Hello and welcome to our broadcast this morning. We're again in John chapter 11. We'll begin at verse number 39 and we're going to get Lazarus out of the tomb today. Stay tuned for our broadcast. We're reading today in John chapter 11, verse number 39. Jesus said, take ye away the stone. Martha, 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 had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazar, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot, with grave clothes, and his face was bound about him with a napkin. And 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. But some of them went their ways, to the Pharisees and told them what things Jesus had done. Well, if we see things here as they really were, we have Jesus, we have Mary and Martha, we have those who had come from Jerusalem and friends and some not so friends as we'll see here, who had come to the funeral for Lazarus and Jesus says, take ye away Can you imagine the crowd when Jesus said that? They're looking at each other. Some are saying, was he crazy? Even Martha said, Lord, he's been dead for four days. Take ye away the stone. Well, it's interesting, first of all, that God would use man to do that. He could have just had it roll away. He could have had it explode. He could have had anything. He's all powerful. But no, he chooses to use man to do the things that he wants done in this world. So he says, you're standing there, get the picture, you're standing there, all right? And Jesus says, take ye away the stone. What are you going to do? Who did it? I mean, they're large stones. It would take a few people to do it. They couldn't just take one man over there and roll that stone away. Who did it? Who responded? Would you respond? In that situation, with your peers there, with all that crowd, who's going to roll away a stone? This is ridiculous. You don't roll away a stone if a person's been dead for four days. Would you do it? Somebody did it. Then it says in verse 41, then they took away the stone. Who are they? We don't know who they are, but we do know that somebody said, I'm going to do what Jesus says to do regardless if everybody thinks I'm crazy or not. Well, we see here that 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 heardest me always, but because the people which stand by, I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me." Now notice, he's praying out loud here, and he's praying obviously because he said, I want the people that stand by to hear this. So he says, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. Notice the connection. Thou hast heard me. Now you know the Bible says very plainly, if we regard iniquity in your heart, God will not hear us. Psalm 66 and 18. Jesus could say, which of you convinces me of sin? He is getting this message across right here. He says, thou hast heard me. And then he says, I knew that thou hearest me. And then he said, thou hast sent me. thou and me, thou and me, thou and me. Thou hast heard me, thou hear me now, and thou hast sent me." He is saying for the people, this needs to be understood that I and God are one. I am doing what I am doing at the will of the Father. He has sent me. And when he had thus spoken, it says, he cried with a loud voice, Come forth, Lazarus, come forth." They cried with a loud voice. You got a great picture here of the rapture, don't we? The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 4, 16, that the Lord himself shall come with a shout and then the dead in Christ shall rise. Well, he cries with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. Now he said, as many have said before, he probably used the name Lazarus, the whole graveyard would have come forth, all the entire dead would have come forth. No, all the entire dead aren't coming forth at the rapture either. The Bible says that those that know him, the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be gathered together with him. So when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice. You can imagine at this point, the tomb is open, And the crowd is in total silence as they watch. And Jesus cries with a loud voice so that everyone can hear, Lazarus, come forth. Well, I don't know how long it was before he came out of that tomb. Apparently this tomb, there's even pictures of it on the internet, if it's the same one, there's 24 steps that go down into the first chamber. And then there's three more steps that go down into the burial chamber. If that's the case, Lazarus is down there. He's down 24 steps, make a turn to the left, go down three more steps where he actually is. And he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. Now can you imagine at that point, Lazarus. Can you imagine him? He's laying there. He's been dead for four days. Everything is being totally reversed here. God has that power. His eyes are going to be able to see again. His heart's going to start pumping blood again. What an amazing thing it must have been at that particular moment for Lazarus. And then in verse 44, we read, He that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was bound about with a napkin. And Jesus saith unto him, Loose him, and let him go. Loose him. Now here, once again, he could have just automatically had all of these grave clothes fall off of him before he even came out of the tomb. No, he said, Loose him. Well, who's going to do that? Would you do that? There's a crowd watching. The Pharisees are going to hear about this. You're going to get in trouble if you do anything Jesus says to do. Don't forget, don't forget, this is where they are trying to kill him. You remember the disciples said, we shouldn't go back down there. They're trying to kill you. And Thomas said, yeah, let's go. They can kill us all. We'll die like Lazarus did. This is hostile territory that we're in right here. Well, somebody obeyed. Somebody did it. They loosed Him. Now, notice what it says here, the progression. It says that they should loose Him hand, foot, and face. Hand, that represents the work that we're going to do. The feet, that represents where we're going to go. The face, that represents what we're going to see, what we're going to perceive. And so, once a person trusts Christ as their personal Savior, that's just the beginning. What we need to do now is loose Him He has been bound. He's got to get his hands free. There's work to do. He's got to get his feet free. There's places to go for the Lord. And he's got to understand. He's got to have some perception about the things of the Lord. And that's why God has supplied pastors and local churches for the last 2,000 years to get this done. It is also interesting here that he says, loose him and let him go. Get him away from this crowd. They're going to want to come and they're going to want to interview him and they're going to want him to share all the things that went on from when he went to heaven and came back and all the things he had done. This is not for the spectators, not at all. He goes and he talks to his family. Loose him and let him go. And God has not even recorded what was said in that case. It's like Paul, when he saw heaven, he said, it's not permitted for me to tell you what I saw. Well, we read in verse 45, then, many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him. Now, when it says many of the Jews, that's many of the few. Compared to the nation of Israel, there's not very many people here. But many of the few that were there, it says, believed. There's always going to be a remnant. There's always going to be some who will say, yes, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And that remnant is getting smaller and smaller every day. Well, we read that many believe, but then in verse 46 we read, but some of them went their ways to the Pharisees and told them what things Jesus had done. Yep, they were spies. They were there. They were going to go right away and report to the Pharisees. They went their ways. You know, again, it's simply choices and consequences. Some people believed, some people went their way. Well, they go to the Pharisees and they told them what things Jesus had done. And verse 47, Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council and said, What do we do? What do we do? What are we going to do? For this man does many miracles. What do you do? What you should do is just realize that you're going to acknowledge that this is Jesus Christ. He is the Son of God. Fall on your face and repent of your sins. That's what you should do. No, that's not what they're going to do. They said in verse 48, If we let him alone, all men will believe on him, and the Romans shall come and take away our place and our nation. Oh, what are we going to do? The Romans are going to come. Well, you got the Romans. We don't want them to take away our place. Now, if you look in the Scriptures in the early part of the book of Acts several times, the place. This same Greek word is usually referring to their temple. And they're saying, oh, the Romans will come and they'll take away our temple. Our temple is supposed to be God's temple, not their temple. But the Pharisees and the Sadducees They thought it was theirs, much like today, we get to the end of the Laodicean age and the Bible tells us very plainly that when Jesus said in Matthew that he said, I will build my church, but when you get to the book of Revelation, God warns the pastors there, you better straighten up or I'll take away thy candlestick, thy church. Yeah, it had turned, and that's exactly the way things were here back then. I guess the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn anything from history. Well, they're all concerned, and they say, well, what are we going to do if we let him alone? Everybody will believe on him. We certainly don't want that. And then the Romans will come and take away our temple. Well, they had to come up with some kind of plan, so that wouldn't happen. How did their plan work? Well, they chose the Romans over Christ, and we've got to save our temple. Well, 40 years later, under Titus, the Romans came in, absolutely destroyed their temple, and all of Jerusalem for that matter, and sent them all into captivity. Yep, choices and consequences. Well, you would have thought, after someone was raised from the dead, that these Pharisees and Sadducees and all these chief priests and these religious hypocrites would have believed on the Lord. But there's another story back in Luke 16, another man named Lazarus, and the Bible says that they will not be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. You can see that story in Luke chapter 16. Well, it says in verse 53, Then from that day forth they took counsel together, for to put him to death. They took counsel together. Isn't that interesting? See, this is made up of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Now, the Pharisees and the Sadducees were bitter enemies. They were religious people. Of course, they were all involved. You know, the high priest and all these people, Sadducees, Pharisees, they're all in together. And the Sadducees, they didn't believe in the resurrection. Well, what are you going to do with this story? What shall we do? It's no wonder they were saying that. Pharisees believed in the resurrection, but they didn't get along together at all. The only time they got together about anything was when they got together, they took counsel together to put him to death. Yeah, they get together on that one. Well, verse 54 says, Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews. but went thence into a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples." He went to Ephraim. That's interesting. Therefore. Now, Jesus, therefore. Why is the therefore, therefore? Whenever you see the word therefore, you ask yourself, what is therefore? Well, it's there because of the fact that from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death. And therefore, that is, Jesus knew all about what they were doing. And so he goes to Ephraim. Now, what do we know about Ephraim? Nothing. There's nothing known about that place at all. The only thing we know about that name, it was the name that was given to the tribes that were in apostasy back in the Old Testament. Well, he goes there, and there he continued with his disciples. Verse 55 says, The Jews' Passover was nigh and was at hand, and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves as they stood in the temple, what think ye that he will not come to the feast? They're looking for him like they might be wanting an autograph or something. They're certainly not interested in what he's doing. They're going to be crying, crucify him in a little while. Well, our time's gone. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for another broadcast.