Now I'd like for you to take
your Bibles and turn to the book of John, chapter 11, John 11. Now when John opens this, what
they call the Gospel of John, he begins this way. He says,
in the beginning was the Word. capital W-O-R-D, the Word of
God. A word is an expression, communication,
revelation. And Jesus Christ the Lord, the
second person of the Blessed Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit,
our God is one God, and yet three in one. And that blessed Word
There are three that bear record in heaven, the Word, the Father,
the Word, and the Spirit, the Blessed Son. The exact image
of the Father, the everlasting Father. The Word was with God,
the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us. He was in this world. He was in this world, and the
pagan world knew Him not. There's no beauty about Him that
we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected
of men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, and we hid as it
were our faces from Him. He's despised, and we knew Him
not. But He came unto His own. He was in the world, and the
world was made by Him. The sparrows, the clouds, the
stars, the earth, the sand, the seashore, the mountains, the
valleys, the trees, the people, the creatures, were made by Him,
and we knew Him not. He is despised, and we knew Him
not. But He came into His own, His own nation, a nation which
he had chosen and made from one man, Abraham, the Jewish nation. A nation not of spiritual people
or believing people, but a typical people, a patterned people, but
a people to whom he had sent the prophets, Moses and Isaiah
and Elijah. These were household names. These
revered names were household names in this nation. They knew
these men like you know your pastor. Encountered them. They
sacrificed them. Folks of Moses and Elijah, Daniel,
King David, Solomon. And they had these men. God gave
these men to this nation. He gave them the tabernacle.
with all of its pictures of redemption, with all of its patterns of redemption,
with its blood sacrifices, types of the blood of Christ. He gave
them the hallowed priesthood, the holy priesthood, the special
sons of Ava and Levi, a tribe of priests to minister about
the temple. He gave them the atonement. He
gave them the tables of stone that God wrote with His own finger.
They had in their possession, this nation of Israel had in
their possession the very tables of tablets of law God wrote. And they had a sample of the
manna. They'd read about it, heard about it, and they had
it in their possession, a bowl of manna that God gave from heaven. They had this Shekinah glory
in their tabernacle within the veil. Their presence of God between
the cherubim over the mercy seat. They had all these things. And
most of them, when he came into this world, were still being
carried on. Many of these sacrifices, the
Lord's Passover, though, had become the Jewish Passover. The
Feast of the Lord had become, if you'll read your Bible carefully,
Bob, the Feast of the Jews. The Feast of the Jews, that's
what it deteriorated into. But he came into his own. He
came in his own temple. He walked among his own priests.
He came to his own nation, and they received him not. Now, they
had some things to say about him. They encountered Jesus of
Nazareth. They encountered the Messiah,
the Christ, the Jewish nation, the religious people, and met
him face to face. John said, we saw him, we heard
him, we touched him. We touched him. Some people touched
him with a touch of need and were healed, as we heard recently
in a message, but many of those religious leaders touched him
and never received anything. They slapped his face. They hit
him with the open palm. But they encountered him. They
encountered Jesus of Nazareth. And some of them acknowledged
openly, publicly, he's a teacher come from God. One of their renowned
leaders openly stated, we know you're a teacher come from God.
We got that much said. No man could do what you do except
God be with you. Impossibility. The blind man
to whom Christ restored his sight said, has it ever been reported
that a man who was born blind was made to see. The Pharisees
didn't, Bill, have an answer for that, because it hadn't.
Well, is not this the Christ, then? The Samaritan woman came
down to the village and said, a man just told me everything
I've ever done. Is not this the Christ? Will
the Christ do greater works than this man, they asked the religious
leaders? Come on now, will he do greater works than this man?
No. He's got to be a teacher come
from God, and some of them called him master, rabbi, teacher. The Pharisees said, now a woman's
had five or six husbands, who's going to be her husband in the
resurrection? Master. Another one said, well, teacher, which
is the greatest law? Another one said, well, master,
shall we pay tribute to Caesar? And some of them said he's fake
with authority. as no man has ever spoken. They
sent a bunch of folks out to arrest him one day, and he came
back and reported to their leaders and said, they said, well, where
is he? We never heard anybody talk that
way. We couldn't lay hands on him. And yet, though they encountered
this person, this glorious person, the glorious Word, the expressed
image of God, the exact likeness of God, equal with the Father,
the Counselor, Wonderful, Prince of Peace, the Mighty God, they
received Him not. And I'll tell you, I know the
point of their unbelief. And I know the point of their
rejection. Most everything has a lot of
explanations and alibis and excuses, but there is a point of rebellion. There is a point where the division
starts. And I'll tell you where it is
in reference to Jesus of Nazareth. And it's the same point where
this unbelieving religious, this believing unbelieving religious
world is missing it. And that is they rejected in
unbelief His Lordship. His glorious, supreme, eternal,
divine Lordship. Lordship over all things. Jesus
Christ is Lord. And I'm not saying that as a
word. I'm saying that as a fact. It's easy to say. It's easy to
sing. It's easy to put on a billboard.
He is Lord. It's another thing. bow down
at His feet, and from the heart crown Him Lord of all. Lord of
all, I said. The Father hath given what? All
things, not most things, not the majority of things, all things
into His hands. The breath you just took in is
by His permission. Not a sparrow falls to the ground
without Him, not a leaf float to the earth. It's not under
his control. That's what I'm going to do.
He's Lord of all. And that was, there's where they
separated. There's where they divided. That's
where they walked away. Here's Lordship. Here's Lordship. Here's eternal Lordship. He said
one day, they said, we have Abraham, thy father. He said, before Abraham
was, I am. They took up stone to stone. His eternal Lordship, before
Abraham was, I Am. Have you ever heard that before,
I Am? Does that ring a note, I Am? Moses said at the burning bush,
God spoke from heaven and said, take off your shoes, you're on
holy ground. He took them off and listened
to God. And God said, go down to Pharaoh and tell him, let
my people go. And Moses said, well now, there are a whole lot
of gods in this world. A little letter, G-O-D-S. There's
a lot of God. Whom shall I say has sent me? When Pharaoh says, who is the
Lord? And the children of Israel say,
who has it sent you? What am I going to say? Tell
them I am sent you. That bunch of Jews knew exactly
what he was saying. Before Abraham was. He didn't
say, I was. They'd have taken that baby.
But he said, before Abraham was, I And they rejected His Lordship
in equality, not only in eternity, but in equality with the Father. On another occasion, He said,
I and my Father are one. We're one. We're not one in the sense that
we are the same. The Fathers never said He was
the Son. The Son never said He was the Father. And the Father
never said he was the Holy Spirit, but he said, the Lord our God
is one God, as you and I are one in Christ. He said, I and
my Father are one, and they took up stones again to stone him.
And he said, now many good works have I done, for which of these
do you stone me? They said, we're not stoning
you for good works, but because you're a man and you make yourself
equal with God. Well, he is. My Father worketh and I work.
The Son never does anything independently of the Father, nor the Father
independently of the Son. What one does, the other does.
And I tell you this, when the Holy Spirit singles out a man
and calls him to faith, it's because the Son died for him.
And if the Son died for him, it's because the Father chose
him. You'll never find the Divine Trinity in division over anything. He said, My Father, I know you
always hear me. And then they rejected his lordship
of the Sabbath. In John chapter 5, when he healed
that man on the Sabbath day, it says they sought to slay him
because he healed the man on the Sabbath day. Well, it's his
Sabbath. Is it not? Is it not his Sabbath? They wanted
our Lord to be in subjection to the Sabbath. The Sabbath is
in subjection to our Lord. He said the Sabbath was made
for man. Man wasn't made for the Sabbath.
The Sabbath is the Lord God's Sabbath. He's Lord of the Sabbath.
He can rest or work because He's the Lord. The Lord always does
right because He is right. And then they rejected His Lordship
in the display of His mercy. He came down to His hometown,
Nazareth, as it's custom was. He went to the synagogue on the
Sabbath day, and they all heard He was going to be there. They
all heard he was going to be there, so they all came. They
packed that place. They'd heard about the healing
and the miracles in Capernaum and other places, and they were
all there, packed out. And he stood up to read, and
he chose that place in Isaiah 61 where it says, "...the Spirit
of the Lord is upon me." And they knew that that was a Messianic
promise. That's speaking of the Messiah,
Isaiah 61, "...the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He hath
anointed me." to preach the gospel to the poor. We're not talking
about the poor in this world's goods, we're talking about the
poor in spirit. Poor in spirit. He has anointed me to set the
captive free, to give sight to the blind, to heal the brokenhearted. He closed the book. And he looked
out over that congregation, and they looked him over too. And
here's God speaking to the favored nation. He said, this day is
this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And I'm sure they gasped, the
Messiah's here. And they said, well, do what
you've done in Capernaum. We've heard you've done great
things. Do it at home. Physician, heal thyself. He said,
a prophet's not without honor, saving his own country. But he
said, I'll tell you the truth. I want to tell you something. There were many lepers. in Israel,
and this was Israel to whom he was speaking. There were many
lepers in Israel. Leprosy was like cancer today.
There were many people with cancer, many folks with heart trouble.
There were many people with leprosy in the nation of Israel, but
God didn't send his prophet to any of them. He sent his prophet to a Syrian
general by the name of Naaman and healed him because God is
sovereign in his mercy. He'll be merciful to whom he
will. This is the Lord talking now to his hometown congregation
on his first trip back. This is the Master speaking to
the favored nation who thought because they were Jews they were
God's people automatically. They thought because they had
this favor of the prophets and the tabernacle and the atonement
that salvation was theirs because they had the circumcision and
the sacrifices and the ceremonies and these things. And he said,
no, no, no, no. Everybody's not an Israelite
that looks like one. Everybody's not a Jew that's
a Jew. He said there were many widows
in Israel, too. Now, you're getting close to
a person's heart and you're talking about the widows and the He said,
there were many widows in Israel in the days of Eliseus the prophet,
and God didn't feed one of them, passed ever one of them by. You
know what he said? He sent his prophet not to a
single widow in Israel. He sent his prophet to a Gentile
widow, and the fur flew then. The feathers hit the fan then,
and they got up, and they roared. They said, we won't have that.
We won't have that." And they took him out to the edge of the
hill, the cliff on which their city was built, and would have
cast him off headlong. Murderers. They just left church,
but they turned into a lynch mob over what? His lordship and
mercy. And you can do it. You can go
to any church in this town, any church in this country, nearly,
that hasn't been exposed to the gospel of God's redeeming, sovereign
grace of His glory, and you can turn a Sunday morning bunch of
pious, pious Bible-totems, Sunday school teachers, preachers, and
deacons into a lynch mob in five minutes if you just tell them
who Jesus Christ really is. I've done it. in five minutes. That's all you've got to do is
openly, boldly, truthfully, biblically, scripturally tell him who he
really is. He's not the baby in the manger.
He was there one time to fulfill a purpose. He's not the poor, weak, tempted, tested, tried
fleshly man who walked the sea of Galilee, the shores of Galilee,
and the streets of Jerusalem. He's not the one hanging there
on the cross in his human weakness, subjecting, delivered into the
hands of sinful men. He's the Lord on the throne,
the Lord of salvation, the Lord of creation, and the Lord of
providence, who will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, who
will quicken whom He will. to whom all judgment and authority
has been committed by the decree and design of the Father and
by his own death. He purchased it on the cross.
He died that he might be Lord of the dead and the living, and
all authority in heaven, earth, and under the earth has been
given to him, and hanging on his belt are the keys of hell
and death." That's right, and that's what
they rejected. That was a point of testing.
That was a point of rejection. That's what they said. We will
not have this man reign over us. It's all right. He's all right. He can play church
in the temple. He can sit over there on his
little shrine or altar or wherever he wants to occupy. He can sit
in his almshouse and dole us out good things to eat. He can
bless us when we're in trouble. He can do anything he wants to,
but we ain't going to bow down. He is not going to reign. He
is not going to reign over us. That's what Adam said in the
garden when he took the forbidden fruit. He said, I won't have
God be God, I'm going to be God. But Jesus Christ is God. And
I'll tell you this, here in the 11th chapter of John, I'm going
to run through a few verses here and show you one of the most
powerful One of the most assuring revelations of the absolute sovereignty,
and I mean sovereignty, you say, what does the word sovereignty
mean? The meaning is right in the middle of it, R-E-I-G-N,
reigns. Grace reigns in righteousness. Christ reigns. Sit thou on my
right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Every
knee shall bow in heaven, earth, and hell, and every tongue shall
confess that he He, not us, not we, He is Lord, to the glory
of God the Father. And here in John chapter 11,
there was a town called Bethany. Look at chapter 11, verse 1.
Now a certain man was sick. His name was Lazarus. This is
not the same Lazarus who was in Abraham's bosom, rich man
in hell, Luke 16. Not the same one, different one.
Because this Lazarus was a Bethany. The town of Mary and her sister
Martha. Now this is the Martha, to whom
our Lord said, Martha, Martha, you're cumbered about with much
cash. She said, make my sister help me in the kitchen. Our Lord
said, your sister's sitting here at my feet, chosen the good things.
And that Mary was the one at his feet. And this Lazarus was
their brother. There was Lazarus, Mary, and
Martha, two sisters and a brother. And they lived in a town called
Bethany. And verse 2 said, this is the
same Mary. that anointed the Lord with ointment."
Now, this is not the harlot that anointed his feet and wept and
dried his feet with her tears. This is the Mary who anointed
our Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose
brother Lazarus was sick. Now, let me show you something
right here. Turn, if you will, with me to Matthew 26. It's two
accounts of this anointing of Christ by Mary with oil. It will
be interesting if you want to look at it a minute. Because
the Holy Spirit has taken the time to define who Lazareth was,
or Bethany, who Martha was, the older sister, whose house it
was, for she invited him into her house, Luke 10 says. And Mary was the younger sister,
and Matthew 26 says this, now look at it, Matthew 26, 7, verse
6, now when Jesus was in Bethany, see, same town, But he was in
another house, he was in the house of Simon the leper, and
there came unto him a woman, having an alabaster box of very
precious ointment, and poured it on his head. On his head, as he said it may. All right, now turn if you will
with me to John 12, just one page over from where we're reading
in John, that John 12. Now listen, stay with me. A lot
of people who know so little about the Bible. If they spent
as much time in the Bible as they do with fiction and junk
and newspapers, they'd know a little more about God's Word and they
wouldn't be in so much trouble. But to think there's contradictions
in the Word. Now listen to this, and to the
average person this seems to be a contradiction. John 12,
you with me? Verse 3. Now let's look at verse 2, well,
verse 1. Let's start at verse 1, John 12. Then Jesus, six days
before the Passover, came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which
had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made
him a supper, and Martha served him. But Lazarus was one of them
that sat at the table with him, then took Mary a pound of ointment,
a spikenard, very costly, and anointed what, what did he say?
His feet. What was that with Rabbi Goldman?
He said he anointed his head, didn't he? Well, you say there's
a contradiction there. No. It's the way two different
men reported the incident. Matthew reported it, and John
reported it. They were both there. And Christ
was in the home of Simon, being waited on by Martha, a friend
of Simon's. Lazarus was there, and Mary came
in, and Matthew said she anointed his head. When Matthew's book,
all the way through, when it's properly understood, Matthew,
Bill is already with me. He presents Christ as the King.
Where do you anoint a king? On his head. That's where you
crown him. That's where he's anointed. And that's where Matthew
saw Christ, King of the Jews. King of the Jews! King of the
Jews! How does John write about Christ?
The Lord, the Son of God. Where do you anoint the Son of
God? At his feet. And that's where you worship
him. And my guess is that Mary did both. She came in with that
costly ointment. People didn't always deal in
money like we do in checks and bank cards. These people had
ointment, special prized ointment. and perfumes and things like
that. And she had this, probably had
it for years. It was probably a treasure. It
says costly. In fact, old Judas got upset
and said, how come that wasn't sold and given to the poor? And
didn't he? Well, she came in and she anointed
his head. And then she got down at his
feet and kissed his feet and anointed them and un-plaited
her hair and dried his feet. And Matthew saw the head being
anointed. That's my king. And John, the
beloved, that leaned on his breast at the Lord's table, saw him
as a son of God, and he reported, Mary anointed his feet." See
what I'm saying? No contradiction in God's Word
if reading it with some understanding that no scripture is of any private
interpretation. It won't stand alone. You've
got to have the rest of the Word. Well, that's who they are. Therefore
it says, his sisters sent unto him, saying, Behold, he whom
thou lovest is sick." Verse 3. Lazarus was sick. Now it says
in this scripture several times, look at verse 5, now Jesus loved
Martha and her sister and Lazarus. He loved this little family.
He had been with them on a numerous occasion. Their home was his
home. Their home was his headquarters.
They had loved him and fed him and fellowship with Him, and
He loved them, and they loved Him. And here they said two or
three times, He whom the Lord loves. Now let me tell you something.
This is the everlasting, infinite love of God. And they said to
Christ, He whom Thou lovest is sick. Now there are some people
who say this, and I heard it on the television just the other
day by forgive me," a nitwit who calls
himself a preacher. And he said, all sickness is
of the devil. He said, God wants you to be
well, and sickness in a believer is the evidence of God's displeasure. That's a lie. And that lie is
dispelled right here. It's exposed. He whom thou lovest. Establish that, don't we? And
Christ had already established his love for them. But he was
sick. And he not only was sick, Jim,
he died. And I'll tell you, Paul, I'll
give these preachers something that, if they'll be honest to
handle, if you'll look with me at Philippians 2, now keep this
face in John 11 where we are, and turn to Philippians 2. This
is awful difficult to handle. Philippians chapter 2. Epaphroditus, Epaphroditus was
apostate whom Paul mentions again and again and again. One of his
close brethren, friends, a co-laborer. And yet he says in Philippians
2 verse 25, I suppose it necessary to send to you, right into the
Philippian church, Epaphroditus, my brother, my companion in labor,
my fellow soldier, but your messenger, he's your pastor, and he that
ministered to my wants. He longed after you all. He was
full of heaviness because you heard. He'd been what? He'd been sick. Just like us. But that's not all, verse 27.
He was sick unto death. Why don't you heal him, Paul? Or Robert would have. Jim Baker would have. Why don't
you heal him? What's the use in all this writing
here about him being sick? What's the use of him being sick?
The devil in him? God mad at him? Why is Epiphadatus
sick? His church needs him, says it
needs him, but here he is laying up there sick. You see, signs
are for unbelievers, not believers. When Paul the Apostle and these
other men healed the sick, it was for a purpose, to glorify
God, to get an ear for the gospel. But these men, their objective
is just to heal the body. The gospel is never free. Let
me show you another one, in 2 Timothy 4. Now stay with me. I tell you,
my brethren, I said the other day on television, we're free
from sin. He that is dead is freed from
sin. He that is freed from sin is no longer the servant or slave
of sin, he's the servant of righteousness. He that's free from sin, three
times in Romans 6 it says that, has become the servant of righteousness
and has his fruit to holiness. But we're not free from the presence
of sin. You ever have any trouble with
sin? You ever have a thought you shouldn't have? Do you ever
say anything you shouldn't say? Do you ever do anything you shouldn't
do? Do you love God with all your
heart? Do you pray like you ought to? Do you read the Bible like
you ought to? The thought of foolishness is
sin. We're not free from the presence of sin. We're free from
the reigning power of sin, but we're not free from a sin that
remains. We're not free from an awareness
of sin. Our Lord taught us to pray, forgive
us of our sins. We prayed about that part because
we're real. He said, if we confess our sins, and again David said, my sins
are ever before me, and we're not free from the afflictions
of sin. That's the reason we're going
to die. Now these holiness people who say they're without sin,
if they were, they wouldn't die. Sin brings forth what? Death. He said spiritual death. It's
physical death, too, because Paul used that very argument
in the first few chapters of Romans. He said, how come babies
die if they're not born in sin? He said if babies, infants, were
not sinners, they wouldn't die. They've never sinned after the
similitude of Adam's transgression. They've never committed a willing
act of rebellion against God. Your little daughters never committed
a willing act of rebellion against God. But she's a sinner. You
don't believe it, but I do. Paul's belief in total depravity
got shook a little bit a month ago. But she'd be in no danger,
Paul, of dying if she wasn't a sinner. You could forget it. And listen to Timothy here in
2 Timothy 4, verse 20. Listen to it carefully. Hold
on to your seat now. abode at Corinth, but Trophimus
I left at Miletum." He didn't want him with me anymore. Uh-uh.
I left him there. I had no place for him in the
chariot. Now, I left him there sick. I tell you, these fellows, they
just twist the Scripture. They rest it to their own destruction. God heals. I know the Lord heals. Oh, God kills and makes alive. But sickness is not... God's
the first cause of all things in the life of a believer. Now,
you put that there. There may be second causes. There
are different means and instruments that God uses. Let me tell you
this. Satan desired to afflict Job,
did he not? But he couldn't do it without
God's permission. And God permitted the affliction
of Job for Job's own good. He would have never, without
this experience, been brought to the place he was brought in
the 39th through the 42nd chapter. He had to go through it. All
right, look at verse 4. When Jesus heard that Lazarus
was sick, he said, this sickness is not unto death. but for the
glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby."
There are arguments about who he said that to, the messenger
who brought the news, or to his disciples. It doesn't matter,
he said it. And what he's saying is this, this sickness is not
unto final death. Our Lord knew, as we would see,
our Lord knew all things. He's not only omnipotent and
omnipresent, He's omniscient. He said to Nathanael, before
Philip found you, I saw you under the fig tree. Our Lord saw the
piece of money in the fish's mouth, put it there by his own
will. He knows all things. He knew
their thoughts before they said their words. He knew Lazarus
was sick, and he knew he was going to raise him. And he was
going to raise him for the glory of God, that the Son of God may
be glorified. That's the purpose of God in
everything, that the Son may be glorified. Let's get that
through here and down here especially. Bill, we don't really count.
It's Christ that counts. I asked Walter Gruber one time
down in Mexico, I said, are you happy in Mexico? He said, happiness
has nothing to do with it. I'm where God wants me. And that's
what Christ is saying here. He says, this sickness is not
unto final death. He didn't tell them He's going
to raise them, but He just said that. He said, this sickness
is not unto final death. This is for the glory of God.
You remember in John chapter 9, they saw the man that was
born blind, and His disciples have the same problem we do.
His disciples looked at the man born blind, and they uttered
that same old cliché, well, who's seen it? Did his mother sin,
or did he sin, that reason he was born blind? And our Lord
said, neither, but for the glory of God he was born blind, that
the glory of God and the purpose of God might be accomplished
in him. Father John House's mother and
father didn't sin, and as a result he's crippled, nor did he. It's for the glory of God. You
know where you are for the glory of God. He's going to get the
glory. The Son of God is going to be glorified. That's why it
all is brought to pass. He said, this sickness is for
the glory of God, and that the Son of God might be glorified.
Well, why didn't He? Now listen to me. Why didn't
the Lord, the last time He was down there at their house, and
there sat Lazarus and Mary and Martha, and Mary was at His feet,
Martha's in there working, Lazarus, happy family, and here sat the
Lord. He knew all these things, Bob. Why didn't he sit down and
say, Now, Mary, you and Mark pull up a chair here, Martha
and Matt. Now, Lazarus is going to get sick, and I'm going to
be awake. And you're going to send for
me, and I'm not coming. And I'm going to make this all
easy on you now. And then he's going to die. But don't get upset,
because I'm going to raise him from the dead. Now why did he
do that? Someone else would like that,
wouldn't they? But that's not God's way. How
would faith enter into that sort of exercise? Where would the
faith be? There wouldn't be any faith. How would patience be developed?
Where would be our dependence on Him in the trial, in the sovereign,
in the darkness? What would happen to prayer?
What would happen to all of these means that God uses for our good
and His glory? What would happen to the great
joy when the good and the glory was revealed after the darkness?
When the joy comes in the morning, there wouldn't be any joy in
the morning. And pretty soon we'd just take
all that for granted. Why didn't the Lord sit down
with Joseph and say, now Joseph, your brothers are going to turn
again. and tell your daddy Jacob, that ain't going to be all right.
He's going to think his boy is dead, but he's not going to be
dead. So there's no use worrying, no use praying, no use trusting
God, no use having your patience strengthened, no use going through
the valley. Joseph is going to be king in
twenty-seven and a half years, twenty-seven years and six months.
He'll be sitting on the throne in Egypt. And so when all this
comes to pass, Don't worry about it. That's not God's way. Our
God uses means. Jesus loved them. Look at chapter,
verse 5. You say, well, did He really
love them? If He knew all this and didn't reveal it to them,
that's why He didn't, because He loved them. He loved them. Martha and her sister, Lazarus,
when He heard, therefore, that Lazarus was sick, He stayed two
more days in the place where He was. We get a telephone call,
somebody's in trouble. Boy, we just, we don't even put
our coat on, go tearing out the door and jump in the car and
speed down there, but not much to say anyway. Our Lord just
sat there. You see, whom the Lord loveth,
he chastens, he corrects, and he disciplines. And he stayed
where he was for two complete days of silence. They came down
from Bethany and told him Lazarus was sick. And the Lord just stayed
right there. I imagine the messenger went
back, and he didn't show up. And Mary and Martha, he let them
sit by the bedside of their brother and watch him gasp for air. And the Lord was down there in
that other place. And Mary says, I don't believe
he's going to make it. I don't believe the Lord's coming. I
don't believe he's going to die. And they stood there and watched
him And after a while, he breathed his last breath, and Martha said,
Mary, he's dead! And they cried, and they cried,
and they cried, and the Lord Jesus Christ let them sit there
and watch their brother suffer, and breathe out his last breath,
and finally die, and let those girls be on their faces, weeping,
left two women alone in this world. But our God, full intending,
to make it all for their good. But He didn't spare them what
they needed. Now, we're going to have to somehow
learn to wait on the Lord. Everything He does, He does in
His time, not our time. Martha and Mary sent a messenger
down there and said, it's time for you to run up here. It stayed
right where He was. It wasn't His time, it was their
time. His time had not come. In the fullness of time, if we'll
learn to wait, and God is pleased to be silent, David said, where
has the Lord gone? He'd been anointed king down
there by Samuel. And there that rascal Saul was
up there on the throne, hunting him down like a stray dog. And
David wouldn't dare touch the Lord's anointed. He knew better
than that. But he knew he belonged on that throne. He didn't have
to be just a straggling few. And he asked a fellow to give
him something to eat. And he said, I'm not giving you anything to
eat, you renegade. Lord, where are you? It's dark
down here. Here David is sleeping in a cave
with a rock for a pillar and a renegade on the throne in the
satin and silk. And David was a man after God's
own heart, and the Spirit of God had departed from sorrow,
but God kept silent. Not two days, two years. You think about that. It didn't
say nothing. But everything He does, and watch
this. We need to learn to wait on Him,
because when our Lord And He really doesn't carry, He really
doesn't delay. He waits His fullness of time.
And He does it to bless us in His way, not our way for His
glory, not our glory in a way different from our expectations,
but better than our expectations. Let me show you a verse of Scripture,
all of it. I don't know why I haven't seen
this before, used it before, Isaiah 30. I had it underlined
in my Bible, but I can't remember ever. reading this Scripture
to you, but I'm going to read it now. Isaiah 30. It'd be a
good verse when you're writing letters to people to put on the
bottom of the letter when you sign your name. Isaiah 30, verse
18. Listen. And therefore will the
Lord wait, therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious
unto you, and therefore will He be exalted, that He may have
mercy upon you, for the Lord is a God of judgment, and blessed
are all they that wait on Him." Isn't that beautiful? So hard to find, wait on the
Lord, give good cheer, give strength in your heart, wait, I say, on
the Lord. That's so difficult for this flesh. But Mary and
Martha said, run down and get the Lord. And he ran down there,
and the Lord stayed there. Didn't make a move. Two critical
days, 48 hours in Lazarus' time. By the time he got there, he'd
been in the grave four days. Well, let me read this to you.
Then after that, he said to his disciples, verse 7, John 11,
7, he said, let's go to Judea. And his disciples said, Lord,
Master, the Jews just lately, just a little while ago, sought
to stone you. Let's don't go back there again.
Are you going back there again? Are you going back there again?
They couldn't see the wisdom of it or the necessity of it.
After all, you know, Jesus healed Capernaum, the man of authority
from the centurion. He healed his daughter without
going down there. They said, let's don't go down
there. They're going to stone you. Now, he said this, watch
it. Verse 9, 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. What's
the Lord saying there? Now listen, there are twelve
hours in a day. The day has an allotted time,
twelve hours. Six in the morning, six at night.
We call those the hours of daylight. That's when men work, before
we've got artificial light. There are twelve hours in a day.
A man works in the day while he has the light. We have an
allotted time. So have we. Our Lord had a time
to work. They couldn't kill Him in Nazareth
if time hadn't come. He told His mother, Mary, when
she wanted Him to display His glory at that Canaan marriage
feast, He said, Man, I was not yet come. Several times they
tried to kill Him, but they couldn't kill Him. You know why? Twelve
hours weren't up. The day. See what I'm talking
about? The allotted time. All right, listen to me. You
and I have an allotted time. A day according to God's divine
providence. Man's days are set. The number
of his months are with the Lord. He can't pass. Nobody can pass
him out. You're immortal if you want a
God's own, because He gets ready to call you home. That's what
He's saying. No harm can come to us. We can
walk right by, we can walk right through Jerusalem. There's no
harm going to come to me. But now when God's time came,
almost helpless as a dumb sheep, they took the God of the Bible
and hung Him on a cross because God released the enemy. And I
tell you this, I tell you every one of us, this preacher too,
I'm as immortal and indestructible as Superman until God gets through
with me. That's right there. The angels
of God encamp round about them that fear Him. You believe that? If I can believe that, I'd throw
this Bible down and walk out of this place right now. If God
can't control life and death, He can't do anything. You say,
well, now here's some fool. Everywhere you go, you've got
a fool. Was it Barnum that said, there's one born every minute?
Why, what if I jump in front of a truck? You've heard it? Oh, my soul. Then that's God's way for the
fool to die, wasn't it? His time's surely come. That's
what our Lord's saying. They said, we're not going down
there, they'll stone you. He said, at twelve hours in the
day. And we walk while it's day. Now, what's this? But, he said,
if a man walk in the night, what is the night? Absence of light.
Who's the light? Christ. If a man doesn't walk
in Christ, he'll stumble because there's no light in him, no light
about him. And I'll tell you this, that's
the unbeliever who walks in darkness because he doesn't have the light
Christ. But the believer, if the disciple, had not gone with
him, they'd have been in the darkness. And that's where a
believer should never be. He ought to be where his Lord
is and where his Lord would have him be. And he turned to the
disciples and said, let us go to Jerusalem. They said, we're
afraid. He said, you don't need to be
afraid. We're going to be in there a
lot of time. But now if you stay back here, you're without the
light. And you not only can stumble,
you will stumble. That ought to help us a great
deal, didn't it? See some things there that I
haven't seen. All right, let me just show you these next verses.
It sounds so much like us. Listen to the disciples argue. In verse 11, He said to them,
He said, Our friend Lazarus is asleep, and I go that I may wake
him out of sleep. And the disciples said, Well,
if he sleeps, he does well. They thought he was in bed asleep.
He's alright, the fever's broke. That's the way we are. Jesus
spake of His death, verse 13, but they thought He spoke of
taking a rest and sleep. And then Jesus said plainly to
them, He's dead! Now, that didn't stop them. He
said, I'm glad for your sakes I was not there to the intent
you may believe. Nevertheless, let's go to Him.
And Thomas, which is called Didymus, he's the one that said, I won't
believe unless I put my hand in the nail print. Well, he said,
let's go up there so we can die with him then. You know, it's
no wonder the Lord wept. It said Jesus wept. He wept over
our unbelief and wept over our attachment to the flesh and wept
over our misunderstanding of His Word, misunderstanding of
His power. I hear a bunch of religious people
sitting around here arguing about once saved, always saved, eternal
security, where King got his wife, who's sick, sick, sick,
who's an antichrist, will Russia fight America, yackety, yackety,
yackety, yack. Isn't it amazing that the Lord
of Glory just doesn't turn the world upside down and dump us
all into hell? Instead of rejoicing in His providence
and rejoicing in His glory and rejoicing in His Word and rejoicing
in His revelation and rejoicing in His blessing and rejoicing
in the hope of eternal life. Lazarus is dead. The Lord, He's
with the Father, isn't He? He believed, didn't He, Lord?
He's with the Father? No. Let's go die with Him. Let's
go die with Him. They're human like we are. That's
us. Then when Jesus came, He found, verse 17, He laid in the
grave four days already. I'm preaching too long. Let me
give a few more things here. And He stopped about two miles
from Bethany. Bethany was now into Jerusalem
about 15 furlongs, which is two miles. And many of the Jews came
to Mary and Martha to comfort them concerning their brother
who was dead. Martha, as soon as she heard
Jesus was coming, went out to meet Him. But Mary stayed at
home. And Martha said, Lord, if you'd
have been here, He wouldn't have died. More, more argument. More conflict. If you'd have
been here, He wouldn't have died. But I know this. I'll tell you
what I believe. If you'd have been here, He wouldn't have died.
And I believe even now, whatever you ask God, He'll give you.
Jesus said, well, your brother will rise again. Martha said,
I know he'll rise again in the resurrection of the last day.
I believe in the resurrection. He said, Martha, I am the resurrection. This is what I train and study
and try to convince myself and make every effort to convince
you. We don't believe in a resurrection of the dead. We believe in a
Lord who is the resurrection and the life. Because He lives,
I live. He is the resurrection. He is
the life. He is my atonement. He is my
sanctification. He is my righteousness. He is
my wisdom. He is my mediator. Salvation
is a person! Not a plan, or a proposition,
or a profession of faith, or a commitment to church, or walking
by some rules and regulations. It's an intimate, vital, living
marriage to and union with a person. Martha, I am the resurrection. It's a committal to Christ. He said, He that believeth in
me. Though He's dead, He's living. He's on the earth, He's living.
If He's in glory, He's living. Whosoever liveth and believeth
in Me really never dies. Never dies. He just moves from this place
to another place, but He's not dead. Really. When we leave here and go to
be with our Lord, we're really alive then. One old man said,
they said to him as he began to breathe his last breath, they'd
hold his hand, trying to comfort him, and one of them said, well,
you'll soon be leaving the land of the living. Oh, no, he said. I'm leaving the land of the dead.
I'm going to the land of the living. I'm going where death
doesn't reign, where men die no more, where there's no darkness,
where the Lamb is the light. Death is our carnation. I understand
these doctors putting artificial hearts. They're trying to keep
people alive because that's all they've got. Boy, if that's all
you've got, fight to keep it. Because if you ever breathe your
last tear, that's the end. There's no hope, no expectation.
No anticipation, you're dead. Somebody said when they executed
Richard Bruno Hoffman, the headlines read, Hoffman, troubles are over. No, not quite. Trouble just began. His troubles just began. So just
fight to keep them alive, if that's all they got. If this
is life, we are all men most miserable. But this is not life. There's life in me which is the
life of God. But one day I'm going to lay
down a dead body and really live and never die. That's what Christ
is. You say, do you believe this? Look at that verse 27. Do you
believe this? That I am the resurrected? That
he that heareth my word and believeth on me, though he were dead, he'll
live again. She said, I believe that our...
Now watch this. She said unto him, Lord, I see
myself so much here. Yeah, I do believe that our Christ,
the Son of God, which is coming to this world. And when she said
that, she went her way. She got a little tea. She'd come
out there with her guns loaded. She'd come out and said, if you'd
been here, he wouldn't have died. But yet I know now, whatever
you say, the Lord will give you. And he said, he'll rise. I know
he'll rise in the resurrection. He said, Martha, let's get this
thing down. I'm ready. Do you believe that? And she calmed down. She said,
I believe you're the Christ, the Son of God, which has come
into the world. And she went home. See that? I've never seen that before.
But Martha didn't labor anymore. She let her go. And I'll tell
you this. I wrote this down right here.
I wrote this down. When she gave her confession
of faith from her heart, she calmly went her way. This is
the rest and the assurance and the confidence of faith which
we receive from His Word. He said to her, I'm the resurrection. Do you believe me? She said,
I do, and went home quietly. Her feathers were soothed out,
John. It's all right now. It's all right, I have His Word.
Whatever He does, it's all right. Well, I want you to come down
here to the last part, and I'll try to close. It says, Our Lord
wept and groaned in His Spirit. I've already commented on that.
But finally, He said in verse 39, first He said, Where did
you lay Him? Now, will you please understand
something? That when the living God asks a man a question, He's
not asking for information. He said, Adam, where are you?
Let's hear it from you. Cain, where is your brother? He says, where have you laid
him? Our Lord, never dead. just demonstrate
for foolish purposes his omniscience and omnipotence. That's why he
always had a purpose. So he never discounted, from
very few times, the humanist. He said just, where did you put
him? And they took him to the grave. Now watch this. And when
he got to the grave, he said in verse 39, you take away the
stone. You see, here's the thing. These
people, the fault finders, can always find fault. Back a few
verses, when our Lord was standing there weeping, somebody said,
Oh, look how he loved Lazarus. He wept. And another one said,
Well, why couldn't you have healed him? You see that in verse 37? Could not this man who opened
the eyes of the blind have caused Lazarus not to have died? How
come he didn't do that? What have you done for me lately?
That's what they say. How come he didn't do that? But
he said, you roll away the stone. Now, here's what he received.
We should never discount, discourage, or do away with the means God
has given us and the human instrumentality. He said, you take away the stone. Our Lord uses means. He uses
the preaching of the gospel. He uses your prayer. He uses
your witness. You take away the stone. You've
got a dead friend. I'm talking about spiritually
dead, you take away the stone. Remove the stone of perdition.
Remove the stone of religious custom. Remove the stone of your
own bad attitude. Remove some stone. Get some junk
out of the way, from between the sinner and the Lord. Get
some things out of the way that can be removed. They can be removed. Well, here comes practical Martha
again. Martha, you hear this? Practical Martha. Martha spoke
up and said, Lord, he's been dead four days. He's stinking. Will we ever, and this is us,
will we ever in here understand something of His power over all
things? But, but, but, He said, Martha,
didn't I say unto you, if you would believe, you'd see the
glory of God? Brethren, don't make objects
of worship out of these people of Scripture. They're just like
us. Just like us. They talk about these people
riding their automobile with St. Jude on the dashboard. It won't help you. Jews, just like the rest of us,
He needs grace. And then our Lord stood there
in verse 43, and He said, Lazarus, come forth. Now, I want you to
listen to me just a moment. It was Lazarus personally that
He called. It was Lazarus personally. And one day, He'll say, come
forth, and everybody's going to come forth. But right now,
He said, Lazarus, come forth. Now listen, can you imagine this?
Here was a man who'd been dead for four days. Four days. I've seen people laid on the
slab in the mortician's parlor who'd just been dead a few hours.
Actually, the mortician wants them as quickly as he can get
them. If he doesn't get them pretty quickly, there's a real
problem. But this man's been dead 96 hours. That's four days. He'd
been dead a long time, 48, 48, that's 96 hours. Eyes were dried and crusted. Heart was still and collapsed
and probably already began to rot. Lungs totally collapsed
and stuck together. Blood clotted. They didn't embalm
him. His veins hadn't pumped any blood,
and they were probably broken open, swollen and broken. His
bones, totally stiff. Rigor mortis, or whatever they
call it, had set in. Nerves, totally useless. And yet our Lord said, Laszlo,
come forward. And those eyes saw again. Just
like that. Those legs, that heart pumped
blood, those lungs pumped air, he was just, Lazarus was just
as beautifully alive physically as he'd ever had been. At the
voice of the Son of God. Now I'm telling you, his power,
there it is, there's his power, his power over all things. And
I'm not telling you that so somebody say, You know, let's have a healing
service. Yeah, let's have one, but I'm
talking about spiritual healing. I'm talking about men in graves,
and dead in trespasses and sin, with no eyes to see, and no ears
to hear, and no legs to walk, and no lungs to breathe, and
no life of God. And Christ says, by His power
through His Word, of His own will beget He us with the Word.
Live! And that man lived. And when
old Lazarus came out of that grave, our Lord made a statement.
He said, Loose him. Loose him. He's wrapped up with
grave clothes. Loose him and let him go. And that's what I want to say
when men and women are converted to the church and to pastors.
Don't bind them with the old bondage of Levitical law and
ceremony and circumcision and all this. Don't bind them with
all your rules and regulations and discipline. Let them go. They live. They got you. They got life from
within. They don't get it from you. Teach
them. but loose them, turn them loose,
at God's children, and let them go. I believe that Jesus is the Son
of God, and that He's the Christ, and that He's totally, completely
sovereign King of kings and Lord of lords. in eternity past, eternity
future, and all in between. And he reigns with all authority
in heaven, earth, and under the earth, and giveth it to whom
he will. But the Father hath given him
all judgment and all authority, and the Son will quicken whom
he will. And he's not in your hands to do anything with. You're
in his hands. And he'll let Lazarus lay in
the grave, or he'll call him forth. But you can't do it. It's not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." It
may be, it may be, like the king of Nineveh said, if we'll get
down there with Mary in the dust at His feet, it may be that He'll
give us a glimpse of mercy and a word of grace. And if He speaks,
I live, and I'll never die. But He's got the Spirit. And we wait on Him. Our Father,
thank You for Your Word. How sweet and precious and rich
and assuring and comforting is Your Word. But Your Word, the
written Word, is a revelation of the living Word. In it and
through it and by it we see Him. More of Him, more of Him, help
us to be able in our minds and hearts to live and think and
experience what we say we believe. Oh, that we might live what we
believe. In His name we pray, Amen.