Let's take our Bibles now and
go to John 11. This is a very familiar story. One that I think most of us have
heard and heard preached on many times. Let me read through these
verses here so that you're familiar with what I'm going to teach
this morning. Now, a certain man was sick named
Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. 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. 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, 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. 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? 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 is no
light in him. 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 sleep. Then said his disciples,
Lord, if he sleep, he'll do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death,
but they thought that he had spoken of taking a rest and sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly,
Lazarus is dead. And I'm glad for your sakes that
I was not there to the intent that you may believe. Nevertheless,
let us go unto him. Then said Thomas, which is called
Didymus, unto the fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die
with him. Then when Jesus came, he found
that he had lain in the grave four days already. Now Bethany
was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off. 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. Then said Martha unto Jesus,
Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But
I know that even now whatsoever thou wouldst ask of God, God
will give it thee. Jesus said unto her, Thy brother
shall rise again. Martha said unto him, I know
that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
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? Now, no
doubt there was a lot of folks who lay sick We're told that
there was a great multitude at the Pool of Bethesda that were
carried out there and waited on the angel to trouble the waters.
There was many sick in that land. There was many blind, deaf. There was many there with leprosy,
all sorts of things. Just as there were in the days
of the ancient prophets, our Lord reminded them, you remember,
They said there were many lepers in the time of Elijah. Many lepers. God only healed
one, Naaman, the Gentile king. Well, there was lots of sick
folk, but this chapter begins by saying this, a certain man
was sick. You see that? A certain man. A certain man was sick. Now,
God is gracious. But let us never forget that
that grace is sovereign grace. That mercy is sovereign mercy. When he revealed himself to Moses,
he said, I am the Lord. He said, you tell them I am sent
you when you get down there. And he passed by and declared
himself to Moses. And here's how he revealed himself
to Moses. He said, I'll be gracious to
whom I will be gracious. And I'll be merciful to whom
I will be merciful. And whom I will, I'll harden.
I'm God. Is God gracious? He's altogether
gracious. Altogether gracious. He is grace.
Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. He is the personification
of grace, but that grace is sovereign grace. It's sovereign grace. And then notice too that his
sisters are recorded here. There was a certain man and he
had two sisters. And they, like Lazarus, were
believers called out of their religious ignorance. traditional
ideas. These were not ignorant folk.
These were believers. These were believers. This is
a place where our Lord resorted all the time. From my understanding
of Bethany, it was just a short distance outside of Jerusalem,
and it set up on the side of the mountain, and it kind of
was sheltered from the bad winds, from the northwest winds. And
it sat there, and its fruit, and the trees there in Bethany
just produced fruit. It was just one of these places
where everything grew well, wasn't real windy. It was just a nice
place to be. And he went there often and was
in their home, ate with them. You can read through the four
Gospels and you can find often where they're mentioned and he
mentioned being there with them. And these folks knew something
about the Lord. They did. They weren't ignorant.
These were believers. They knew who Jesus was and they
loved Him and trusted Him, found hope in Him. Verse 2 identifies
Mary as the woman who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped
His feet with her hair. And these all three loved Christ. And what's more important than
that? They knew in their heart that Christ loved them. And He
confirmed it. I read it to you a few moments
ago. It said, "...and the Lord loved." Lazarus, and Mary, and
Martha, all three. And they knew it. They knew it.
And I believe I can say with some confidence that these two
women had already done just about everything in their power to
help their brother. They didn't just run out to the
Lord. They wiped his head with a cold
cloth. They did whatever remedies were prescribed in that day.
They used all the means that were there. But now they realized
that this illness was out of their hands. I looked at this and thought
about this a long time. It's the thinking of most of
us, and we practice it. We do. You examine your own heart
and see if what I'm saying ain't something. We think we're in
control most of the time, don't we? We got our hands on the wheel. I told Russell yesterday, we
were discussing this very point, and I said, we're like the little...
I had one of these when my oldest daughter was just a baby. You
put them up in there and it had a little steering wheel. And
for a while, she thought she steered the truck. She'd turn
that thing, go down the road, just... She got a little older
and realized it wasn't hooked up. Well, that's what happens
when we fall into circumstances, trials, and things that get out
of our control. All of a sudden we realize it
ain't hooked up. We ain't in control. We just
thought we was. We just thought we was. We're all very happy to give
God the glory when we're healthy. But when the emergency comes,
something life-threatening, then we start to panic. Why do we
fear? Where does this fear come from?
Doctor comes in and runs those tests on you and shakes his head. All of a sudden, man, the color
just drains out. And you stand there and you look
at him and get serious, don't you? Where does that fear come
from? It comes because the idea that
we're in control is suddenly taken away. That's where the
fear comes from. It comes because we're too fond
of this world and its relationships. It comes because we're so full
of sin and unbelief. That's why it comes. We call
upon the Lord in the same degree that we sense our need of Him.
And that's a pitiful commentary on us We wait until we die and
then we call on Him. Or you might want to take this
view about this. And I agree with both of these.
We use earthly means, but these means do not keep us from calling
on the Heavenly Physician. I agree with that. I agree with
that. We use means. We use means. We call upon doctors. I'm not
among the faith healers who say, don't go to the doctor. That's
all unbelief. I'll go to the doctor. It's a
means made readily available to me. I'm going to go. You do
what you want to. But I'm still going to call on
him. I'm going to ask him to guide that doctor, give that
doctor some wisdom. These two believing sisters,
they called on the Lord. And there's a lot of instruction
here in this call. I want you to notice, first of
all, that they did call. They called on him. They didn't
just sit down and say, well, whatever will be, will be. That's
what you say when you're not sick. When you get sick, it's
a different story. You call on him then. Things
get serious, then you call on him. They called on him. And
they knew his love for them, and they told him so when they
called on him. And they knew something about his power and
authority and believed he could help and that he was willing
to help. And then secondly, I want you
to notice this. I was looking at this also. Their
call was short. The Bible has a lot to say about
long public prayers. And it's all bad. Every bit of
it. He says, when you come into the house of God like this, he
said, be more ready to hear than to speak. And he said, don't
speak with great swelling words to me. He said, you're on earth,
I'm in heaven. Think about who it is you're
praying to. We were talking about this going
over. Do you really feel it's necessary to describe everything
in detail to an omniscient God who knows the end from the beginning
and from ancient times and things that are not yet known? No, we
just go to Him in simple words. I'm sick. I need to be healed.
I need to be healed. I tell you, when the Lord got
me in trouble and sent conviction into my heart,
I remember the lack of words. I didn't have words. I just prayed
over and over, Lord, save me. Don't leave me to myself. Save
me. Not a lot of big words. Not a
lot of big words. You find a man in need. His son
dying. His wife lays sick with a fever.
He goes straight to the point. He pours out his heart. Has no
interest in long, flowery words. He just wants to get his petition
to the Lord. And then thirdly, they called
on him in confidence. You know, James in talking about
our approaching the Lord for wisdom, but it applies in anything
that we seek the Lord for. Over here he's talking about
wisdom in times of trial. You know, to deal with trials,
to deal with temptations, here's what he says. He says, Ask in
faith, nothing wavering. Isn't that what he said? For
he that wavereth is like the wave of the sea driven with the
wind and tossed. Let not that man think that he'll
receive anything from the Lord." Wavers. Wavers. He blows this
way and that way. And then fourthly, when they
called on Him, it was a sincere call. It was the cry of their
heart. And I find this to be so all through the Scriptures.
All spiritual business is conducted in the heart. That's where it's
at. It's in the heart. The Lord said this, He said,
Out of the heart the mouth speaketh. And then fifthly, it was a humble
call. You know, we want to remember
whose presence it is. You come into my house. You come
into my presence. And then look here in verse 4
of this chapter. The Lord gives His response to
the messengers. And in this response, there's
a strange mystery. There's just a shroud of mystery
about it. Actually, the more you hear those
around him, the more you begin to realize that none of them
really understood what he was saying. The messengers didn't
understand it. And when they left, the disciples
didn't understand it. And then when they got there,
the people that was around mourning, they didn't understand it. Why
didn't the Lord just say to them right off the bat, He said, Lazarus
is going to die. Three or four days later, I'm
going to raise him up out of the tomb. Why didn't He just
say that? Isn't that the very thing that
the scribes and Pharisees told Him just in that last chapter?
If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." They wanted him to
stand there and say, I'm the Christ. He said, I told you. I told you. There's a strange mystery here. And I'll tell you why I think
it is. It's because what he was doing
was not just about Lazarus. And it wasn't just about Mary
and Martha. It wasn't just about those friends
that gathered and mourned there in Bethany. His primary cause
was to give evidence to his person that he was indeed the Son of
God, and his secondary purpose was to direct their faith and
their hearts to him. He wouldn't just do a work in
Lazarus and call him out of the tomb. That's what we always focus
our attention on. But he'd do a work in his sisters.
He'd do a work in his disciples, and he'd do a work in all those
concerned, including you and I yet today. And I believe this
is very important. He gave them just enough of an
answer so that they would not despair. But not so much as to
make them indifferent to the situation. And I tell you this, I don't
know how many times I've been down this road, but I'm beginning
to get a little bit of wisdom, just a tiny little bit of wisdom
about these things. And there are no answers in the
Scriptures to quench a needy spirit or silence a praying tongue. It's just not going to happen.
That's what we want. We want that plain four-letter
explanation, that plateau that we can get on and stand there
and say, I got it. You ain't going to find it. It ain't in there. It ain't in
there. He's going to give you enough
to rely on Him. But He's not going to give you
enough that you don't call on Him. And you're going to keep
on calling on Him. He permits a degree of uncertainty
to keep us watching and waiting for Him. He says to us enough
to excite hope and encourage faith and teach us patience and
move us to prayer, but not so much as to keep us from seeking
after God. Now that's what that's all about. And then finally here in verse
14, the Lord tells His disciples plainly, He said, Lazarus is
dead, and I'm glad for your sakes that I wasn't there to the intent
that you may believe. Nevertheless, let us go to it.
Believers have to be led in such a way as to get past the natural
to the spiritual. You'll never be saved until you
get past the natural. You've got to get past that.
You've got to get past what you see with these eyes and hear
with these ears. You're going to have to get past
that human body that walked on this earth and went about doing
good. You're going to have to get past
that to see His glory. That's what He was doing. He
knew they were friends with Him. He'd been in their house. He
knew there was a communion there, a fellowship there. He knew that.
But in order to believe and rest and be saved in such a way that
they receive true saving faith, they have to get past this natural
to the spiritual. They're going to have to see
God in Christ. God in Christ. And in dealing with this thing
of faith, Paul tells the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians 5,
verse 16, before he gets into all this ministry of the reconciliation,
I want you to listen to what he tells. He said, Wherefore
henceforth know we no man after the flesh. Yea, though we have
known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him
no more." Now, you're talking about somebody who's seen Him.
But he said, I don't know Him that way anymore. I don't know
Him that way anymore. I know Him as the Redeemer. I
know Him as the Savior. I know Him as the Lord my righteousness. I know Him as God set Him forth
as a propitiation for my sin. That's how I know Him. The whole
world knows Jesus. You can't deny Jesus. The whole
world saw Him. He was born in Bethlehem. They're
still singing about it today. We celebrate it every year at
Christmas. He was here. You can't deny His resurrection.
He said He was seen of all of His apostles and He was seen
of over 500 brethren. Deny it all you want to. It's
a matter of record. They saw Him. He had witnesses. But we don't know Him that way.
We know Him no more after the flesh. We know Him in the spiritual
sense. We know Him by faith. And we
know Him as the Redeemer, as the Savior. God in Christ reconciling
the world unto Himself. Our judgments and relationships,
they're spiritual. And I'll tell you this, fleshly
ideas and fleshly experiences just hinder faith. They don't
assist it. They just get in the way. The
Lord Jesus Christ was their friend, spent time in their house, did
all these things, but that communion must be gotten past in order
to see His real majesty and glory and to be able to rest in His
wisdom and power. And all through the ministry
of Christ, He was manifesting what natural men could not see.
Because they looked with these eyes. They just could not imagine
God in him. Isn't that what upset them? We've
been going through these chapters leading up here to chapter 11.
Ain't that what made them so mad? That he said that he was
equal with the Father, that he was in the beginning with the
Father. They couldn't get past that man. Never could. Never
could. This was God come into the flesh,
God taking to Himself a human body. This was the mediator of
God accomplishing the work He was ordained to do. God set Him forth. And to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ is to see Him as He's been set forth,
set forth from the beginning. That's what you have to see Him
as. It's not accepting Jesus as your personal Savior. Not
saying yes. I acknowledge there was a man
called Jesus. He was born in Bethlehem, laid
in a manger, raised up, lived a good life, gave us an example,
ascended back to heaven, made salvation possible. I accept
it. I'm saved. You ain't spitting distance of
being saved. You have to see Him as God sent Him forth, not
with these eyes, with these eyes, and lay hold of Him and be convinced
Convinced of the Spirit of God to turn loose of this world and
turn loose of what these eyes see and these ears hear. Turn
loose of everything and lay hold of Him. Rest. I don't care what
comes along. Rest. Rest. And I tell you this, any denial
of this is anti-Christ. That's what it is. Antichrist.
What this miracle and all the other miracles before this are
all about is to declare Him as the long looked for and prophesied
Christ of God. And everything that God has for
sinners is in Him. There are no blessings, no promises
outside of Christ. It tells us all through Ephesians
1, we are blessed in Christ, chosen in Christ, redeemed in
Christ, predestinated to be made in His image, clothed in Christ,
and Christ in you is the hope of glory. Listen to this in 1 John 5, verse
1. He said, Whosoever believeth
that Jesus is the Christ, he is born of God. He has to be
born to get past the natural. 1 John 2, verse 22, "...who is
a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ." And the
Scriptures are just full of warnings. Well, what is this Christ? What
does it mean to believe that Jesus is the Christ? Well, He's
the promised seed of the woman given to Adam in the very beginning,
demonstrated on the altar of Abel, detailed under the ceremonial
law, personified in a person, Demonstrated in the work he accomplished. That was our lesson here just
a few weeks ago. He said, if you don't believe
what I'm saying, believe me, for the work's sake. Listen to this scripture over
here in Hebrews chapter 10. Talk about that law being a shadow
of things, patterns of things, figures of things in the heavens,
all that type of stuff. And he gets down here to verse
5 in Hebrews 10. And he said, when he come into
the world, he say, a sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not,
but a body hast thou prepared me. And burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come in the
volume of the book written of me to do thy will, O God. I'm paraphrasing now verse 10.
And in the doing and dying of the Lord Jesus Christ, He sanctified
all that the Father gave Him once for all. Verse 14, perfected
forever them that are sanctified. And concerning these things,
verse 15, the Holy Ghost, He said, also is a witness to us
of these things. That's what it is to know Him
and believe on Him. Christ saves men and brings men
to faith in God through a propitiatory offering and righteousness accomplished
by His life and death. And apart from His resurrection,
I'm telling you this, you'll be celebrating Easter with the
Easter Bunny. It's just a superstitious holiday.
That's all it is apart from this. He died and risen. Hadn't quite
yet ascended to the Father, and the disciples were frustrated
and perplexed and broken-hearted, and His death just let the air
out of their religious balloon. It just let it all out. And there
they sat, all their hopes dashed to pieces. And they walked along
there mumbling about it. Christ came up, joined Himself
to them, began to talk to them. What's the problem? Well, where
have you been? Where have you been? And they started to tell
him. And then down in Luke 24, verse
25, he said unto them, he said, O fools, and slow of heart to
believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ
to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?
And beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, he expounded unto
them, and all the scriptures, the things concerning himself.
And their hearts began to burn within them. And then down here
in verse 44, He appeared to them, took a piece of fish and ate
it, ate a honeycomb, showed them the hole in His side and the
holes in His hands, flesh and blood. And He said unto them,
These are the words which I speak unto you, verse 44, while I was yet with you, that
all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law
of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning
me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the
Scriptures. Now listen, and he said unto them, Thus it is written,
and thus it behoove Christ to suffer, and to rise from the
dead the third day. This was necessary, this was
foreordained, fixed in eternity, But that's not the end yet. Listen
to this. And that repentance and remission of sins should
be preached in His name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem.
This is fixed. It ain't going to change. And
you are witnesses of these things. Now don't go out here and form
a moral majority. Don't go out here and start buying
a bunch of Christian buses and stuff. Don't go out here and
build gymnasiums. You are witnesses of these things. Do that. Do that. Well, I want to do something.
Do this. Do this. Do this. I want to promote something.
Promote this. Well, I want to march up and
down the street, get you a billboard, carry it down the street. I'll
go with you. Put this on it. No, we don't want to do that.
We don't want to do that. See, we got this thing all tied
up. We got this thing all up in a neat little package. You
just do this and then this and that and then you're saved. You're
saved. That's what it's all about. That
ain't what it's all about. It's all about Christ. That's
what it's all about. All about Him. All about Him.
And he came to them and Martha ran out there and she said, Boy,
yeah, I know there's a resurrection out there. I read about it. over
there in the prophets. Job said in the last day he was
going to see God with his own eyes standing on this earth.
Yes, I believe that. I believe in the resurrection.
I believe it's going to happen out there and Lazarus is going
to be raised. He said, there is going to be
no Job on the earth apart from me. I'm the resurrection. We want to seek salvation? Don't
seek salvation. Seek the Savior. You get Him,
you've got salvation. See? That's what it is. We want
this, and we want that, and we want assurance. Get Him! You
get Him, you've got all the assurance you're ever going to get. He's
seated at the right hand of God. If you're in Him, you're seated
with Him. You ain't going to get any more assurance than that.
But we want these things alone. We want trust in these things
alone, and there's no comfort in them. She believed in a resurrection,
but it wasn't giving her one ounce of comfort, was it? Until
he said to her, I am the resurrection. And I'm going to show you what
it's all about. Now come out of that tunnel. That's what it
is. What does he do to the man of
faith? He calls him out of that tunnel. He tells him, I am the
resurrection. Now come out of there. And he
comes out. He comes out. And you can't make
that man go anywhere else. He's going to cling to Christ
and preach Christ and glorify Christ until he dies. Until he
dies. The very next chapter, the Lord
raises Lazarus from the tomb and the Pharisees sought to kill
him. They watched this man come out of that tomb with them grave
clothes on, bound head to foot. Listened to the Lord command
the rags to loose him and let him go. Watched him walk away
whole. Very next chapter, they're going
to kill him because he ruined their religion.