Singing tonight, good hymns of
praise. Let's open our Bibles this evening
to John chapter 11. John chapter 11. I ended the message last week
looking at Martha's confession of faith as it is given in verse
27. When the Lord Jesus asked her,
does thou believe or believest thou this? She said unto him,
yea Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God,
which should come into the world. The Apostle John tells us, whosoever
believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Tonight, we'll
begin with verse 28. And when she had so said, she
went her way and called Mary her sister, secretly saying,
the Master is come and calleth for thee. As soon as she had
heard that, she arose quickly and came unto him. Now Jesus
was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha
met him. The Jews then, which were with
her in the house and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that
she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She
goeth unto the grave to weep there. Then when Mary was come
where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet saying
unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not
died. When Jesus therefore saw her
weeping and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned
in the spirit and was troubled and said, where have you laid
him? They said unto him, Lord, come
and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews,
behold how he loved him. And some of them said, could
not this man which opened the eyes of the blind have caused
that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again
groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave and
a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, take ye away the
stone Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him,
Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days.
Jesus saith unto her, said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest
believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took
away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And
Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that
thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest
me always, but because of the people which stand by, I said
it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he
thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth,
bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was bound
about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, loose
him and let him go. Then many of the Jews which came
to Mary and had seen the things which Jesus did believed on him. Tonight we're looking at the
verses which follow Martha's confession of faith, verses which
tell of the miracle the miracle of the Lord Jesus Christ when
he raised Lazarus, Lazarus having been dead four days. This has
to be the greatest of the miracles our Lord wrought when he was
here upon the earth. Now of the many things that we've
just read, many things that we could look at, if we went verse
by verse and looked at everything, we would be a long time going
through this gospel or any other book in the scripture. But I've
chosen four things that I want to emphasize to us tonight from
this passage. First, the Lord, the Lord sympathized
with his people. You know, the Apostle John began
this gospel declaring the deity, the Godhead of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Word is God and the word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. We know that he is the son of
man who is also the son of God. The writer of Hebrews tells us
that we have not, now listen, we have not an high priest which
cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. but was in
all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. The Lord Jesus Christ sympathized
with his people. You notice in verse 33, John
tells us, and he was an eyewitness to this, he tells us that when
the Lord Jesus saw Mary weeping, and the Jews who had come to
comfort her, weeping, that he groaned in the spirit and was
troubled. Now this shows us that he had
a human soul, our spirit, and he was touched. He was touched
with the feeling of the sadness and the sorrow that he saw in
Martha and Mary's grief. If you look in your marginal
reading where it says in our translation, was troubled at
the end of verse 33. He groaned in the spirit and
was troubled. In the margin, the margin it
says, he troubled himself. He troubled himself. Seeing the
sadness and the sorrow In Mary and Martha, he troubled himself. Bishop J.C. Rowe made this comment. He said, here I think, and this
is his thought. He said, here I think he saw,
that is the Lord Jesus Christ saw an occasion of exhibiting
a very deep degree of sorrow and sympathy. Partly from the
sorrowful sight he beheld, and partly from his love to Mary,
Martha, and Lazarus. Therefore he greatly, he was
greatly disturbed. He troubled himself. Here's the
truth given to us in the word of God, which no doubt is beyond
our ability to comprehend. But it has to do with the truth
of his person, that is, that he is both God and man. In his incarnation, taken into
union with his person, his eternal person, the body and soul prepared
him of the Holy Spirit. He purposefully, seeing the grief
and the sorrow of those that he loved, those that he cared
for, he troubled himself. He showed his love, and he's
showing it to you and I. That's the point we want to make
here tonight. He's showing his sympathy for you as a believer,
as a child of God. When you go through deep waters,
and when you go through sorrows and griefs, and we all will,
and we all have, and we all shall, no one escapes sorrow's sadness
in this world. Scripture says, as the sparks
fly upward, so man is born to sorrow. But our Lord here is
showing in this illustration, in this case, His deep sympathy
for His people. Now notice in verse 35. So first
of all, in verse 33, when He saw Mary weeping and saw the
Jews weeping, it was then that He troubled Himself. But then
notice in verse 38, the scripture says, or verse
35, we read that he wept. Now this word that's translated
here, wept, is a completely different word from the word in verse 33,
For weeping. It's used only one time in all
the New Testament and that's here. And it literally means
he shed tears. Jesus wept. He shed tears. We are told three times that
the Lord Jesus Christ wept. He wept when he overlooked the
city of Jerusalem. knowing the destruction that
was going to come upon that city, upon that people, because of
the rejection of himself as the Messiah, the scripture says,
he wept over Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, he
cried out. And then we are told in Hebrews
chapter 5, if you want to turn here, Hebrews chapter 5, that
when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane, and remember it was
there that he said his soul was sorrowful even unto death. But here the writer of Hebrews
tells us something that we are not told in the Gospels. The Gospels record our Lord there
in the Garden of Gethsemane when he threw himself upon the ground
and prayed, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me. But here in Hebrews 5 and verse
7 we are told, Who in the days of his flesh, speaking of Christ,
in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and
supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able
to save him from death. and was heard in that he feared. Though he were a son, yet learned
he obedience by the things which he suffered. As a son, as a daughter
of God, we too learn by experience through the things which we suffer. Jesus wept. Now different reasons
are suggested as to why he shed tears. One is because he knew. He knew what he was going to
do. And I made this point, and the Lord Jesus Christ told his
disciples, Lazarus is dead. Now when a believer dies, their
spirit goes to be with the Lord immediately. That's where Lazarus
had gone. Just as the Lord Jesus Christ
told that man who trusted in Him while on the cross, this
day thou shalt be with me in paradise. Lazarus, four days
before this, had left this world of sin and sorrow and sickness
and death and every other thing, every other misery that sin has
brought into this world. He had left all of that. He had
gone to be with the Lord. And the Lord Jesus Christ knew
He was going to call him back. That is suggested as one of the
reasons that Jesus wept. Another, and there are several.
I'm only going to give these two. There are several. Another
is that He showed His concern for His people. As the scripture
tells us, we are to rejoice with those who rejoice, and we are
to weep with those who weep. And his people here were weeping,
and so he, in obedience to the word of God, to the law of God,
so he wept, he wept. Then notice in verse 38, the
point I'm making is that the Lord Jesus Christ sympathized. He sympathized. He troubled himself. He wept. And then in verse 38,
we read, Jesus therefore again, again groaning in himself, cometh
to the grave. His groaning here, what What
caused this, his groaning at this time? Again, there are several
reasons suggested, but I believe, basically, what caused the Lord
Jesus Christ to groan at this time was the unbelief. I mean, all around him. Yes,
even including Mary and Martha. There was unbelief. Here is the
Son of God, and nothing is impossible for Him. Nothing. And yet notice
what they said in verse 37. Some of them said, could not
this man? Could not this man which opened
the eyes of the blind? Well, yes, absolutely. No doubt
about it. Without question. Yes, this man,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He could have kept this man from
dying. We see the unbelief. in what these people said. Could
not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused
that even this man should not have died? Unbelief. What is
unbelief? It's sin. He's in the midst of
unbelief, in the midst of sinners and sin. And so he groaned again
in himself. Again, my point is to emphasize
that we have a sympathizing Savior. The Lord God, as we read in the
book of Hebrews, Jesus Christ the same, the same yesterday. Yesterday, right here. Yesterday.
Today. And forever. He doesn't change. Whatever your grief is, whatever
your sorrow is, we have a sympathizing high priest who may be touched
with the feeling of our infirmity. The second point I would like
to emphasize is the Lord Jesus used means in
accomplishing His will. When He came to the cave, where
they had laid the body of Lazarus. Notice what we read in verses
39 and 40. The Lord Jesus Christ, He who
is God Almighty, omnipotent, He used means in accomplishing
His will. Jesus said, take ye away the
stone. Now Don't you know that he who
had the power to call Lazarus back from the grave, all he had
to do was just in his mind, not even say the word, just think.
Move, get out of the way. A stone, be thou removed. And
the stone would have obeyed. But the Lord Jesus Christ chose
to command those there, take ye away the stone. And this serves at least two
purposes in my mind. First of all, this is a final,
a final testimony to the fact that Lazarus was dead. When our Lord asked where have
you laid him, this was also evidenced. And the fact that he had been
in the grave for four days, and a stone covered the mouth of
that cave. But here is a final testimony
to the fact that Lazarus was dead. There's no question about
it. There's no collusion. There's
no collusion here between Christ and Lazarus or his sisters. He
was dead. The Lord Jesus Christ, in verse
14, He told His disciples, Lazarus is dead. Martha said he's dead
in verse 21. Mary said in verse 32 he's dead. The Jews in verse 37 said he's
dead. And a final testimony is that
Martha, she did not want the stone to be removed because she
realized that after four days his body would have already begun
to deteriorate. So it is a testimony, a final
testimony that Lazarus was dead. But it's also a testimony to
the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ uses means. Take ye away
the stone. He who had the power to raise
Lazarus from the dead could have easily commanded the stone to
remove, but he didn't. And we see this through the Word
of God. God is sovereign. We believe
that with all of our heart. The Word of God declares that.
That's not even questionable, is it? That He's sovereign in
all things. And yet the Word of God shows
us that He uses means. He can work without means or
with means. But He chooses to use means many
times. He used these men. to remove
the stone. When the children of Israel,
when they left Egypt, the first watering hole they came to, you
remember, there was water there all right, but it was bitter.
It was bitter. And God used means to heal the
water. God showed Moses, there's a tree
there. That tree In my mind, it's a
picture of the cross, isn't it? There's a tree there. You put
that tree into the water and it will sweeten the waters. God used means. Whatever bitter
waters you go through and I go through in this life, there's
a tree, there's a cross of the Lord Jesus Christ to make the
bitter waters sweet. when God would add 15 years to
the life of Hezekiah. And God told him he would do
it, but Isaiah told him to make a cake of figs, didn't he, and
put that on the boil. Yes, he used a lump of figs as
a plaster upon the boil. And we are told in 1 Corinthians
1 and verse 21, that it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. It's not a question of what God
can do or what he cannot do. It's a question, it's a matter
of what he has chosen to do. And he's chosen through the preaching
of the gospel, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word
of God. He's chosen through the foolishness
of preaching. Now, you know he's not saying
through foolish preaching. There's nothing foolish about
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the world, the world
considers preaching, the preaching of the cross, foolishness. They've
got all kinds of remedies, they think, how-to books to solve
man's problems. They've outgrown what God has
chosen to use, and He's chosen to use the preaching of the gospel. And by preaching, of course,
I mean what I'm doing tonight and what we do here, but also
in witnessing and handing out tracts and speaking to others
about Christ. These are means that God has
ordained and God uses in calling out His people. And again, I
would say it's not a matter of what God can do or cannot do. Yes, he could save someone in
a desert alone by himself. He could speak to him from heaven.
But God, even when he would save that Ethiopian eunuch who was
traveling across the desert, what did he do? He sent a preacher
to him. And that preacher came along
and began to explain to him the scripture. The Word of God. We see also that when Lazarus
was raised, when he came out of the grave, he was bound. Notice that in verse 44. And
he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with his grave
clothes. And there was a napkin around
his face as well. And the Lord again He used means. He told the men there, loose
him, loose him and let him go. And you and I, those of us who
are saved here tonight, if we know our own hearts, we must
confess when the Lord saved us, we came out with a lot of grave
clothes, a lot of grave clothes. And through the ministry of the
word of God, God has been loosing us and showing us the truth. Here's the third thing. The Lord
testified to being the Christ. In verse 41, the end of verse
41, it says, And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father,
I thank thee that thou hast heard me, and I knew that thou hearest
me always, but because of the people which stand by I said
it, now notice, that they may believe that thou has sent me. He purposefully looked toward
heaven and prayed, he prayed so that those around him would
hear that he was speaking to his father and he thanked his
father who he knew always heard him, that is, that they were
one in essence and one in purpose, and that he did always the works
of the Father. He did this, he says, that they
may believe that thou hast sent me. That means that he's the
Christ, that he's the Christ of God. Our Lord testified to
being the Christ. And the last thing, the fourth
thing, the Lord called Lazarus forth from the dead, verse 43. And when he had thus spoken,
he cried with a loud voice. Notice this cry is personal,
isn't it? He called Lazarus by name. There
was no doubt many dead people, many bodies buried there in that
area, cemetery, whatever it was. But he called Lazarus by name. Now some people have said that
if he had not named Lazarus, that everyone in the graves would
have come forth. I don't know that that's so.
I know he had the power to do that. But we are told he called
Lazarus by name. And he knows his sheep. He calls
his sheep by name out of the grave of spiritual death. A number of comforting truths
come to us in thinking about this miracle. Surely, think with
me just a moment, surely he who has the power to call back to
life, one who had been dead four days, has the power to help us
along life's journey. He has the power, surely. Surely there is no sinner, no
matter how far buried in sin he or she may be, that Christ
does not have the power to save. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation unto everyone that believeth. Surely there's
no sinner, no matter how far buried in sin he may be, that
Christ does not have the power to call and to save. To save. Oh, what a wonderful word that
is, isn't it? To be saved. To be saved tonight. To be saved from our sins. Amen. What a wonderful truth. Surely, we who know Christ may
go to the grave. When it comes our time, we may
go to the grave in full and certain anticipation and expectation
of the resurrection. Because as he called Lazarus
from the grave, one day he shall descend and he shall raise the
vile bodies of all of his who lie in the grave And they shall
receive, and if it's us, we shall receive a glorious body like
unto his glorious body. May the Lord bless His word to
all of us here this evening. I'm going to ask David to lead
us in a final hymn.