We're going to continue in our
study of people in the Bible, particularly the New Testament,
that have had some serious problem. And we've looked at several in
the Scripture. We saw a man that had leprosy.
We saw a woman that had an issue of blood. We saw a man that was
deaf. and blind and many things, afflictions
that people have. And we have one that came on
a by appointment, on appointment to meet these people and there
to do his great power and to perform his great deed and that
was to heal them. Now, the Lord Jesus did not come
down here to this earth just to heal people, but he uses those
different activities to demonstrate unto us what he does for us spiritually. A man born blind, and we are
by nature blind to the blessings of God. We're blind to spiritual
things. And a man had leprosy, and we
find out that leprosy is such a picture of our state by nature. We're born sinners into this
world. And on and on it goes. Well,
today we want to talk about one of those places in scripture
where only God, could take care of it. Now, some people may say,
well, the doctors could have helped the man with the blindness,
and the doctors could have helped the man with the bad hearing,
and the doctors could help the man with the leprosy, and the
doctors could help the lady with the issue of blood. Well, we
find out doctors in that day and time couldn't do that, but
let's just say they could. Well, we're going to deal with
something today that no doctor can deal with. There was a man
by the name of Lazarus, and Lazarus was a good friend of the Lord
Jesus Christ. In fact, he said, he's your friend. And what a blessing. And it's
found in the 11th chapter of the book of John, John chapter
11. And we're going to read a few verses here in John and make
some comments about this great event that the Lord performed
when he was called on to deal with his friend Lazarus. Now, There are three wonderful
statements that are made about God. And number one, we find
that he is omnipotent. And that means he has all power. He's omnipotent. Now, some days
I wish I had a little power, but we talk about God, we find
he has all power. And we also find out that he's
omnipresent. He can be in all places at the
same time. Now that's different, that's
more than I can comprehend, but the Bible tells me about this
God, so I've been given grace to believe it. And we also find
out that this God is omniscient. He knows every thought and intent
of the heart. He is able to know all things
going on in all places of the world at the same time. We're
talking about a great God. He's not the God that we can
put in our pocket. He's not the God of human imagination,
but he's the God of the Bible. And he is great and marvelous. He is omnipotent, all-powerful.
In fact, one place in the book of Revelation, he said, we hear
his name, Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Now, if we hear the
word Lord, we should automatically think that he's omnipotent, but
the Lord favored us and said, he's the Lord God omnipotent. All of those mean the same thing,
but he emphasized it by saying it those many times. Well, there
was a certain man who was sick, and his name was Lazarus, and
he lived in a town called Bethany, and in that town he had two sisters. One was Mary and one was Martha.
So we have Lazarus, Mary and Martha, two sisters, a brother,
and it tells us that Lazarus was sick. It was that Mary which
anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair,
whose brother Lazarus was sick. So if we go to another place
in scripture, we already find that we have some knowledge about
this sister, this sister Mary. Now it tells us in verse three,
therefore, his sisters sent unto him saying, Lord, behold, he
whom thou lovest is sick. Now that's such an interesting
statement that was made, how they delivered that message,
maybe by a servant, maybe by note, but anyway, it brought
to his attention The sisters said, Lord, behold, he whom thou
lovest is sick. Now, it wasn't until I was studying
at this time that I realized that these ladies, these sisters,
with regard to their brother who is sick, and no doubt seriously
sick, these sisters did not write a letter of demand to the Lord. It was not an announcement of
demand. You have to come here quick.
We need you now. But it was, Lord, that your friend,
whom you love us, is sick. It's an informative statement
with no demands. And yet they mentioned in that
the word L-O-R-D. They understood that he could,
if he would, heal their brother. Now it's up to God, it's not
up to them. They were not making the demand.
They were only saying an announcement. Now we already know because he's
omniscient, he already knows. He already knows that Lazarus
is sick. He already knows that his sisters
are writing the note. But they follow through and they
make this announcement, they bring this information and the
Lord already knows about it. You know, the Bible tells us
that He has need, He has knowledge of what we have need of before
we ask. That's how great He is. He's
no small God that we're dealing with. He's God Almighty, Lord
God Almighty. Now, when Jesus heard this, the
sickness was not, He said, the sickness is not unto death. Well,
we're gonna find out in two days that Lazarus does die physically. And yet the Lord says, that this
is not a sickness that is unto death. He's already pronounced
the fact that he's going to deal with this subject. He's going
to deal with this sickness. In fact, he's going to deal with
this death. It is not unto death. It's not going to be that this
is the final for Lazarus. And it is for the glory of God
that the son of God might be glorified. Now, Jesus loved Martha
and her sister and Lazarus. The Lord was very careful to
point out those in that family that he loved. I love Lazarus. I love Mary. And I love Martha. Now there might've been other
people in there, but he had a special love. That's the thing about
God. He has special love for his people. And then it tells
us here, when he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two
days still in the same place where he was. Now, because he
was God, he could have healed Lazarus from a distance. He did
that at times. He could have left immediately.
He had done that before, but we find this time that he waits
two days. Now, the two days are going to
be that Lazarus gets so sick that he passes away. In fact,
Jesus tells his disciples that he's sick, and they said, oh,
he's sleeping. Well, that would be good. Then
he can maybe get over this, and he finally says, Lazarus is dead. So it's interesting that we find
out that the God of heaven, the God of earth, the God that's
omnipotent, the God that's omnipresent, the God that's omniscient, was
not in a hurry to get ahead in his business. Everything that
he does is by plan and by purpose. It tells us in the scripture
that he does all things after the counsel of his own will.
So it was he that decided, not his disciples and not Mary and
Martha, but it was he that decided to stay in Bethany two more days. And then it tells us his disciples
say unto him, Master, the Jews, he said, let's go to Judea. And
the disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews are late sought to stone
thee, and goest thou there again. If we back up a little bit, we'd
find that his life was threatened. But the scriptures tell us consistently,
his time was not yet come. So they were not going to take
his life. His time has not yet come. The disciples are concerned
about going back because they don't know all about the purposes
of God. And when the disciples heard
the Lord say he's asleep, he'll do well. How be it Jesus spake
and said, he is dead. All right, now what's Lord gonna
do? We find out, I'm glad for your sakes that I was not there
to the intent you may believe. Nevertheless, let us go unto
him. So the Lord Jesus, after two days of waiting, purposes
to go where Lazarus is. Well, by the time he gets there,
Lazarus has been dead four days. Took some time to travel. And
Lazarus is in a tomb. Now, you know, to most people,
this is an impossibility. We'll never see anything happen
here. Well, we're dealing with the
Lord God of heaven, the Lord God Almighty. And he has a purpose
to demonstrate. know that scriptures tell us
a number of times that we, by nature, are like those who are
dead in trespasses and sin. There's a part of us that's alive
and animated, and we can use it to have different choices. You know what? I had a choice
this morning to have one kind of oatmeal or another kind of
oatmeal. and I chose one kind of oatmeal. I have those choices,
but by nature, we don't have choices to make towards God. We're dead in trespasses and
sin, but we have somebody who was able to do that. So he leaves
and he heads for Lazarus's tomb. When Jesus came, he found that
he had lain in the grave four days already. Now Bethany was
nine to Jerusalem, about 15 furlongs, and many of the Jews came to
Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother. Then
Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and
met him, but Mary sat still in the house and said, Martha unto
Jesus, Lord, if thou has been here, my brother had not died.
But I know that even now whatsoever thou will ask of God, God will
give it to thee. Now, if you'd have come along,
he would not have died, but I know whatever you do is right. And then he said, thy brother
shall rise again. And she says, I know he'll rise
in the resurrection of that day. And he says, I am the resurrection
and the life. He that believeth on me, though
he were dead shall live. Shall he live? Whatsoever liveth
and believeth in me or whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall
never die. Believest thou this? Now we get
down here to the Lord comes to the town and comes to the tomb. And he said, where have you laid
him? Verse 34. Then said unto him, Lord, come
and see. Now the shortest verse in the
Bible is Jesus wept. Two words, verse 35, Jesus wept. And some feel that he wept because
Lazarus had died. Hmm, I don't know about that.
I think he was weeping more over the folks that were around there
that didn't know anything about what was going on. Jesus wept,
then saw 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 even this man that should not have died? They understood
that there was something about this man. He could, if he'd have
came, but they didn't understand that it was him who would raise
the dead. He said, take away the stone.
What'd that mean? Open up the grave. And the mother,
Martha, the sister said, please don't do that. In that climate
and those days, he's beyond help and beyond hope. By this time,
he stinketh. He'd been dead four days. that
Jesus is the one who deals with the impossibilities. He's the
one that raises his people from the dead. He's the one that has
the ability of healing the sick and the blind, and he has the
ability of raising the dead physically, and he did that. Three times
during his ministry, he raised someone that was dead. This is
one that's been dead the longest, but we don't qualify death or
dead. We don't say that one was deader
than that one. or the dead debtor and debtors, we find out death
means death. But Jesus Christ said, said I
not unto thee that if thou wouldest believe thou shouldest see the
glory of God. Then he took away the stone,
they took away the stone from the place where the dead laid
and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee
that thou hast heard me and I know that thou hearest me always.
But because of the people which stand by, I said, that they may
believe that thou hast sent me. And when he had thus spoken,
he cried with a loud voice, and he said three words in our English
language, Lazarus, come forth. He demonstrated all the power
that it took to create the heavens and the earth. In those three
words, Lazarus, come forth, nothing is stopped by his words. He was able to create the heavens
and the earth in six days. And the seventh day, he said,
he rested to demonstrate to us that we're not saved by our works,
but we're saved in Christ. He's our Sabbath, and we'll rest
from our work. Lazarus come forth. And it doesn't
say, well, it took him a week to get this job done, or it took
him an hour to get this job done. It says, and he that was dead
came forth bound hand and foot with grave clothes and his face
was bound about with a napkin and Jesus said unto him, loose
him and let him go. Now Lazarus could not consent
to his resurrection. He's a recipient of his resurrection. The Lord did not take into his
consideration at all. Lazarus was called on and came
out of the tomb, not on his own power, but by the power of God.
He is alive because Jesus Christ said, Lazarus come forth. Now,
he that was dead came forth. Then many of the Jews which came
to Mary and had seen these things which Jesus did believed on him. But some of them went their ways
to the Pharisees. Now, they're the religious people
and they have a report that Jesus had raised somebody from the
dead. And instead of saying, would you try to get us an audience
with that fellow, we'd like to talk to him. their only thing
that they could consider was how to put him to death. He's got too much power. Well, the Lord demonstrates that
he is the one who takes care of all of our spiritual sickness,
all of our spiritual deaths, all of our spiritual, we are
healthy spiritually because of Christ. He's the one that gives
us ears to hear, eyes to see, a mouth to speak to His glory,
gives us hands to serve Him, gives us feet to walk with Him. He's the one that does that,
and He raises us from the spiritual dead, and He doesn't ask us to
get involved in that. He raised Lazarus from the, Lazarus,
come forth. Well, I'm so thankful in the
spiritual way that one time the Lord came my way and said, Norm,
come forth. I give you spiritual life. And
that's what he did. And that's what he does. He gives
spiritual life to his people, and that life cannot be taken
away. It is called eternal life that is given to his people.
So difficult things he's dealt with, but the most difficult
was still just mundane to him. Raising the dead was as easy
as for Jesus Christ as it was to create the heavens and the
earth. This is a declaration that he is omnipotent, he's omnipresent,
and he's omniscient. And he takes care of his business
as he alone can do. He raises the spiritual dead. Well, we'll ask Mike to come
again and lead us in