The Debbie Taylor Williams Podcast

Debbie Taylor Williams: Oh, Heavenly Father, how we thank You and praise You for Your Word. Thank You that John recorded it. Thank You for the inspiration of Your Holy Spirit in his writing. We pray that You teach us now. Jesus, I pray that You would be the one who teaches Your Word in Your power and might through me so that we might hear and understand the richness of all that You taught. In Jesus' name, amen.

I'm so glad you're here. Let me ask you a question as we begin looking at this incredible chapter of John 11. Have you ever had a time in your life where you knew that somebody was probably going to die? You perhaps sat by their bedside, or maybe it was not an illness that you expected somebody to die from, but someone passed away and all of a sudden you found yourself desperately weeping.

Perhaps weeping at their bedside or perhaps weeping even at the graveside. I had that experience when my mother passed away as well as dear friends have passed away. But my mother, in particular, I remember that we had known that she was going to pass away. She'd been ill, she'd been with hospice for six months. But then when we had her funeral service and then we went to the gravesite, I could not contain myself. I wept and wept and wept. And I had family members say that they were surprised that I was weeping like I was because Mother's death had been expected and we knew it and she had died peacefully. But still I wept for her.

Have you done that or have you perhaps wept with someone who was weeping? And as you sat with that person and their grief was so great and they were weeping so much that you entered into that experience with them and wept with them. Today we see the shortest verse in the Bible that says that Jesus wept. What was it that led up to Jesus weeping? Well, we have the account in John 11.

I'd like for us to read this even though you have studied it. Let's read from beginning with John 11 verse 1 and read along here and I'll stop and we'll discuss it and then continue. Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair. His brother Lazarus was sick.

This was actually going to happen in the next chapter and the next event, but John went ahead and referred to her here. Verse 3. So the sisters sent word to Him saying, "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick." And the implication here in the Greek with he whom You love, it's like, Your friend is sick, Lord. And we're letting You know Your friend is sick, so You can do something about it.

But when Jesus heard this, He said, "This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it." Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was. And then after this He said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." And the disciples said to Him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You and You are going there again?" And Jesus answered, "Are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day he does not stumble because he sees the light of the world. But if anyone walks in the night he stumbles because the light is not in him."

What was Jesus talking about there? He was saying, as long as you are walking in God's will, then you are not going to stumble. Yes, sometimes in God's will we still suffer, suffer persecution, suffer the natural tragedies of this life, but we are not going to stumble due to sin. And this is what Jesus is saying, that He had the confidence to make the decision that He did make about the timing for Him going to see Martha and Mary and going to Lazarus because He knew He was in God's will.

He says in verse 11, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go so that I may awaken him out of sleep." Now sleep in the Bible is a euphemism for death, but the disciples didn't understand what Jesus was saying. And so He said, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover." Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he was speaking of literal sleep. So Jesus then said to them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, but I am glad for your sakes that I was not there so that you may believe. But let us go to him." And Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go." Thomas is speaking to the disciples, not to Jesus here, and he says, "Let us also go that we may die with him."

Why would Thomas say that? If you were not with us in our prior week's study, then perhaps you do not know that the Jews, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin wanted to stone Jesus. They wanted to rid Jesus from their presence because he was drawing so many people away from them and drawing so many people to himself. And they were threatened by Jesus. And several times they had already attempted to stone him. But Jesus had slipped from his presence. He was actually not even in Judea in the vicinity of Bethlehem or Jerusalem or Bethany, excuse me. Because of the danger to his life at this time, and it was not yet his time to go to the cross. And so Jesus was walking in the Father's will.

But Thomas was aware that for Jesus to return to Bethany would put his life in danger, but he, not being a doubting Thomas, him being a courageous Thomas, said, "Let us go with him that we may die with him." Verse 17 says, "So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb, Lazarus, for four days." Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. We'll talk in just a moment about Martha's greeting, but before we do, I want us to go back and I want us to look at a few points that are important for us to glean already from these first verses.

It tells us here that Jesus loved Lazarus and his sister Martha and also Mary. And I want you to be encouraged that Jesus loves you also. And you know John 3:16 that says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Jesus gave his life. God gave his Son, Jesus, life for you. That is love, that Jesus laid down his life for you. So be assured always, even when you don't understand exactly the timing of the Lords or the way He answers prayers, just like Martha and Mary didn't understand. Be assured, He loves you.

We also see in verse 4 that death is not the end for the believer. Jesus said this when He said, "This sickness is not to end in death." And dear friend, you may have a sickness that is going to be what ushers you into God's presence. There may be car accidents that cause our death, but but the same is true for us as was true for Lazarus because of Jesus Christ. Whatever we are experiencing that causes us to cease to exist on this side of eternity will not end. When we die on this side of eternity, it is not the end of our soul. Our soul continues to live and it does not end in death, but instead for the glory of God.

We also find our in verses 5 and 6 that Jesus' timing is not an indication of His love or His lack of love, but rather His knowledge and His perfect will. We see that Jesus, it seems to appear that He is not being concerned about rushing to Martha and Mary's side because He stays two days longer. But when we look at the timing of the events as you can see on the overhead, day one, Martha and Mary sent for Jesus, but it is most likely that Lazarus also died on this day. And so even if Jesus had left and traveled the additional 30 miles to get return to them, if He was even able to do that that same day, Lazarus would have already been dead. How do we know that? Because Jesus tells us stay two more days before going to Lazarus.

And when He gets there, Martha explains to Him that He has already been in the tomb for four days. And so to Martha and Mary, to perhaps we who are reading this passage, we think why did He wait two days? But his death would have already occurred according to the timing that's given in this passage. But there is another reason that could be important for Jesus to have waited until that fourth day. There was a Jewish superstition among people that the soul would sometimes linger after a person died and that this person's soul might even reenter into that person within a few days. The first day, second day, third day, but definitely the soul would not be able to return to the person by the fourth day.

Why was this important? Jesus had been progressively showing his majestic power that He was God. He had, in fact, if you recall, had already raised two other people, at least that we know about. The physician Luke recorded these experiences of Jesus raising people from the dead. He recorded in Luke 7 verse 12 about a man who had been dead and was being carried out by the only son of, he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And when the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her and said to the woman who had lost her son, "Do not weep." And Jesus came and He touched the coffin and the bearers came to a halt. And He said, "Young man, I say to you, arise." And the dead man sat up out of the coffin and began speaking. And Jesus gave him back to his mother. But this particular occasion would have been within that one day period because at that time, because the body would decompose quickly, burials would follow that day most of the time.

So the Jews with their superstition could have said, "Oh, well, the soul simply returned to this man's body." On another occasion Jesus healed someone else. It was the daughter, a 12-year-old daughter of Jairus, who was an official of the synagogue. But again, in this case, we are told that she had died. They said, "Your daughter has died. Do not trouble the teacher anymore." But it was immediately after that that Jesus went into her with her mother and father and He raised her. He said, "She has not died. She is asleep." They began laughing at Him, knowing that she had died. He, however, took her by the hand and called saying, "Child, arise." And her spirit returned and she got up and immediately things something was given to her to eat.

So in both of those occasions of Jesus raising somebody from the dead, the Jews could have said, "Oh, well, the spirit was still lingering and the spirit could go and reenter into that person." But not in the case of Lazarus because it had been four days. And that superstition would not have held. The body, the organs would have already decomposed. And as Martha says later, the stench would have been there. So we see the timing of this.

But in verse 15, we see something else that's very significant. And Jesus says to them when He's explaining that Lazarus is dead, He said, "I am glad for your sakes that I was not there so that you may believe, but let us go to him." Jesus spoke as Lazarus, as if Lazarus was still alive. Why? Because the soul does not die. The soul continues to live even after the body has ceased to exist. The soul continues to live. And we see this, that you are a living soul. In Genesis 2:7, when God formed Adam and Eve and He breathed into them, it says, "Then he became a living soul." So we see that you are, in fact, not a body who just possess a soul, but you're a living soul who has a body. And the current body that we have will be transformed like Jesus' resurrection body was transformed when we are raised.

In verses 24 and 43, we recognize that we will be bodily raised just as Lazarus was. Let's pick up in verse 21 when Martha came to Jesus and said to Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You." And Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." And Martha said to Him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." And Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?" He says to Martha, and she says to Him, "Yes, Lord, I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world."

And when she had said this, she went away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly, "The teacher is here and is calling for you." And when Mary heard it, she got up quickly and was coming to Him. And now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but but was still in the place where Martha met Him. The Jews followed and let's go to verse uh, 32 where it says, "Then Mary came where Jesus was, and when she saw Him, she fell at His feet." And she said the exact same words that Martha had said. She said to Him, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died." We can see and envision how Martha and Mary, these two sisters, would have sat by Lazarus' side and just said, "Oh, if Jesus was here, Lazarus would not die. If Jesus was here, He could do something. Lazarus would not die." And so these words flowed out of the two sisters, Martha and Mary's mouth. If Jesus had been here, He would not have died.

Verse 33 tells us that when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled. What does that mean? What does it mean that Jesus was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled? It's interesting because in the Greek these words imply that there was a groaning in Jesus. There was a pain in Him. And yes, even perhaps an element of anger. Have you ever experienced that when you were groaning over the loss of someone, when you were feeling the pain over the loss of someone, and perhaps yes, even you felt the anger over the death of someone? And Jesus was experiencing this as He saw Martha and Mary and the others weeping.

Why would Jesus feel such an extent of this groaning and moaning and and perhaps even anger? We get insight into why He might have experienced this when we look at Paul's writing in 1 Corinthians 15:26, and he says, "The last enemy to be destroyed is death." The last enemy to be destroyed is death. When we consider that Jesus repeatedly said, "I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly. I am the resurrection and the life." Jesus is about life. Jesus is about giving life. And He has told us, "The thief," referring to Satan, "comes only to steal, to kill, and to destroy." To steal, to kill, they are the opposite. Satan and Jesus, death and life.

And so the last great enemy of Jesus to overcome, Paul writes and explains to us, "The last enemy to be destroyed is death." And Jesus is the one who destroyed death because He showed that death had no power over Him when He was raised from the grave. Death had no power when Jesus called Lazarus forth from the tomb. Jesus asked in verse 34, "Where have you laid him?" And they said, "Lord, come and see." And Jesus then wept. He wept. He wept in that compassion and empathy for Martha and Mary and the others who had lost, He wept for what his friend had experienced. But could it also be that as Jesus stood and He continued and said, deeply moved, it tells us in verse 38, deeply moved within as He is at the tomb and He saw the cave and a stone lying against it.

Could it not also have been that Jesus was seeing His death, His body wrapped by these dear friends, His body in the tomb, the stone over the mouth of the cave where He laid. And only approximately 12 weeks later that would be him in a tomb. And once again, Martha and Mary and the others who loved Jesus, as they had loved Lazarus, weeping again. Oh yes, dear friends, this was definitely a foreshadowing of Jesus' death, but also of ours, also of ours. And what Jesus would do and the way that God's glory would be seen.

Let's continue reading because Jesus said in verse 39, "Remove the stone." And Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, "Lord, by this time there will be a stench for he has been dead four days." This emphasis again on four days and the stench that there would have been because of the body decomposing. But Jesus said to her, "Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?" And friends, you will see the glory of God because you are sitting here and you are those who have said, "We do believe." And so you too will one day see the glory of God. You will see your loved ones raised in their resurrection bodies. You will experience yourself being raised in a resurrection body. You will see Jesus in His resurrection body. You will see the myriad of angels. You will see the glory of God.

What do they do? They removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes and said, "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me." And then He goes on and He said, "I knew that You always hear Me, but because of the people standing around, I said it so that they may believe." He is speaking to the Father, but He is speaking out loud because He wants the people to know that He is speaking to His heavenly Father. And then He cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth." And the man who had died came forth. Do you remember in the prior chapter when Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice and follow Me"? And even in that cave, even in the state that Lazarus was, His soul was alive and He heard his shepherd call out his name and He followed his shepherd's voice. And you and I will hear the great shepherd of the sheep, the Lord Jesus Christ, call our name, and as the sheep of His pasture, we will hear His voice and come out of the grave to be with Him.

The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. And Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, let him go." Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what He had done believed in Jesus. And some of them, though, went to the Pharisees and told them the things which Jesus had done. Let's look at just a few more of these points. As we have seen, Jesus was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled. In the shortest verse that's in the Bible, in our English language, Jesus wept. We see the Lord is moved by our tears. He it says, Jesus was deeply moved in spirit. Your tears move Jesus.

Not only that, we are told that the Lord hears our weeping in Psalm 6:8. He said, "Depart from me, all you who do iniquity, for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping." The Lord hears you when you're weeping. The Lord not only is moved and hears you, He sees your tears rolling down your cheeks. He sees your tears. He said in Isaiah 38:5, "Go and say to Hezekiah, I have heard your prayer, I've seen your tears." God sees you. He loves you. He feels compassion and He remembers your tears. He doesn't just forget them.

In Psalm 56:8 it says, "You have taken account of my wanderings and put my tears in your bottle." This visual that the Lord remembers our tears. And the good news is, Isaiah 25:8 tells us, "The Lord will one day wipe away our tears." "He will swallow up death for all time and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces." Is that good news? It is.

In verse 40, we see that Jesus calls us to believe in Him. If we do, we will see the glory of God. In verses 41-42, Jesus models praying out loud so people can hear and believe. This is something you can do. You can do this at mealtime. You can do this if somebody comes to you and and shares with you how they are hurting or they're trying to make a decision. You can offer up a prayer for them, not just to say, "I'll pray for you," but just say, "Let me pray for you right now." And you can pray out loud. So as Jesus wanted the people to hear and believe when they saw the prayer answered, we can do that. We can follow Jesus' pattern.

And in 39 and 44, Jesus calls us, He called the people to remove the stone. He called the people to put their hands on Lazarus' body that had come forth from the tomb and unwrap him. And in the same way, even though Jesus would, of course, not need you and me to remove a stone or to touch our hands on Lazarus to unbind him, He gives us the privilege. He allows us to be in on the miracles that He is performing. He allows us to touch, to be a part, to feel the reality of what He is doing in people's lives. Now, what stones could we possibly remove? Possibly closed hearts, hard hearts, hearts of stone by us speaking to people and praying for them and speaking words of encouragement as the Lord gives us opportunity.

And what grave clothes could we unbind from people? We could help them in discipleship from perhaps some past life that they are had or some past bondages. We can disciple them and encourage them and help them know how they can be conformed to the image of Christ rather than the past that they had in their life that has bound them physically or emotionally. We see this very important principle as we look at our passage in John 11, and that is that I am a living soul, you are a living soul. And we are accountable to God.

As I was studying this passage, the Lord brought to my mind Luke 12. Because what did what did Jesus do? He called forth Lazarus. Lazarus' body was not what responded. His soul responded and Jesus recomposed his body and brought him forth. The body may be buried in the ground or cremated, but the soul is what lives on. Our soul is important. God created us and breathed into us and men became a living soul. We looked at in Genesis 2:7. And we find in Luke 12 that Jesus refers to the soul and the importance of it. Let me share this very quickly with you, this parable that Jesus told them regarding our soul.

There was a rich man whose whose land was very productive and he began reasoning to himself saying, "What shall I do since I have no place to store my crops?" Let me back up first to give you the background because in the background of verse 15, Jesus gave these warnings. He said, "Beware and be on your guard against every form of greed. For not even when one has an abundance, does his life consist of his possessions." This is a word that Jesus said, "Beware of every form of greed." Jesus said, "And then He told this parable about this rich man who began reasoning with himself saying, "What shall I do since I have no place to store my crops?" Then the rich man said, "This is what I will do. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones and there I will store all my grain and all my goods and I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.'"

But Jesus continues with this parable, "God said to him, 'You fool. You fool. This very night your soul is required of you. And now who will own what you have prepared?' So is the man who stores up treasures for himself and is not rich toward God." Friends, we only have so much time on this earth. And right here, Jesus is giving a parable, He is giving a warning about what we do with our soul. Our soul is who we are, who continues. Our body, our words, our expressions are all just that, an expression of our soul. Our soul can be conformed to the world or our soul can be transformed by the renewing of our mind and our soul be conformed to Jesus.

And in this parable, Jesus is warning that when there is that call forth of us from the grave, we will give an account to God for our soul and what we have done during our time on this earth. Is this important? Yes, because Jesus is going to call us forth from the grave. And He says that our soul will be required of us and we will stand in Jesus' presence to give an account. And we have to ask ourselves as we look at this parable that Jesus gave, am I similar to the man in Christ's parable, thinking about my life, my world, my possessions, how I'm going to take ease and enjoy just this life or knowing my soul is accountable to God, is my focus Christ's work and eternal life? Because Jesus told us after He was buried, after He was raised and ascended, before He went to His to the Father, He has told us what He wanted us to do in Matthew 28. He said, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing in them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." That is the work that our soul is to be about doing.

In Daniel 12:2, He says, "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake. These to everlasting life, others to disgrace and contempt." We are given every warning in this holy book about the fact that we are a living soul. We are accountable to God. After our bodies die, our soul is going to continue to live and it will be either in a place of everlasting abundant life with the Lord, or disgrace and contempt. It's very important that we know. Yes, Jesus sees my tears and cares about me. And Jesus' timing is what will result in glory. But also this very important point, Jesus calls me. He calls you to His eternal work.

As we look at this passage of John 11 and the reality that our soul is going to continue to live forever and ever and ever and that as Jesus called Lazarus from the dead and he was raised and Jesus after being dead was raised to life eternal, of course, because He is life eternal. And He will one day call us to life eternal in His presence. What is the message for you today? Is there someone that you need to share this passage with? Is there something you need to do about the state of your soul? Whatever it is, write it down, the golden nugget, how the Lord has spoken to you today through John 11.

Father, we thank You that Your Word is eternal, it is applicable. Thank You, Jesus, for calling Lazarus from the tomb so that we might get a foreshadowing, a foretaste, a visual of what You will do when You call us forth from the grave. Thank You that we can look forward to life eternal with You. And please stir in us, quicken in us, Lord, to see people in our family and friends and in restaurants and stores, at gas stations, Father, wherever as living souls who need to know You so that they too might have eternal life in Your presence. We love You and give You praise in Jesus' name, amen.