As the pastor said, we're in John chapter 11. You remember John tells us near the end of the book, in chapter 20, that he wrote these things so that you would believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And truly, if any chapter shows him to be the Son of God, the one where he raises the dead would accomplish that. I want you to think about this chapter, maybe in a couple of ways you may not have thought about it before, because we've all heard or read and read ourselves the passage of Jesus raising Lazarus. But a lot of this is a theology of waiting. And there's different perspectives to take on it. But from the perspective of Mary and Martha, it's a perspective of waiting. We want our prayers to be answered the way the prayer of Daniel in chapter 9 of his book was answered. You pray and a few minutes later there's an angel out in front of you here to give you the answer. We kind of know how we want it answered. I'll tell God how he can fix my problem for me. And often it's out of accord with Scripture, because you get to a place like 1 Peter, where he says, I know you're suffering. By the way, that's a blessing of God. And Peter never tells them to pray for the suffering to end. I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm just telling you it's not there. What an interesting thing. And what you'll see is, God sometimes has a purpose in waiting that we can't see. And so we sort of jump the gun and think, well, either the answer is no or whatever. But there's a purpose in waiting, and you're going to see that here. As the book opens, in verse 1 of chapter 11, a certain man was sick, named Lazarus of Bethany. Now, we learn more about these people later on in the book. In fact, there's a little little parenthetical in verse 2 that will tell us about that. But Lazarus of Bethany, Bethany is just right outside of Jerusalem. I mean it's just right there like a mile and a half, a little village. The town of Mary and her sister Martha. Now he says this writing long after these events when these people's names were like household names among Christians. It's Lazarus and Mary and Martha. Mary is really Miriam, by the way, and Martha. It was that Mary, you know, the problem with the Bible, there's a lot of Marys going around, right? It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. This happens in John chapter 12. So you get there. But this story about healing Lazarus isn't in the other Gospels. If you've read the other Gospels, you know about Martha and Mary, but you don't know about this particular incident. And so he is reminding at least a reader who may have heard those stories, who they are. Therefore his sister sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. By the way, this verse has led some people to believe that Lazarus wrote this gospel instead of John, because John never identifies himself by name in the gospel, but he refers later in John 13 to the disciple whom the Lord loved. Anyway, there's whole books written about who wrote this gospel of John, but the early church history, everyone was pretty well in agreement John wrote it. Just an aside there, his sisters are sending an urgent message. It wasn't like, Jesus, just letting you know, Lazarus has a sore throat. It was like, Jesus, he's on his deathbed. And what you kind of figure out here is Jesus isn't far away. All he had to do was come to the deathbed and heal him. And they knew who could do it. There was no question he could do it. And he intentionally does not. And that's what makes the story have a lesson for us. So they say, he's sick, it's an urgent message. When Jesus heard this, he said, and he said to his disciples, this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. It's interesting in John 9, remember what the blind man, his disciples said, this guy's blind, whose sin? Him or his parents. And Jesus basically says, he's blind from birth, So that I can be glorified as you'll see what will happen and it's much for the same thing with with Lazarus No, Jesus says it's not unto death, but you everybody knows he dies He ain't gonna stay dead That's that's the point and they don't they don't get it when they hear this when he said it's not unto death I don't think they really get it at that time Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus you understand Jesus had friends. You know, I've never thought about that I mean when when we read that Jesus was in all ways tested as we are and had the full experience of being a human being in that sense. That he got hungry, he got sad, he suffered the losses of people he loved. He loved these people. We don't know a great deal about it other than they clearly had a very close friendship. And when he had heard, therefore, that he was sick, he abode two days. You see, that therefore doesn't seem to make much sense. You get a call. Jesus, he doesn't have long. You know, he's just not going to make it more than another day or so. Therefore, hearing that news, Jesus says, we're going to wait a couple of days. you put them together, he's totally in control of what's happening. He knows exactly what's going to happen. There's a little more to why he waits, and we'll see that in a moment. But he abode two days still in the same place where he was, and then after that, after the two days that is, he says to his disciples, let us go into Judea again. The idea then is he is outside of Judea. And the reason is, as we've already seen, like at the end of John 8, they're trying to kill him. They're after him. He'll be arrested. Remember, in John 7, they sent the temple police, the high priest did, sent the temple police to put him under arrest. And they did not arrest him at that time, but they were trying to. So he's avoiding Judea. And now he goes into Judea. His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee. That's exactly what we've seen. And goest thou thither again. In other words, why are you going to go there and walk into a trap, walk into an ambush? They're going to stone you. And Jesus says, 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. And he's speaking metaphorically. While it's daytime, Jesus says, I'm going to do the will of God. You do the will of God when it's time to do the will of God. And if you have people who would stand in the way, you do it anyway. You see that in the life, for example, of Nehemiah. He's there to build that wall, and he does it in just over 50 days. And he's got a lot of people trying to stand in his way. And one thing you see about Nehemiah is he's very wise in how he deals with those people, like Sam Ballett and stuff that you read about there. But he just moves forward. God says he wants me to build this wall. We're building the wall, and he does it. And that's what Jesus is talking about. You can't say, well, we're going to divert the work of God because there's some people standing in our way. There will always be people to stand in your way. And so look at this one expression, though. He says, if a man walks in the day, he stumbles not because he seeth the light of this world. Who's that a reference to? He ain't talking about the sun hanging in the sky, although that's the physical picture. He sees the Son of God and therefore knows it's time to, as a disciple of Christ, to work, to do His will, to follow Him where He goes. There will be a time when it will come dark. and you won't be able to do that. That's what he's talking about. So these things he said, after he says one of them, our friend Lazarus sleeps. That's a euphemism, because we don't like to talk about death, and so sometimes we'll say things like that someone has passed, or something like that, or lighten it a little. That's what Jesus did, and they don't get it. They're like, well, he's taking a nap. Let's just wait a while. He'll wake up. They're like, OK, you're being thick now. So his disciples, Lord, if he sleeps, he shall do well. Let the man sleep. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death, and they thought that he had spoken of taking a rest, or sleep. And so Jesus says plainly in verse 14, Lazarus is dead. So they get it. It was beyond comprehension in their mind that Jesus would allow Lazarus to die without going to heal him. That's the reason, I think, they don't believe that he died until Jesus actually says it. They don't get the expression, because why would you do that? They don't get it. Jesus will teach them a lesson, and he's going to teach a lesson to the people that are mourning the death of Lazarus in a moment. Jesus says, I'm glad for your sakes that I was not there. That is, that I wasn't there to heal Lazarus, to the intent that you may believe." I thought they were already saved. What is it that they need to believe? They need to believe Jesus can raise dead people, including himself, which is something he said in the last chapter. I'll lay my life down and I'll take it up again. Nevertheless, let us go on to him. And then said Thomas. Now, Thomas has a glass, you know, kind of half-empty sort of attitude, kind of negative, more than once in the book when he's mentioned. Thomas, which is called Didymus, says unto his fellow disciples, let us also go that we may die with him. Like, whoa. You know, the danger was real. But this is a lack of faith. Jesus will die at the moment He chooses, and He will rise again at the moment He chooses. And He's not, so He's not seeing it. So see, these guys need a lesson. And then, when Jesus came, so He's not all the way to where Lazarus is, but He's approaching you, to become clear, He's approaching Bethany. 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. Many Jews, by implication, came from Jerusalem to mourn with them, to comfort them during their time of loss. And then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went out to meet him. But Mary sat still in the house and then said, Martha, unto Jesus. You see, she came out to meet him, sort of ahead of him getting to their home. Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." You're too late, and so you have to ask the question. I've been late to a lot of things, and I bet I'm not the only one. Is God ever late? What do you think? I mean, really? God, you showed up late. You know, like God got stuck in traffic on the way. He was out there on I-10 coming to him from Katy and he got stuck in traffic, so he shows up an hour late, right? Yeah, not very likely. You see how this woman's a believer. But she needs, as his own disciples do, to have even more faith than they do now, to see more of this. She believes there'll be a resurrection sometime out in the future, but most Jews believe that, even the ones who weren't Christians. She needs to get a bigger point, so there's going to be a lesson for her. She's really scolding Jesus, by the way. I know we don't kind of get the tone there, but it's kind of a, Jesus, you waited, and he's dead now, and it's all your fault. That's what we should say. I mean, you can understand this. I mean, this lady's in grief, and she really believed Jesus could heal them. She believed Jesus had the means to get there on time, and He didn't do it. But I know, she says, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. I'm not sure what she expected. We don't know. And maybe she thought maybe that there was something he could do. Jesus said, thy brother shall rise again. And see, this shows she's not thinking of an immediate resurrection. Her response, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. But all the Jewish people just do, I say all, not maybe. But most of them thought that. Jesus says, I am the resurrection of life. You know, if there were only like one or two verses that you knew of the whole Bible, this might be the two to pick. 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." Like, if you just had nothing else, and you could carry that around in your pocket, that might sustain you for a lifetime. This is a good verse. She's viewing this as about a future resurrection, but he wants to prove it to her now. Believest thou this, he says, and of course she gives a great profession of faith. Yes, Lord, I believe thou art the Christ, the Son of God. That's why he wrote the book. John 20, verse 31 says exactly that. So it's connecting this together. The Son of God, which hath come into the world, and when she had so said, she went her way and called Mary. So she goes back to the home, calls Mary secretly, saying, The Master's come and calleth for thee. And as soon as she, that is Martha heard this, obviously, or Mary heard this, she rose quickly and came unto him. She's going to scold him too. Jesus, you're late. You're four days late. Jesus was not yet in the town, but was in the place where Martha met him. And the Jews then, which were with her in the house, comforted her. And when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, you know, they followed her. So she comes with a bit of an entourage, and she goes to the grave to weep there. Then it says, 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. Lots of faith. She knew unquestionably he could heal her, but it's too late for you to do anything about it. Jesus, you're helpless in this situation. You waited too long. You've got to put this in the terms of your prayer life and our own trials and how we really decide that there's a certain path that if God's going to answer my prayer, yes, and do a blessing for me, this is what has to happen. And that's not what happens. that He has intentionally allowed him to die, and that's just the end of it. So she so scolds him. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in the Spirit. This groan isn't a groan of weeping, the word means indignation. Jesus is unhappy with their lack of faith. Note that the word weeping is kleuson. It's a Greek word that means to wail. Imagine the scene. They're not white Americans, tears but no noise. They are wailing. They are making a lot of noise. There's a bunch of them. There's the comforters, the Jewish people that are there, Mary and Martha. There's wailing. And listen to what they say. Jesus was groaned in His spirit and was troubled. He knows the man's fixing to come back to life. He's not groaning for that. And he said, where have you laid him? It's Jesus' question. They said unto him, Lord, come and see. So he wants to be escorted to the grave. Verse 35, Jesus wept. Not the same word as the weeping from 33. Theirs is to well allow. Jesus is a word only used one time in the whole of the New Testament, used here. There's other forms of it used elsewhere. And it's silently shedding tears. He is. And he could be. I wouldn't fight with anybody that he's shedding tears over Lazarus, but I think not. I think he's shedding tears over the low level of faith. You contrast that with a Roman centurion that you meet who would come to Jesus, and he's got someone sick back in Capernaum, and this man believes Jesus can heal him. He doesn't have to go there. He doesn't have to touch him or anything. I mean, Mary and Martha didn't send a letter that said, can you heal him? They thought he had to come. I'm just saying, there's a missing element here in their faith about what it means for him to be the son of God. And he's going to teach them. But then said the Jews, behold how he loves him. They perceive that Jesus is crying for Lazarus. The very fact that they think that's what he's crying for should be some indication that that is, in fact, not why he's crying. Just saying. 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? We have an argument, and it's a typical Jewish argument that is on a Calvin Comer argument. It's very prevalent in Jesus' own teachings, especially in like Matthew, where someone says, you know, they go from a greater argument to a lesser. You know, someone says, well, you can't heal a man on the Sabbath. And Jesus says, well, can't you get a, you know, if an ox falls in a hole on the Sabbath, you can do that. Or you can circumcise on the Sabbath. You can make someone less than whole on the Sabbath. If you can do that, then you can make someone whole on the Sabbath. See? And he makes this argument, you know, greater to lesser. If you can heal a blind man from birth, which is like the ultimate miracle, because they were taught that only Messiah could do that, it's not one thing to heal a blind man, but another to heal a blind man from birth, you certainly could have healed Lazarus. He wasn't even blind. He was just sick, but not blind, and not blind from birth. You could certainly have done that. That's their point. If you could heal a blind man like you did in John 9, you could have healed Lazarus, why didn't you do it? So that's the attitude. Jesus, again groaning in himself, comes to the grave, verse 38, it was a cave, and a stone lying upon it. You know, they would carve out these caves. It seems, from what glimpses we get of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, is they're wealthy. and one would usually have to have some wealth to have this kind of grave. Jesus would be buried in a tomb that's in a carved out cave, but Jesus arranged ahead of time, and we're not told exactly how it happened, but Joseph of Amarathea didn't just happen to have a freshly hewn out grave when Jesus died. You understand, he arranged the whole thing, including his funeral arrangements, as it were. And Lazarus has this carved out grave, probably the family tomb, because they got money. And it's a cave and it had a stone way up on it and Jesus said, take away the stone. Martha says, no. Dead four days. In rabbinic thought, For the first three days that you were dead, your spirit hovered above your body, and it was always some possibility that you could be resuscitated. Then after three days, the spirit would look at the face of the body and see that it was deteriorating, and it would leave and go to Sheol. It's not a Bible principle, but that's what they thought. He needed to wait to the fourth day, so nobody could say this was a resuscitation. This is beyond the period of time when, in rabbinic thought, one could be resuscitated. And so there's this emphasis on the four days. It's not arbitrary. He waited just long enough. He didn't need to wait five days, but he had to wait beyond the three. Jesus says to her, Said I not unto thee, if you would believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? She thinks future. He said, no, you're going to see it today. So he 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. A prayer. that the Father heard his prayer. I knew that thou hearest me always, but because of the people which stand by, I said it, that they might believe that thou hast sent me." That is, there's something helpful here. A lot of debate happens about why is this miracle here. He tells us. This miracle is here that they may believe. So many of the healings were done in private, and he would say, you know, go and tell nobody. This one is expressly public because this is the one that gets him killed, right? But it also makes a public statement that he can raise the dead. It's interesting, you know, of course, he talked to, you know, earlier in his ministry, not in John, but in Matthew, he said, the only sign I want to show you is the sign of Jonah. Sign of resurrection and of course that's true of his own life But this is the one miracle the one resurrection that happens after that Time when he said all I'm going to show you is a sign of Jonah, and it's in a public way It's after the three days It matters that it's a prominent family with money and And there's a bunch of Jews in Jerusalem. And the implication is, you know, these people are coming. This is a prominent family. This can't be put in a corner. You can't do like the blind guy. The blind guy in John 9 was nobody. His parents were nobody. You can kick them out of the synagogue. That's what they were threatened with. This is a prominent family. And you can't hide it. And so you have to deal with it. So what are they going to do? Well, we're going to see that. It's going to unfold here. But they're going to kill him. Jesus prays to God where they can hear him, and he says in a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And every time, like Hollywood captures this, there's a space of anticipation and waiting, but there's not. It's like he says that, and this man comes out of the grave right away. There's no waiting. He could have said, everyone come forth, and that's the point. And later, he will. He has the power. He says, I am the resurrection, the life. Let me show you how that works. Lazarus, come forth. Now, in the future, I'm going to do that for everybody. See, that's how it works. And it happens right away. He that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with the grave clothes. They would wrap him around like we think of like a mummy. They would treat the cloth to try to preserve the body some. His face was bound about with a napkin, and Jesus said unto them, Loose him and let him go. Many of the Jews which came to Mary and had seen the things which Jesus did believed. If that won't make you believe that this is the Son of God, you're beyond reach. It's very simple. And there are people in this group that don't believe. And so, here's the reality. We don't like it. we can't convince everybody. We just can't. I mean, no amount of apologetics, no amount of pleading. There's some people that could see the Son of God visibly raising dead people and have, nope, nope, I don't believe. Well, what more do you want? I mean, really. So, then gathered the chief priest. See, it says in verse 46 that some of them went and told the Pharisees what had happened. Then gathered the chief priest and the Pharisees a council. This is an unholy huddle. What do we? That is, we've got to have a plan together. This man does many miracles. You see something missing here? Where's the polemic where they say, he didn't raise nobody from the dead? Everybody in town, it was going to be in the morning paper, Lazarus raised from the dead, because people knew who his family was. What are we going to do? He does these miracles. Shouldn't the response have been, if he does these miracles, this must be the Son of God? I mean, you see how that works? they view it as they're going to lose their job. Maybe the Romans will send in the soldiers because they're going to hear that people want this man to be king. Why should any of that matter? Like, have they not read their scriptures? I mean, it's just the heart motivation. It's such a hardness of heart. They don't care one iota that this man has been given his life back. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him. Oh, can't have that. and the Romans shall come and take away our place and our nation." Right? They'll perceive that this man is leading a rebellion, which is what would happen later in their history, around year 66, that would result in the Romans coming in and taking the country. That'd be bad. So one of them named Caiaphas, now he's the high priest that year. This is an example of God using a very evil person with evil intent for good, like he did in the life of Joseph. You, my brothers, meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Genesis chapter 50 and verse 20. Look what he does. He says basically almost a prophecy. He said, you know nothing at all. You dullards, listen to me because I'm really smart. That's what Caiaphas is saying. Now consider, nor consider that it's expedient for us that one man should die for the people. and that the whole nation perish not." Now, he means die so that they don't try to make him king. They don't be accused of rebellion. The Romans don't come in. It's better just to murder one guy because the means, the end justifies the means. We'll murder one guy and that will save our nation. And God's saying, you have the wrong idea but your words are right. one guy will be murdered to save the nation. See how that works? So, this make he not of himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation. You understand, apparently someone could have a prophecy from God and not understand their own prophecy. And this is an example of it. It's probably not the only one, but this is a clear example of it, how God sent this guy of prophecy. And not for that nation only, this is him adding, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. So this refers to the broader plan of God to save Jews and Gentiles. From that day forth, they took counsel together to put Him to death. He is going to be murdered for raising a dead person. That's, I mean, we send people to an execution for a lot of things, but never for raising a dead person. But that's what they do. Jesus walked no more openly among the Jews. So He, in a sense, is in hiding. He will come out of hiding when he comes in Jerusalem for the Passover uh... this is why they need to they need to pay an apostle thirty pieces of silver to find him so they can make the arrest in secret they don't want the masses to see it because that could start a riot arrest him in secret and murder him and carry out their plans in closed quarters and not publicly and so they will do that but Jesus Planning it to the to the moment timing it out. We'll sort of keep himself hidden to the right time and so He doesn't you know he doesn't walk around publicly so he went into a country near the wilderness into a city called Ephraim and There continued with its disciples And the Jews Passover was nigh at hand and many went out to the country up to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves Jesus under the law has to attend the Passover. He can't skip it, but he can go in sort of by stealth and And he'll do that to some extent Then sought they for Jesus and they spoke among themselves as they stood in the temple What think ye that he will not come to the feast that would be shocking for a Jewish rabbi not to come to the feast So both the chief priests and the fair and the Pharisees had given the commandment That if any man knew where he were he should show it that they might take him so you understand this is the sort of putting a Wanted poster up in the old west with a big reward on it wanted Jesus, you know, crime, raising dead person, payment, 30 pieces of silver. That's what goes out.