God, God will give it
to you. She's basically asking him if he will, will he raise
him from the dead? The Lord responds to her, your brother will rise
again. He just said yes to her prayer,
but she didn't realize it. We do this so often. We ask of the Lord to answer
a prayer. We pray to him, we ask him things.
He answers our prayer, but because it's not what we are looking
for, or it's not what we would expect, we think in ourselves,
he just didn't answer my prayer, when actually he is answering
our prayers. Martha knew and believed that
the dead would rise from the graves on the last day. She knew
the scriptures. And as all of God's people do,
she found comfort in this. She was not upset that the answer
to her question was that Lazarus will die or will resurrect in
the end. But he was saying something different. Look at verse 25.
Jesus said unto her, I am 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? The Lord
replies to Martha's comment about he will rise in the resurrection
at the end of the day. He says, I am the resurrection
and the life. He says, I'm the source, the
cause, and the fountain of eternal life. Because He is God, because
He lives, because He is our surety, our righteousness, our redemption,
that's how we live. Because in the Lord Jesus Christ
dwells all the full, blessed life of God, then we are complete
in Him. Because He lives, we live. We can no more die and perish
than he can. If someone believes and is in
Christ, though his body's in the grave, he is not dead, he
lives, for he is one with Christ. Now, the Lord, what he does here
to Martha, He does not rebuke her for what she says, but he
says to her, he says, take your thoughts from the doctrine. Take
your thoughts away from what you know and what you've read.
Take your thoughts away from Lazarus. Take your thoughts away
from yourself. Take them away from the doctrines
of salvation and resurrection. The only way you can understand
that is you need to see them in the light of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The doctrine of salvation, resurrection, eternal life are
only understood in the light of knowing the person and the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look in verse 27 there. She saith
unto him, Martha said, Yea, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ,
the Son of God, which should come into the world. Martha believed
him. She really did. Keep going in
verse 28. And when she had said so, she went her way and called
Mary her sister secretly. saying, The Master is come and
calleth for thee. As soon as she heard that, she
arose quickly and came unto him. Now Jesus was not yet come into
the town, the place where Martha met him. The Jews then which
were with her in the house and comforted her. When they saw
Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, they followed her,
saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there. The Lord sent
Martha back to tell Mary to come, and it says secretly. So she
went to Mary and either whispered or pulled her away and told her
to go see the Lord and where He was. But all of the Jews saw
her leaving, and I don't know if this was normal or they were
just being nosy, but she went and they thought, well she's
going to the grave, let's go too. So look at verse 32. Then when
Mary was come where Jesus was and saw Him, She fell down at
his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother
had not died. She said the same thing Martha
did, which makes us know that the two of them spent a lot of
time knowing that if the Lord had been there, he would have
been fine. But what did Mary do when she saw him? She fell
at his feet, weeping. Mary's faith, love, and devotion
to Christ are very obvious to us all three times we see her
with him in the scripture. We see her the first time when
the Lord came into their house and Martha was cooking and doing
everything for all the people and Mary sat at his feet. And
Martha complained and the Lord said, you leave Mary alone. She's
doing what she should be doing. Then the second time we see her
is when she took that box of ointment and she poured it out
on him and washed his feet with her hair. And the third time
we see her crying at his feet. May we all take something from
this. Every time we see Mary near the
Lord, she falls down on His feet. She spends all of her time at
the Lord's feet, listening to Him and taking in whatever He'll
say. Verse 33, When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews
also weeping, which came with her, He groaned in the Spirit
and was troubled, and said, That said unto him, they said
unto him, Lord, come and see. Mary said her line and that's
all she could say. She was stricken with grief and
she just wept. And the Jews were also weeping.
Now we don't know if the Jews are actually weeping in sympathy,
if they see how heartbroken Mary is and they're crying with her.
But what we know of them, we also have to consider that they
are hypocritically crying, or they're pretending. They're putting
on a show, trying to make it look as if they care. But the
Lord here, in a minute we will see his We see how the Lord has a real
soul subject to passions though it doesn't have sin. And our
Lord knew where Lazarus was when He asked where did they lay Him.
Some of the writers think He did a lot of these things leading
up to this so that they wouldn't be able to say that He already
knew what was going on and He had a little trick up His sleeve.
So look at verse 35, Jesus wept. There are a great deal of opinions
why the Lord was weeping here. Some say that it was the thought
of Lazarus whom he loved. Some say the grief of Mary and
Martha. Some say that he was crying at
the unbelief of the multitude who followed him. Some say it
was the lack of faith upon all of his friends that were with
him. But whatever the reason was it does get a reaction from
the Jews that tells us a lot. Verse 36, 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? Jesus therefore again,
groaning in himself, cometh to the grave. It was a cave and
a stone lay upon it. The Jews did not understand what
was going on, but they were correct in their sentiment that the Lord
did love Lazarus. Some of them then questioned
the character and the claims of Christ. What they said here
is what we would have thought. We would think, could not this
man, which has done all these healings and healed all these
people, if he loved this man so much, why didn't he save him? It's the same thing the disciples
thought. They didn't know why they were gonna wait two days
before they went. It's similar to what all those same Pharisees
would be saying days later when the Lord was on the cross. He
saved others, he cannot save himself. These men were always
looking for ways to discredit and doubt the Lord Jesus Christ.
He groaned in himself, the Lord groaned in himself, very possibly
over the wickedness and malice from their souls. Verse 39, Jesus
said, take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that
was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh, for
he hath been dead four days. A couple things here. First,
the Lord said to the people with him, take away the stone. The Lord is getting ready to
raise a man from the dead. He could have moved the stone.
But like so many other parts of this, the Lord does not have
any of the theatrics with it. He could have easily just moved
the stone away with His hand, but would not have all the people
around been thinking, how did He do that? And looked at that
as opposed to what He's getting ready to do? And we look at poor
Martha here. And I said, when I started that,
I was looking at all these things about our love, and I couldn't
focus on the Lord with His love. Martha here, poor Martha, who
showed great faith just moments before, she says, when the Lord
says, take the stone away, she says, but Lord, He's been dead
four days. He's going to smell. This is
awful. Please don't make us go through this. This is her worst
nightmare. She's thinking that the Lord
wants to go see Lazarus. And she's thinking, I don't want
to see my brother like this. I don't want this. Verse 40, Jesus said unto her, Said I not
unto you, that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldst see the
glory of God? The Lord reminds her of what
He has already said to her. In verse 4 He says, The sickness
is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of
God might be glorified thereby. In verse 23, Jesus said unto
Martha, Thy brother shall rise again. Verse 25, Jesus said unto
her, I am 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. The performance of
this miracle did not depend on Martha's faith. He says in verse
40, if thou wouldst believe, thou should see the glory of
God. He's not saying this as if Lazarus won't be risen unless
you believe. What he's saying here is to trust
in him, believe in him. She would see the greater glory
of God revealed in Christ if she would just wait for it. Verse
41, Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead
was laid, and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, 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. The Lord Jesus
Christ and God are one. Him saying here, Father, I thank
thee that thou hast heard me, is completely rhetorical for
everyone around. He knows that the Lord and God
here, they're the same person. Everything that they think or
say is together. But he's saying all this because
he needs everyone to know who he is and who God is, that they
might believe that this man was sent 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,
bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was bound about
with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose
him, and let him go. It is always the voice of Christ
our Lord that brings forth the dead. It is his word, it's his
power, which give life to those who are spiritually dead and
physically dead. God was in Christ, we see the
verses before, was in Christ reconciling the world to himself
at Calvary. God was in Christ having mercy
on the helpless. And God was in Christ giving
life to the dead. Now, if we think back on verse
36, where the Jews said, behold, how he loved him. I'm going to
close. reading something from some of
the old writers. John Gill wrote a really long
summary of why this is such a great statement, of how we should truly
behold how he loved him. And I've worded it so that we
can get it real well. So here we go. Christ's love
to all his people, even when they are dead in trespasses and
sins, is wonderful. It is amazing indeed. If it is
to be considered who He is, the Eternal Son of God, who is God
over all, blessed forever, the Creator of all things, the King
of kings, the Lord of lords, then consider us the object of
His love, not only creatures, but sinful creatures, exceedingly
mean and wretched, the most worthless things of this world. bankrupts,
beggars, comparable to a dead animal body. We have nothing
on the outside and nothing on the inside that is worthy of
His love and nothing that could attract His love to us. But every
part of us is disgusting and worthy of hatred as we live this
life at war with God as children of wrath. and then consider how
wonderful are the things that he has done for those he loves.
Before time, he marries us, becomes our surety. He engages in a covenant
with his father for us. He agrees to everything required,
taking care of us, supplying the blessing, the promise, the
grace, and the glory for each one that he loves. Then in time,
he became a man, He assumed our nature. He fulfilled the law
for us that we could not fulfill. He died in our place. He bore
our sins. He paid our debts, all while
giving us His blessing that we may have peace, that we may be
pardoned, that we may be righteous and eternally redeemed through
Him. Then he is now in heaven, preparing
a place for those he loves to be our intercessor, to be our
advocate there, supplying our wants, frequently visiting us,
indulging us with communion with him. He is preserving us, keeping
us safe to his kingdom and glory until the day comes that He will
introduce us, those He loves, presenting us to His Father with
exceeding joy. And then finally consider the
nature of His love, that His love should be everlasting. It
was before we were born. It is a love of quiet pleasure
and delight in us. It's a love that is free. It
is unmerited, without any reason or motive on our part. It is
distinguished that us, not others, should be the object of His love. And it will continue, His love
will continue unchangeably the exact same, pure and perfect
toward us, even with our constant sin and our provocations against
Him. Wherefore, it might be justly
said of all people, behold, how the Lord Jesus Christ loves his
children. Okay.