Turn back to John chapter 11. This one verse, I want us to
look at a few things here, what this family learned going through
this. But this one verse, in verse
3, has been going through my mind for days, for days. After about the third day of
being sick, tossing up all I could toss up, I rolled over on the
bathroom floor and I just laid there. I just felt too weak to
get up. I just laid there. And this verse
came to me. I knew this would be hard for
you to preach from. But as I laid there, I thought of everyone else in
this congregation that's sick. I thought of the troubles and
the heartaches and the people who were sick. I thought of Barb. I thought of Bill. I thought
of Jim Cozzetta and Cecil. I laid there on that floor thinking
about you people. Sick as a dog. They just kept coming to me. They sent to the Lord, the sister
sent to the Lord, they said, Behold. That's an expression
of surprise. You know, when the Scripture
just means give attention to this. And they sent this servant, this
messenger, and said, Behold, he whom thou lovest is sent. Can you believe this? Can you
believe that this one whom the Lord loves, this one whom the
Lord visited, in whose home he stayed, is sick? Very sick. You see, it was just
surprised. It was like an element of surprise
that a child of God would be so sick, or that a child of God
would be under such trouble. Such heartache. Surely this is
a child of God. He has the power. And they let
him know it. Those two sisters let him know,
Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. He was there. He's omnipresent. He's omnipresent. They would
say, whether shall I flee from thy presence? If I take the wings
in the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth,
thou art there. And if I go to the grave, you're there. There
is nowhere you are not. This family needed this. Everything God gives us, we need.
This sickness was for their good. What I had was for my good. It's
for your good. We do not have anything accidentally. God makes us finally experience
what we say we believe. You see, we believe the gospel.
And then as life rolls on, we experience what we believe. And
they're going to experience some things here. They said a certain
man was sick. Lazarus, his name was Lazarus
of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. And look,
it was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped
his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. When
did that happen? Turn over to chapter 12. It just never hit me until I
read this week. Then Jesus, six days before the
Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, which had been dead,
and he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper,
and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the
table with him. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard,
very cautiously, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped
his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odor
of the ointment. That just added so much when
I read that this week, the worship and the love that she had and
had experienced from this situation. From chapter 11, her brother
being sick, her brother dying, and the Lord raising him from
the dead. And then he came back to their house. And when he came
back to their house, they worshipped him like they had never worshipped
him before. Lazarus sat at that table. and listened to him like
he had never listened to him before. And Mary, she poured
that oil over his head and she took her hair and wiped his feet
with them. She could have never done it
with the spirit and attitude she did it with if chapter 11
hadn't happened. We never really, really enter
into worship until we experience. until we experience what we believe. We do not worship God with five
doctrines. We do not worship God with five
points. We worship God in spirit and in truth. And we learn to
quit separating the doctrine from our Lord. I love election. I love the fact that God chose
us in Christ. But he says in Isaiah 42, Behold,
mine elect, in whom my soul is well pleased, my servants, behold
him. Election will never mean anything
to you but a cold, dry doctrine until you look upon the one and
behold the one in whom we were chosen. Until you see him and
you fall in love with him, and then you stand amazed that God
would choose me. That God would choose me before
the foundation of the world. He would love me before the foundation
of the world. That He gave me to His Son, and
His Son came into this life and became bone of our bones, flesh
of our flesh. Went to the cross, died under
the wrath of God, rose again for our justification. Delivered
for our offenses and rose again for our justification. I tell you, election means more
than just a doctrine. It is a union, a living union
with a real living person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then look
here what they learned. They said here, they said in
verse 3, Therefore his sister sent unto him, saying, Lord,
behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. And when Jesus heard that,
he said, This sickness, this sickness is not unto death, there's
a purpose in it. I may not be able to see the
purpose of God in being sick, but there is a purpose in it.
I tell you what, it matures us. It makes us grow up. It makes
us see how frail we are. It makes us see our need of the
great physician. It makes us run to Him. There's
a purpose in this. The Lord's saying to this servant,
you go tell them there's a purpose in this. This sickness is not
unto death. And whatever it is we have, whatever it is God sends
our way to his children, it's not unto death. It's not unto eternal death.
It's not to bring us into eternal death. There's a purpose in it. This sickness is not unto death.
It's for the glory of God. Listen, that the Son of God might
be glorified thereby. Whatever it is, I know this,
the glory of God and the glory of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ, is wrapped up in it. It is wrapped up in it. And we
can take some comfort in that. Take some real comfort in that. They also learn something here
of the divine sovereignty of the Lord. In verse 6, it says, When he
had heard, therefore, that he was sick, he abode two days still
in the same place where he was. He was not anxious, excited.
Oh, I'm glad you told me. Let's hurry up. Let's go. No, I've got to let this one
run its course. This sickness is going to run
its course. He said, now this sickness is
not unto death, but he's going to stay for two more days where
he's at, and he's going to let him die. He's going to let him
die. You see, our Lord is sovereign. He doesn't jump when we snap our fingers. He
proves his divine sovereignty in the way he answers our prayers. He answers them in His time.
He answers them in His way. He answers them in a way that
He gets the glory and you and I learn a lesson. And you and I learn a lesson.
Old Bill said concerning Job, he said, I pray that this trial
may endure to the end, that it may continue until the end. Until
he learns something. until he learned something. So
he stayed purposely for two more days in the same place, exercising
his divine authority, knowing the end from the beginning, knowing
exactly what he was going to do. They didn't know it, no more
than I know what the Lord's going to do today or tomorrow. But
we need to learn to trust Him who's doing it. We just trust him. It's under his sovereign control.
And then after two days, he says to his disciples, now let's go
to Jerusalem. Let's go up there to Bethany. And they, they, you
know, they just, it's evident the Lord didn't even say anything
to them for those two days about Lazarus, this sickness. He just
silent. He said, now let's go up there.
And they said, well, you've got to be kidding. They wanted to stone you. They
wanted to kill you. Don't you think we ought to stay
here? But then he told them, he said, our
friend Lazarus is asleep. And that's exactly what he was.
He was asleep. But as far as Martha and Mary
was concerned and the disciples, he was dead. He was truly dead
and buried But the Lord said he's asleep and I'm going to
go and I'm going to awake him. It's like your mother calling
you in the morning when it's time to get up. I can remember
mom hollering my name. It's time to get up. John, it's
time to get up. Lazarus, it's time to get up. And he did. He did. After he goes there, he said,
we're going to raise him. I'm going to wake him up. And
he said, I'm glad for your sakes that I was not there to stop
this. Because you're going to learn
something. Can you say, can I say that I'm
glad the Lord didn't stop me from being sick or stop me from
going through a certain trial? Now, going through it, we won
out of it. Believe me, I wanted to be well 10 minutes after I
started. I mean, that was enough. I thought
I learned enough. We learn quick. We think we do,
don't we? I can remember when Mom would give me a whipping
and I'd say, I won't do it no more, I won't do it no more.
I'd start saying that before she started whipping me. We got a whipping back then. But I did it again. I did it
again. Everybody, that's us, you know,
we're like ten minutes into it, we've learned all we need to
know. He said, I'm glad for your sakes I was not there to the
intent you may believe. Oh, that you believe God. That we
would believe the Lord Jesus Christ, we would rest in Him,
trust Him, and just kick our feet out and
go with providence. Go with the good providence of
God. It's going to land us on a safe shore. It's going to land
us in a good place. And then old Thomas, he said,
well, let us go with him. We may die also. Let's just all
go there and die. And then he gets there. And then
Martha, Martha goes out to meet him. And Martha, as soon as she
heard that Jesus was coming, and believe me, she had something
on her mind too. She had something on her mind
to talk to him about. This is the one who loved us.
This is the one who stayed in our home. This is my Lord. This
is my God. And she went out to meet him. Now Mary stayed still
at the house. Then said Martha to Jesus, Lord,
if you had been here, my brother had not died. She, no doubt, and Mary, they
believed him to be the Messiah. They believed him to be that
prophet. They said, whatsoever you ask of God, he will give
it to you now. But they had not yet clearly
seen that he's God. It's not whatsoever you ask God,
He'll give it to you. You are God. Lord, if you just
speak the word only, He will live. You don't just give life,
you are life. If thou hast been here, my brother
had not died. Well, where was he? You know where he was? on the
throne. He's never advocated the throne.
He's still on the throne. He's always been on the throne.
He's always been on the throne. He was in the bosom of the Father
the same time He walked on this earth. If He had not been here, is that
our problem? Is our problem when we get sick
or when something harsh happens, is it because the Lord was not
with us? Is it because He's not here? He said, I'll never leave
you nor forsake you. When you go through the fire,
I'll go with you. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
found that out. That old king looked at her and
said, I thought we threw three men in there. I see four. One
likened to the Son of God. If thou hath been here, my brother
had not died. Did Adam fall because of God's
absence? Did Adam fall in the garden because
God was not there? Off somewhere else? No, God allowed him to fall on
purpose. It's like he let Lazarus get sick and die on purpose.
It's for the glory of God. that the Son of God might be
glorified. She said, Whatsoever I know this,
I know that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will
give it to thee. Jesus said unto her, Thy brother
shall rise again. He's going to rise again? Now
listen, Martha said unto him, I know that he shall rise again
in the resurrection at the last days. She believed in the resurrection
of the dead, that there was going to be a great resurrection of
the dead, and her brother, along with a multitude of others, would
be raised from the dead. But that did not comfort her. I tell you what, doctrine by
itself brings no comfort. But boy, when it comes out from
Christ. When it flows out from Him, when we are able to drink
of Him, that's when you find comfort. You see, here's what she was
doing. She's looking through the wrong
end of the binoculars. You look through binoculars,
what's it do? It brings everything right up
close. Flip them around and look through
them. Look through the big end. It makes everything look way
out there. And that's about the way we view
the promises of God most of the time, way out there. Something
that we're going to enjoy and experience way out there. And not right now. And that's
why we need these trials and these sicknesses to enable us
to drink of the promises now. to appropriate Him to us now,
to drink of Him now, and not way out there. She said, I know
that He shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day,
and the Lord's going to teach her something. He's going to
teach us something. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection.
He hasn't even died yet. He hasn't even died yet. He hasn't
been buried yet. But He says to her, I am the
resurrection and the life." And what he's saying to her is this,
what your brother needs is me. I am what he needs. Christ is what we need. He's
everything I need now and for eternity. He's not a ticket to
get into the pearly gates. He is our life. He said, I am, I am, I am, great
I am, God Almighty, I am God, I am that I am, and I'm the resurrection
and the life. The life he needs is me. It's me. He that believes in
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. He's not saying,
yet shall he live again. He said he's alive. Yet shall
he live. Every one of those who've already passed on are
alive right now. Are alive as we are. More so,
they're without sin. They are in God's presence. They
are living. Living. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. There'll be many when the Lord
comes who shall never taste of death. They'll just be chained
in the twinkling of an eye. We saw that a couple of weeks
ago. Believest thou this? Do you believe
this? Lord, increase my faith. I don't
need my faith increased. I just need to exercise the one
he gave me. You know, we're always looking for an increase of faith
instead of exercising the one we've been given. Exercise what you have and more
will be given. Isn't that the teaching of Scripture?
If we exercise and use those things the Lord's given us, more
will be given. Be that half light, more light
will be given. And she said, Lord, I believe. Here's
what I believe. I don't know about all this,
but I believe this. Thou art the Christ, the anointed
Messiah, the Son of God, which hath come into the world. I believe
this. I believe it. After she had said
that, he said, you go get Mary. You go get Mary. He dealt with
Martha. Now he's going to deal with Mary. She goes there and she
says, the master. And she addressed him properly. The
Master has come and calleth for thee, asking for you, desiring your
presence." And boy, she heard that. You know, you think maybe
she might have been sitting at the house with an attitude? You
think? I don't know. I wasn't there,
but it kind of seemed like it might have been. Martha, when
she heard that Jesus was come, she took off and went out to
meet him. But Mary sat still in the house.
You ever get upset over things? Why'd you let this come on me?
Why'd I have to go through this? Well, maybe an attitude adjustment.
I don't know. But she sat still in the house.
Until the Lord called her. I kind of feel like she sat there
with an attitude. Because she said, she said, Lord, in verse 32,
if thou hast been here, my brother would not have died. She said
the same thing Martha said. Martha was kind of, kind of maybe
in your face kind of person. She's always busy, you know,
doing things. I think Mary was more of a quiet
person. She's more hurt over this. She's
more hurt that the Lord, who loved Lazarus, who loved
that family, let this happen. He let this happen. And I have
no doubt she was just bewildered. She was hurt. Her brother died. Whom the Lord loved. And she said, Lord, if you'd
been here, my brother wouldn't have died. And he saw her weeping, the Jews
weeping, and he came to her and he groaned in spirit and was
troubled. He troubled himself. He opened himself up to her.
And you know, he didn't scold her or Martha for their attitude. Were there unbelief? There's
a lot of times we could be scalded. The Lord could pick a day and
pick a sin and just wear me out. Pick a day, and every day there
is, has some unbelief in it, has some doubt in it. But He
didn't do it. He handled them so gently. He
handled them like a father handling a child, a gracious father handling
his child. And he troubled himself. And
he says, where have you laid him? And it says there, Jesus
wept. And you can just write out from
this. He felt everything he took away. I've never read that verse,
and I don't think of that. And they said, oh, how he loved
him. And some said, could this This man, couldn't he have stopped
this? Could he not stop this sickness? Could he not make us whole? Could he not remove the trial? Well, hell, he could. But what
would you know? What would you learn? I'll tell you what you learn.
You learn some doctrine and your heart is as hard as that floor. It's through these things that
we learn to really reach out and be troubled. Allow ourselves
to be troubled with others' troubles. It's through these things that
we learn to be sympathetic and not like a stone that we are
by nature. We have a high priest who can
be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. How's that?
Because he was tempted. He was tried in all points as
we are, yet without sin. Jesus, therefore, again groaning
in himself, coming to the grave. It was a cave and a stone lay
upon it. Jesus said, take ye away the stone. And Martha, the
sister of him that was dead, said to him, Lord, by this time
he's stinking. He's decaying. He's rotting.
You got that right. We stink a long time before we
ever hit the grave. A long time. We stink a lot of things up.
He's stinking. He's been dead for four days.
And Jesus said to her, said I not to thee that if thou wouldest
believe, trust me, Thou shouldest see the glory of God." Didn't
I tell you that? How much unbelief still remains
in us is sickening. Absolutely sickening. And they
took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid,
and Jesus lifted up His eyes, and He prayed, and He said, Father,
I thank Thee Thou hast heard me. I know You always hear me.
Our high priest is always heard. He's always heard. But because of the people which
stand by, I said it loudly, I said it openly, that they may believe
that thou hast sent me. I said it for their sakes. Everything
he did, he did for his people. Every word he spoke, he spoke
for his people. And when he had spoken, he cried
with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth, come forth. And he that was dead, the one
whom they mourned over, wept over, and felt in their heart
some thoughts toward Him, toward Christ, that they ought not have
fought. I'm sure you've had it. I've
had it. Going through some hard times, hard things, and you get
hard thoughts of God sometimes. You had to fight hard thoughts. And I'm sure that happened. But
when Lazarus came forth, I had no doubt later on they
were ashamed of their unbelief. Have you ever felt that way?
You feel like you're just not going to make it. It's just not
going to happen. You're just going to fall flat on your face. It's
going to be destroyed. Then all of a sudden the Lord
delivers you. And you think, why did I doubt Him? Why in the world
did I ever doubt? And then you do it again. You do it again. And many of the Jews which came
to Mary and had seen the things which Jesus did believed on him.
Now, was that worth all that? Knowing God by a real living relationship To know Him, to know the power,
also thy glory in my infirmities. Because the power of Christ rested
upon Him. He experienced that close, intimate relationship
with the Lord. Is that worth being sick over?
Is that worth losing some things over? Is that worth some heartaches? It's inestimable. You cannot
put a price on that. To know God, to know God in Christ
by experiencing, by experiencing that relationship, and not just
knowing some doctrine, not just learning five points, but to
know Him. Enoch walked with God. I bet Enoch had a lot of trouble.
I bet Enoch went through some hard trials. Because for a man,
for a sinner to walk with God, the dross is going to be burned
off. You're not going to have a close walk and the dross not
be burned off. Ye holy for I am holy. I bet
Enoch had some tough trials because Enoch walked with God. Behold! Whom thou lovest is sick. Drink of that the next time you're
sick. Drink of it.