Let's go back to John 11 and talk to you about the death and
resurrection of Lazarus. This miracle isn't set forth
in any of the other gospel narratives. Matthew doesn't record it, neither
does Mark. and neither does Luke. It was
left by the Spirit of God to give these words to John, who
wrote this, of this miracle. And it's the more, more space
is devoted to this miracle than any of our Lord's other miracles. And in John chapter 11. We see both our Lord's deity
and his humanity. And we know he had to be God.
He had to be God to satisfy God. He had to be God to satisfy justice. He had to be God to be without
sin, to be sinless, to be the suitable substitute for poor
sinners like ourselves. But he had to be not only God,
but he had to be man. He had to be the man in Christ
Jesus. He had to be made flesh and He had to be made like unto
the seed of Abraham, those for whom he came to save. He had
to be both God and man in order to be our all-sufficient substitute
and Savior from our sinfulness. And in this miracle here in John
chapter 11, we see his deity. Who can raise the dead but Christ? who can give life to someone
who's dead, but God, but one who is life himself. You see,
he not only gives life, he's not only the author of life,
he is life. You're not going to have physical
life unless he gives it to you. And you surely won't have any
spiritual life unless he gives it to you. And you're not going
to have any eternal life unless he gives that to you. That's
a knowledge of God. And you're not going to have
any everlasting life unless he gives that to you. He's God.
He is life in and of himself. He wasn't given life. You were
given life. I was given life, but he is life. He's God. And in this chapter,
we see his deity. He raises a dead man. It's a public miracle. It wasn't hidden in a corner.
It wasn't done before just a few people. Everybody who was there,
gathered around the tomb of Lazarus. They witnessed the awesome power
and authority of Jesus of Nazareth, the power and authority he had
over death. And he still maintains that power
tonight. He is able to raise spiritually
dead sinners and give them life in himself. And that's what's
necessary. He who in just a few days from
this miracle would lay down his life for his sheep, he took that
life again. He said, I have the power to
lay it down. I have the power to take it again.
This commandment have I received of my father. He's God almighty. He has life in and of himself. And also in this miracle, we
see he's man. And he goes to the tomb of Lazarus
and he weeps. The shortest verse in the Bible,
Jesus wept. And it doesn't say the reason
that he wept. Several reasons I think we could
kind of come up with. The Spirit of God doesn't go
into detail to tell us why. Perhaps it's because of the faithlessness
of Mary and Martha. Perhaps it's because of the unbelief
of the people who were gathered around the tomb. One writer said perhaps he wept
because he knew he was going to call Lazarus back from glory. He's going to have to come back
to this body that would be raised, and it'd still be a mortal body
because his body of Lazarus is not going to be glorified, not
going to have a body like our Lord Jesus had when he was raised
from the dead. When he raised himself, he had
a glorified body. Never to die again. But Lazarus
would be called back to die all over again, a death, what, a
few years later? We don't know. Now, nothing's
told us about that. Maybe that's why he wept. I don't
know. But I do know this, as that perfect
man of sorrows, who was acquainted with grief, He shed tears at
the tomb of Lazarus. It's not a sin to weep at the
death of a loved one. That's not sinful. God made us
with emotions. God made us with feelings. But when a believer in the Lord
Jesus Saved by the sovereign grace of God, when a child of
God passes away, when they die, we sorrow, but we sorrow not
as others who have no hope. Those who have a blessed hope,
a good hope through grace, who based upon the word of God
have a glorious expectation of future joy, When they go into the presence
of the Lord and they leave our presence, we weep for them because
we shall miss them, but we don't weep for them because of where
they are. They're in the presence of Christ.
Paul said that's far better. So here in this miracle, we see
the sovereign son of God and the son of man. It wasn't unusual for our Lord
to spend time with this favored family in Bethany. Bethany, located
just a couple of miles from Jerusalem, here Mary, Martha, and Lazarus
lived. He loved spending time with them. He spends time with all of his
children. And he's never far away from
any of us. He said, well, how close is he
to me, Jim? As close as your breath. That ought to touch your heart
strings. That ought to bless you. He said, I'll never leave
you. I'll never forsake you. And though in his bodily presence
he wasn't with Mary and Martha, and with Lazarus when Lazarus
got sick, though his bodily presence wasn't with them, his spiritual
presence was. He was with them by his spirit. And the scripture says, this
man, Christ Jesus, he's touched with the feelings of our infirmities. I can't comprehend much of what
that says, what that means. But we have in glory our best
friend. Our best friend. A member of our family. the head
of our family, our elder brother, and somehow or other, when you
hurt, when you're in pain, when you sorrow, he in some measure feels it and
goes through it with you. That ought to help you. That
ought to help the people of God. We got several of our congregation
who are sick, people who are watching. Sick, have infirmities,
have afflictions physically, and you love the grace of God,
you love Christ. You see, He's your Redeemer.
He saved you by His grace. He appointed you unto salvation
from old eternity. He redeemed you by His substitutionary
sacrifice. He was raised again because of
your justification. He's gone to heaven to be your
intercessor. He has sent His Spirit. who has
wooed you and called you and sent you the gospel of grace
and he has saved you by his grace. He is ever near to you and he
watches over you with a very keen eye. He knew exactly the sorrow that
was beginning to fill the hearts of Mary and Martha. He knew of
their anxiety. He is a friend who sticks closer
than a brother. There's several things I wanna
show you, and I'm gonna be quite ambitious tonight. I'm gonna
try to preach through the whole chapter of John 11. We'll see
if I can do that. Give you several words. Number
one, sickness. This man, Lazarus, He was not
unto the Lord. The Lord knew him. Look at chapter
11, verse one. Now a certain man, he's not just
any man. He's a certain man. He's a certain
man. He's sick. His name is Lazarus. That means the Lord is my helper. That'd be a good name, wouldn't
it? I believe I'll just borrow that name for myself. You just
call me Lazarus. The Lord is my helper. All of
the Lord's children would just say, I named Lazarus. The Lord
is my helper. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, they
were believers saved by the free grace of God. The Lord Jesus came to bear their
sins in His own body on the tree, to redeem them by the shedding
of His blood to His death, to satisfy divine justice, that
God might be just and justify the ungodly. And yet these people,
in their family, in that tight-knit family, here's a man whose name
means the Lord is my helper. Here's a man who's sick. He had faith. He believed the Son of God, yet
he was sick. Here's a lesson we need to learn.
Lay it to heart and often remind ourselves of it. True faith in
the Son of God does not make you immune to sickness or disease. We get sick just like the ungodly
get sick. Some of the people of God, they
get cancer, struck down with cancer or heart disease or some
other kind of affliction. just like unbelievers do. The fact is this sickness, as
in all other things, this sickness was directly sent by God to Lazarus. You cannot be sick, child of
God, hear me, hear the word of God, the God who's sovereign
over all things. You could not be sick if it were
not the sovereign will of your father. And sickness in many ways is
good for us. Because it helps us to put things
in their right perspective, especially a serious sickness and illness. It's good to be reminded just
how frail we are. And that life is just a vapor. That's all it is. We're here
today, we'll be gone tomorrow. You see, sickness, it's beneficial
to the people of God because you and I both know it sends
us upon our faces before God. It drives us to our knees, as
it were, It takes our affections away
from the things of this world and gets us in a right frame
of mind. We see what's really important. We all know how easy it is to
get entangled with the things of this world. All of us do. I don't care who you are. And sickness has a way of bringing
us back to reality, to those things that are truly important. This man's sick. He's sick. And our Lord said this, he says
in verse four, when Jesus heard of it, of course he already knew,
he didn't have to hear. Mary and Martha sent messengers
to our Lord Jesus to tell him, he whom thou lovest is sick. I'll talk about that in just
a little bit. But our Lord Jesus already knew because Lazarus
could not have gotten sick apart from the sovereign will of the
Son of God. You see, either our Lord is sovereign
over every single thing, or He's sovereign over nothing. It's
gotta be one way or the other. He the rules over all the armies
of heaven and all the inhabitants of the earth, or He doesn't rule
over anybody. Now, which is it? Well, it's what the Bible says.
He does rule in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants
of the earth. So the first thing here is sickness.
Second word I want to give to you is the word confidence. Because you see, Mary and Martha,
they had confidence in Christ. He wasn't there. So they send
word to him, he whom thou lovest is sick. They didn't say come
and heal him, though that is kind of automatically implied. But they just wanted to make
sure he knew. And he did. And I'm telling you, some of
the people of God right now in deep waters, fiery trials, Our Lord Jesus knows exactly
where you are because he put you there. You wouldn't be there if he hadn't
put you there. Got a dear friend over in Honolulu,
just got out of the hospital, had blood clots in the lungs. I've talked to her a couple of
times, and she realizes, she recognizes the fact that the
Lord was sovereign in all. He's doing His will, and we can't
figure out every reason why God does things. That's His business. But I have said to her what I've
said to you on many occasions, if there were a better path for
you to be on, your all-wise, all-powerful Heavenly Father
would have you on a different path. And I don't know what situation
you find yourself in, But your situation is as much
under the sovereign authority of God as the situation of our
Lord Jesus Christ when the soldiers were spitting on him and when
they were crucifying him and when the wrath of God was falling
on him. All of that was according to
the will of God and whatever happens to you is according to
the will of God too. And you can find some peace there.
You see, there's our confidence. This is not an isolated case
of when Lazarus got sick and died. This is not an unusual
thing. God's people get sick and die,
thousands of them, no doubt, every single day. And families pray, Lord, heal
them. Lord, protect them. Lord, hedge
them about. And sometimes He does grant healing
mercies through the medical community or even supernaturally if He's
pleased to do it. But oftentimes, the Savior has
already prayed, Father, I will that those whom Thou hast given
me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory. When
he prays that for you, you're going. You're going. You may leave heavy-hearted people
behind, but you're going to be with him. And Mary and Martha,
and I know they had their faults, and they had their shortcomings,
and they were short of faith sometimes, but they had a confidence
in Him. They'd go into the right person. You go to your master. You go
to the great physician. Be like old Hezekiah. He just
laid his case out in front before the Lord. And like Eli say, it's
the Lord let him do what pleases him, what he sees fit to do. No one is so kind, so gracious,
and so caring as our Redeemer. He took our spiritual diseases
and he nailed them to the cross. And he can take away your physical
diseases if he's pleased to do it. And if he's pleased to leave
them with you, he'll give you grace to bear them. His grace
is sufficient for all of our needs. Third word I'm gonna give
you is love, love. Not the love of Mary, not the
love of Martha, Not the love of Lazarus for the Savior, but
his love for them. And Mary and Martha used their
words quite wisely when they said in verse three, Lord, behold,
look, see, he whom thou lovest is sick. He whom thou lovest. Ain't no use to talk about our
love for the Lord. Not worthy to be talked about.
But you can just talk from now all through eternity about his
love for us. Everlasting love. A love without
beginning, a love without end. Let me tell you something. He'd never gonna quit loving
you. Because His love is like Himself,
unchangeable. And His hatred is like Himself,
unchangeable. If you're one of His sheep, you've
been one of His sheep since He's been God, and that's forever. You was never a goat and then
changed into a sheep at your conversion. You just found sheep,
a found sheep, a beloved sheep, whom he called at precisely the
ordained, the preordained time. And he brought you in by sovereign
power and grace into the fold of salvation. And he loves you. He can't do anything that would
be in any way contrary to that love. When your children were young
and you had to discipline them, you didn't quit loving them then.
You disciplined because they are your children and you love
them. And the Lord has to chastise us from time to time. And that's
not to say that all sickness is chastisement. You don't know
that. See, Job's friends thought they
were so smart. They said, Job, all these things
are happening to you, terrible things. You must have done something
really bad. And we like to get up on the
on our throne and put on a black robe and be a judge of others. You're nobody's judge. I don't read that Lazarus did
something that was so horrible that the Lord afflicted him with
this whatever disease or sickness it was. The Lord loved him. but he sent
sickness. The Lord loved Lazarus, but he
sent death. The Lord loved Mary and Martha,
but he sent sorrow. And you know, Mary, Martha, and
Lazarus, they were all equally loved, though they were all different,
all three of them different. You see, the Lord has many lilies
in his garden, but they're all different in
and of themselves. But they all have much in common. They were chosen in the covenant
of grace. They were bought with a tremendous
price, the blood of the Son of God. They're robed with a very
special royal garment. The righteousness of the Son
of God called with a special holy calling and brought to faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. But we're all different. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus had
different temperaments. Martha evidently was kind of
pushy Mary was more timid, don't know
much about Lazarus. But they were equally loved by
our Lord. The next word I wanna give you
is the word providence. Learn this lesson, providence. You know, look at verse six. When the Lord heard, therefore,
that Lazarus was sick, He didn't rush back. He just stayed two days longer. Because two days longer would
mean that Lazarus would be dead to fulfill his purpose. Learn this, God's time is the
right time. Always is. God's time is the
right time. Now, His ways are mysterious.
And Romans 11 says, pass finding out. But His ways are the right ways
because He's He's bringing all things to the end that he himself
has ordained, and that's what providence is. And we'd be a much more contented
people, a much less anxious people. If God the Spirit would truly
teach us and flood our hearts with this blessed truth that
all things are of God, he's directing every single thing to the end
that he himself appointed before he made the world. And that's
everything in your life. Nothing excluded. I tell you, the providence of
God is a soft pillow upon which to lay your head and leave your worries far behind
you. I'd never known worries to change
anything anyhow. It's a waste of time, it's a
waste of effort, and it's not pleasing to God. So I'm going to bow to the will
of God. No, that's not bowing to the
will of God. You gotta rejoice in the will of God. Well, how
can I do that? By his grace. By his grace. Providence. When it comes to divine providence,
that means that everything that happens to us is well done. Done
in the best manner. done using the right instruments,
and done at the right time. It's like Moses, he was so impatient,
and we're that way. Moses was impatient when Miriam
was stricken with leprosy, and you know what he said in Numbers
12, 13? Heal her now, Lord! That's how we are. Heal her now. Learn to wait on the Lord. So
how am I going to learn that? The Holy Spirit has to be your
teacher. The fifth word I want to give
you is sleep. Our Lord said to his disciples
in verse 11, he said, our friend Lazarus sleepeth,
but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples,
Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. We're so carnally minded,
aren't we? So thick headed. He's talking
about spiritual things, we're hung up on carnal things, fleshly
things. And John says in verse 13, well,
the disciples said, verse 12, then said his disciples, Lord,
if he's asleep, he'll do well. Verse 13, how be it Jesus spake
of his death, but they thought he had spoken of taking of sleep,
of rest and sleep. And then Jesus said to them plainly,
sometimes he has to just be blunt with us, doesn't he? Lazarus
is dead. Lazarus is dead. And he said,
I'm glad for your sakes that I wasn't there to the intent
that you may believe. Nevertheless, let us go unto
him. You men are going to witness
something of the greatness of who I am. And you need to see, you need
to see what I'm able to do. And then when you see me raise
Lazarus from the dead, that will prepare you for another miracle
when I raise myself from the dead. In just a few days. What is death? It's the sleep
of the believer, of the believer's body. Lazarus' body went to sleep,
his soul went to paradise. And when our brothers and sisters
in the Lord fall asleep in Christ, the soul doesn't fall asleep. It just changes locations. It's
like the body's asleep. We take it out and we bury it. Pull the sod over like we're
pulling covers over a body. And there that body will sleep.
But just like the body of Lazarus was awakened by the voice of
Christ Jesus, our bodies that are gonna fall asleep, unless
the Lord comes back pretty soon, our bodies gonna fall asleep.
But one day, the same voice that raised up Lazarus' body is gonna
raise up our bodies. And a lot of folks we've known
through the years, people we've loved, kinfolks, husband, wife,
sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, moms, and dads, they've departed
from us, died in Jesus. And the Savior's voice is one
day gonna wake them all up. And the soul, the soul will be
united with the body. The perfected soul, you see,
is not gonna be joined to an imperfect body. It's gonna be
joined to a perfected, a glorified body forevermore. They're just sleeping because
you see, Christ said, I'm gonna raise, he said to Martha, I'm
the resurrection and the life. You forget who I am. I'm the resurrection and the
life. And then the next word I want to give you is resurrection. Another lesson we need to learn
from this chapter. The scene is set before us when
our Lord Jesus gets to the tomb of Lazarus and there's a great
crowd of people that are all crying. We've kind of been in that situation
before, right? Gathered around gathered in the cemetery around
the grave of a dearly departed loved one. The tears are flowing. That's the way it was at the
tomb of Lazarus. And our Lord Jesus, he went there
to glorify himself. And he told the people there,
he said, to roll the stone away. Martha said, oh, here's unbelief. You don't want to do that. Been
dead four days, my knife stinks. You see, death stinks. There's
a stench about death. And that's spiritual death and
physical death, too. There's a stench about us in
our spiritual death. And the only cure for spiritual
death is spiritual resurrection. That's what regeneration is.
That's what the new birth is. Here I am, a stinking spiritual
corpse. Had my fist in God's face all
my life, thinking my free will, that's the thing. There's the
power. And then I found out I didn't
have any power at all. I found out I was a corpse. And
all my righteousness was just filthy rags. And the Savior gave me life. And his blood, his blood cleansed
my conscience. And his garment of righteousness
robed me and his perfume of his own glory and goodness and holiness
makes me smell good to heaven. Because you see, his sacrifice
was a sweet, what's the scripture say? Sweet smelling savor to
God. And in that death of the Lord
Jesus Christ, lo and behold, I'm a sweet smelling savor to
God. Ain't that amazing? I don't stink
anymore. I've had a bath cleansed by the
blood of the son of God. Martha said, you don't want to
do that. Oh yeah, he wouldn't do that. And they rolled the stone away.
A lot of things you can't do, but you can roll some stones
away. You can't give life, but you can kind of take the obstacles
out of the way. And our Lord Jesus, he told me,
he said, you're going to see the glory of God now. He lifted up his eyes, verse
41. He said, Father, I thank thee
that thou hast heard me. I knew you heard me always. But
because of the people which stand by, I said it, that they may
believe that thou hast sent me. And when he had thus spoken,
he cried with a loud voice, three words, Lazarus, come forth. What do you think happened? He that was dead came forth. Suddenly he lived again. Listen, there's absolute power
in the word of God. Say the word of God, this is
the word of God. This is God's words. The one
who said, Lazarus come forth, he's God almighty. He said, Lazarus
come forth. And buddy, he came forth. This
was a personal call, it was a particular call, and it was a powerful call. Because when He calls, you coming. And that's the way it is in regeneration. When He calls, you come, you
have to come. Because with the call comes the
ability to come to Him. That's how powerful His word
is. And maybe somebody tonight hearing me preach, it may be
that he might speak to your heart and say, Lazarus, come forth.
I'm your helper, he said. I'm your helper. And I'm your
life. Come forth. You'll come forth
and you'll come to him. And you'll see in him the very
glory of God. He's God over all, blessed forever. Lazarus was raised. And the last
word I'm gonna give you is in that section that Brandon read
to us, 47 to 57, substitution. Here's an old high priest who
hated God, hated the gospel, hated Christ, like most Jews do. They did then,
they do now. And like most Gentiles do, too. I give equal blame to both sides. They didn't love him. Sanhedrin
got together and they said, man, what are we going to do? Look
at this miracle that this guy just did. And, of course, they
said he did it by the power of the Elzebeth. What are we going
to do about him? Caiaphas, he decided he'd preach
a little. And the Spirit of God led him
to say words he didn't even comprehend. You see, even a false prophet
sometimes can speak some truth. Balaam did. Didn't he? Balaam did. And old Caiaphas, he preached
substitution. It is necessary that one die
for the whole nation, that the whole nation Perish not. Amen, hallelujah. You're right. I'd have had to amen that, wouldn't
you, Alan? Amen, Caiaphas. What? It was necessary that one die
for his spiritual nation of Israel. One die. And the nation's not
gonna die. It can't be that the Savior would
die and the people for whom he died die also. Well, that'd be,
that's contrary to divine justice right there. So the chapter closes out with
that statement of substitution. Boy, it's such a rich chapter,
isn't it? I trust God has blessed you from
the word I've endeavored to glorify our Lord tonight from this wonderful
chapter. Let's turn to 77 in the songbook.
77, Son of My Soul.