When God Delays | Mysteries in the Gospel of John Season 11

You know, if he's just taking a nap or he's just sleeping out the sickness, it'll be okay. But Jesus said, I'm telling you, it's more than just that, guys. He's dead. Every place that Yeshua went, everywhere that Jesus went, he did three things. He preached the gospel, he healed the sick, and he drove out spirits of darkness that the Bible calls demons. The reason I call them spirits of darkness is because a lot of times today when people hear the word demon, they just can't relate to it. It just seems foreign to them or it seems scary to them. But yet if we'll study the scriptures, you'll see that Jesus cast out demons everywhere that he went. A lot of times we think that, you know, that this doesn't happen anymore. We kind of like think, okay, yeah, I know the Bible talks about that, but we kind of like block it out of our mind that it's still a reality. But you know what's really interesting? One of the places that Jesus cast out a demon was in the synagogue. You know what that tells me? That there's demons even in religious people. So I'm just opening up today with that comment because we're going to look today at one of Jesus's greatest healing miracles. Remember he healed the sick, he cast out the demons and he preached the gospel. Today we're going to look at one of Jesus's king healing ministries when he raised Lazarus from the dead. So bear with me now. Let's pay attention as we focus in on God's word. I'm starting in John chapter 11, verse 1, the grass withers and the flowers fade. But the word of the Lord, beloved friends, abides forever. 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, whose brother Lazarus was sick.

So the sister sent word to him saying, this is the Lord, the sister sent word to the Lord saying, Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick. 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 this is something to consider right here, okay, that God used a person's sickness to glorify himself. Listen to this again, what Jesus said, they said, Lord, Lazarus is sick. Your friend, the one that you love, Jesus said, the sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the son of God may be glorified by it. And I just think it's worth considering for a second that God sometimes uses negative situations to glorify himself. Just think about this for a second. Let's continue on. 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. Now, this is kind of like an oxymoron. Like we hear that Jesus loved them all, Martha and Mary are asking Jesus, come, Lazarus is sick. And the scripture says, Jesus loved them all, but he stayed two days where he was. He didn't go immediately to go heal him. So that's kind of interesting, especially the way the scripture is worded here. So when he heard that he was sick, he then stayed two days longer in the place where he was. In other words, Jesus stayed right where he was, he didn't move. Then after this, he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again. The disciples said to him, Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you. Are you going there again? 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. Now, I want us to think about this for a second. We're going to get back to Lazarus because Jesus is about to go to where Lazarus is. The disciples say, are you going to go back there, Lord? They were just about to stone you there. Last time you were there, they were going to kill you. But notice what Jesus says. He says, are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble. You know what this says to you and I, beloved friends? The safest place to be is in the will of God. Jesus was going into a dangerous situation from a natural perspective. He was going to a place where they just tried to stone him. And the disciples were trying to convince him not to go for fear of his life because of the danger. But Jesus. Jesus said, the safest place to be is in God's will. And we're gonna walk in the light. And as long as we're walking in God's light, Yeshua was saying, we're not gonna stumble. So let that be a reminder to us. It's a nice, we might feel the Lord leading us to do something that might not be quote, the wisest from worldly wisdom. But you know what? If God's the one that's leading us to do something, the safest place to be is in God's will. And the most dangerous place to be, even if it looks like it's a real easy situation, the most dangerous place to be is outside of God's will.

And so I think that's a good application for us. I even think about traveling overseas sometimes. Some of you have heard me share this story, but years ago when we were getting ready to travel to Africa, I had gone to my physician the day before we were gonna begin our travel journey. And my physician did an EKG on my heart because I was having some heart pain. And then she called me later that day and she said, you need to come back for some more tests. And I said, I can't come back for some more tests. I said, I've got a big mission in front of me. And she said, Rabbi, you need to take your health seriously. This is nothing to joke about. And I was very concerned, but with Cynthia's encouragement, I went to Africa anyway, because the safest place to be is in the will of God. And you know what, when I got to Africa, the problem that I was dealing with broke and we saw thousands of people saved. The safest place for you to be, my brother, sister, is in the will of God. Maybe the Lord has led some of you to move somewhere. And maybe it's a specific place that you don't know how it's gonna work out, but you feel very strongly the Lord is leading you to move to this location. You know what, you're safer moving to that location where there's unknown variables than you are staying where you're at, where it seems completely stable and safe.

Of course, I'm not suggesting people do something foolish. And if someone moves somewhere and it wasn't God's will, I can't speak to that situation. But if it's really the Lord, again, you're safe and secure when you're in God's will, even if it feels unsafe from a worldly perspective. So picking up, Yeshua says, the safest place, if anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world. Yeshua's the light. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. This gets back to what I said. If you're out of the will of God, you're not safe. You see, when we're in God's will, there's a legal protection over our life. When we're outside of God's will, there's no legal protection. In other words, when we deliberately sin or do something out of God's will, we open ourself up to the enemy. There's not a fence around our lives at that point. Continuing on, we read this. This he said, and then he said to them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go so that I might awaken him out of his sleep. So what he's saying, once again, the disciples are saying, you know, don't go. He says, we're going, we're in the light of God's will. We're not gonna stumble. We're gonna go see Lazarus now.

And he continues on. Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go that I may awaken him out of his sleep. The disciples then said to him, Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he'll recover. Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought he was speaking of literal sleep. So when Jesus said he's fallen asleep, Jesus was trying to be, you know, light about it. And so they just said, well, he'll be okay if he's just asleep. You know, if he's just taking a nap or he's just sleeping out the sickness, it'll be okay. But Jesus said, I'm telling you, it's more than just that, guys, he's dead. So Jesus then said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I'm glad for your sakes that I was not there so that you might believe, let us go to him. Therefore Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go, this is funny to me, so that we might die with him. So when Jesus came, he found that he had already been in the tomb four days. So Lazarus was dead and had been in the tomb four days. Now think about how bad he smelled after four days. I mean, human beings, as they're dead, they begin to smell just like animals do because we're created out of the dust just like animals are. Now 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. Martha therefore, when she had heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet him. But Mary stayed at the house. Martha then 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. So here's Mary and Martha. A tremendous faith in Yeshua, if you would have been here, Lord, he wouldn't have died. They knew the power that was flowing from his being. They saw him heal people in the past. They just recognized that he was God in the flesh. They might not have fully understood that intellectually, but they knew that there was healing power in him. So they said, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he'll rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Yeshua 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? So let's just stop for a second. Yeshua is at the site of the greatest healing miracle in his ministry yet. He's about to raise Lazarus that had been in the tomb four days from the dead. Lazarus stunk. I mean, he was dead, dead, dead. And so the sisters, Mary and Martha, say to him, if you would have been here, he wouldn't have died. They recognized the power that Yeshua had, the power even to raise the dead.

And Jesus said, your brother will rise again. And then they said, well, we know he's going to rise again on the last day. They're thinking about the end of the age. They're thinking about the resurrection of the dead that Daniel spoke of in his prophetic writing. And Yeshua said, I'm not talking about that right now. He said, I'm not talking about the last day. He said, I, I am. That's one of those I am's in the Bible. I am the good shepherd. I am he. I am. I am over and over again. It's a form of Yahweh, the self-existent one. So in this instance where a miracle of resurrection was needed, Yeshua didn't say, yeah, we'll raise him up on the last day. This is for you, so just keep listening with me. Yeshua said, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me will live even if he dies. And he that believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? So Yeshua, think about this now. Yeshua wants to impart to you and I resurrection power and resurrection life. It was the resurrection power from the Godhead that flowed through Yeshua that raised Lazarus that had been four days from the dead. And Yeshua was communicating to Mary and Martha that I have the same ability to give you life presently right now. Even if you're not sick, I want to be to you resurrection power. So I want to ask you right now, how many of you are feeling weepy in your soul right now? How many of you are feeling distressed and tired and broken?

How many of you are in physical pain? How many of you need an emotional healing? How many of you need strength for the day to get through whatever it is that you're facing? You know what Yeshua said? I am the resurrection and the life. And even as he, beloved ones, raised Lazarus from the dead, he wants to give you resurrection power in your life so you can get through and overcome whatever it is that you're dealing with. The Bible says neither height or depth, breadth or width, any created thing can separate you and I from the love of God that it is in Christ Jesus. And that greater is he that's in us than he that is in the world. And then no matter what we face in life, we can be more than conquerors through him. How can we be more than conquerors? Through the resurrection life of Messiah Yeshua that's imparted into our soul. Now get this with me. And I look to the same one that I'm encouraging all of us to look to today for resurrection power daily in my life. Because it's not a one-time bam that Yeshua says, bam, you've got the resurrection power. It's partially that's true, but it's also that continually we're looking to him, taking him in every day for fresh power and fresh infilling. Some of you here might have heard the statement before, there's one baptism in the Holy Spirit, but many fillings. One baptism, when you came to the Lord, you were sealed and baptized with the Holy Spirit. But we need a constant continually, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. So you... Yesterday's manna is not enough for today. Remember the Lord taught this to the children of Israel when he said to them, I'm gonna put fresh manna on the ground every day,

six days a week. But when they tried to take a bunch of manna from one day and save it until the next day, what happened? That manna that they tried to save to the next day went bad. They had to gather new manna every day. Yesterday's manna went bad. And those of you that are listening, you know what that's like right now. You go maybe to a Bible study, to a worship service, you gather with Christian brothers and sisters, or you have an encounter with the Lord, or you're listening to worship music and you feel really inspired and blessed. You feel God's presence, God's power in your life, but then you wake up the next day and you're not feeling that anymore. Why? Because you need a fresh filling. You need a fresh touch. You need a fresh impartation. And so Jesus is the resurrection and the life. He said, he that believes in me will never die. The scripture says the same power, the same power, my beloved brother and sister, that raised Jesus from the dead is towards right now, the Bible uses that words, towards, it's towards that resurrection power. It's towards you and me. But we have to open up our heart to receive it. It's like this, the sun can be shining outside,

but if you stay inside in a dark room, you're not gonna receive that sun that's shining outside. In order to receive the light from that sun that's shining outside, what do you need to do? You gotta come out of your house and go into that sun to receive it. And the same thing is true in our walk with Jesus. Every day, we need to open our heart. We need to ask him to fill us with resurrection power. Back to the story, what's the context? Jesus is about to raise Lazarus from the dead. Mary and Martha say, if you would have been here, he wouldn't have died. But I know you're gonna raise him up on the last day. And Jesus says to them, I am the resurrection and the life. It's not about the last day right now. I'm about to raise Lazarus right now, not on the last day. I want you to understand that I am presently resurrection power to everybody that will receive me. So you and I need to be walking in this place of what we say in Hebrew, kavanah, which means focus, and devukut in Hebrew, which means clinging. We need to be focused on him every day, clinging to him to receive life. We need to put our self in a place of dependency to drink in his power every day. If we're relying on the flesh, if we're relying on our own abilities to get through life, we're not gonna be filled with resurrection power.

Why? Because God's power comes to him, to us rather, when we look to him in our own weakness. This is a lesson Paul taught us when he was dealing with something, and he called it a messenger of Satan in the book of Corinthians. And he called out to the Lord, Lord, take it away. And the Lord said, I'm not gonna take it away, Paul. I'm gonna give you grace to get through it because my power is perfected in your weakness. So Paul's response to that was, amen, then I'm gonna glorify you in my weakness, God, because your power will be perfected in my weakness. Paul had to be broken so he could look to the Lord to receive the power. And so I wanna encourage you every day to begin your day and stay in the day, looking to the Lord, praying continually to him. The Bible says, pray continually. Talk to the Lord every day, all day long, from your heart and your thoughts, out loud at times. You go back and forth. Sometimes it's in your heart. Sometimes it's your mind you're reaching out. Sometimes you're reaching out in words. It's all prayer. But the scripture says, pray continuously. This is depending on God because prayers are reaching out to God.

Beloved, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and he's gonna keep giving you resurrection life daily as you cry out to him 24 seven every day of your life. In the book of Numbers chapter six, the Lord gave instructions to Moses and Aaron to speak this blessing over his people. And the Lord said, when you speak these words over my people, I will place my name on them and bless them. Receive the impartation of the Lord's blessings. ♪ Yeh-va-re-che-che-ya-weh-va-yish-ma-re-cha ♪ Ya'er Yahweh panayv eylecha vi'chuneycha Yissa Yahweh panayv eylecha ve'asem lecha Shalom The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up by His countenance, and the Lord give you, beloved one, His peace. God bless you and Shalom. Shalom.