Ripples on the Shore of Your Life - Part Three

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LESSON

 

Somebody came up to me once and said, "I've been looking everywhere for that verse in the Bible that says, 'He tempers the wind to the shorn Iamb."' I said, "Well, that was written by a poet in the seventeenth century, it's not from the Bible." But, believe me that is a good phrase because it's true. He does "temper the wind to the shorn lamb." And I can give that to you scripturally from 1 Corinthians 10:13. "God ... will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able." He will never let a wind blow upon you that you cannot stand. He knew when you came to the end of your resources. Maybe He brought you there in order that you might depend on Him again. He knows all about the fever chart. He knows all about the doctor's diagnosis. He knows all about the bills that are coming. He knows how you stupidly got yourself into the debts that you're trying to get out of now. And maybe He let you do it in order that He might begin to deal with you in the way that He wants to deal with you.

 

The disciples had to learn a very important lesson in the establishment of their faith. "I am glad for your sakes that I was not there so that you may believe." (See v. 15.) The death of Lazarus is going to affect their belief in Jesus. Romans 14:7 says, "No man liveth unto himself, and no man dieth unto himself." Certainly Lazarus didn't die unto himself. His death had an effect upon his sisters, it had an effect upon the disciples, and we're going to see the circle growing larger and larger.

 

At certain times when trouble comes to us, something that is just not the way we would have ordered it, we can say, "Perhaps this trouble is for some friend. I will trust in the Lord in this thing, because someone may be looking at me. And I pray that what is happening to me may not be light only for me but for someone else also."

 

Now, let's see how Lazarus' death affected the friends of the family. Since they were a large family, they had many friends. In John 11:19, it says, "Many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother." These were the family friends. We know that whenever there's a death, the friends gather around the family. As an act of courtesy, friends send flowers, they go to the viewing, they shake hands with the loved ones and express sympathy. This is a part of our lives and it was a part of their lives. And what happened? It says in verse 45, "Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him." They came to sympathize and they remained to believe. So the effect of Lazarus' death now is seen in the family friends.

 

Now go a little farther still to the acquaintances when the Lord Jesus Christ reaches the tomb site of Lazarus. As He's praying He says, "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"-that would be the curiosity seekers-"I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me" (John 11:41,42). Here was a circle of people just standing by. They knew that Lazarus was dead. They knew that Jesus had come. Many of them were "the" important people of the community.

 

The name of Jesus Christ, of course, was widely known. He had spent time in Bethany. He had healed the sick of the town. He had touched the lepers. As soon as He came, there was a great crowd. There was such a great crowd when Jesus first came to the village. Martha, in verse 20, ran out so that she could meet Him, before He was surrounded by people. When she found Him, she said, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." I think we can sense a tone of reproach in her voice. But, she continues, "I know, that even now, whatever you ask of God, God will give it to you." Jesus said, "Your brother shall rise again." And Martha replied, "Yes, I know he shall rise again-in two thousands years-but now he's been dead for four days and that's harder than two thousand years." Isn't it strange how people are? "I know he'll rise in the last day, but don't roll away the stone from the door; by this time he stinketh." "I believe in the power of God to raise somebody from the dead in two thousand years, but not today."

 

That shows you, of course, the unbelief that had to be cleared away. Then Jesus announced, "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. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world" (John 11:25-27). And at that point, Jesus said something to her which is not included in the text. But, I'll prove that He said it. He said to her, "Will you go call Mary?" Someone says, "How do you know that He said that?" In verse 28 it says that Martha "went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come and calleth for thee." So then when Mary was called for, she rose quickly and came unto Him. And Jesus had not come into the town yet, but was in the place where Martha had met Him.

 

You see, the reason He had not reached the house yet was because-we see it all through the Gospels -the crowds had already sprung up around Him. You remember that Zacchaeus had to go and climb a tree because of the crowd. You remember the woman who wouldn't get near Him because of the press of the crowd, and she just reached through and touched the hem of His garment. You remember a time when He had to get in a boat and pull six feet off shore, and leave a natural moat between Him and the crowd. When He went on a boat one way, five thousand of them went around the lake side to meet Him on the other shore. There was always this tremendous crowd-the hangerson, the curiosity seekers, the ones who didn't come for spiritual reasons, but for bread.

 

These are the ones that are always ready to look out of a window when they hear the band and throw some ticker tape down on whoever is coming up Wall Street. They don't care whether it's a general or a golf player or an Olympic team or someone else. Life magazine one week had pictures of thousands of people who stood for hours and watched a bird, a hornbill, that came and sat on top of the Chase National Bank in New York City. The crowds just gazed and gazed for hours as a man from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals tried to catch the bird in a net. Anything can attract a crowd. It doesn't make any difference what it is. The great contracting firms now build galleries for the sidewalk engineers who want to watch the excavations. People are built like that.

 

These were the kind of people affected by the death of Lazarus. When something happens to a Christian, it touches him, it touches his family, it touches his friends, it touches his acquaintances, it touches the casual observer. It is a phenomenon that must be explained. So Jesus, when He prayed at the tomb of Lazarus, said, for the sake of the crowd, "Father I thank thee that thou has 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" (vv. 41-42).

 

I wouldn't be at all surprised that at the judgment bar of God, this dialogue will be heard, before certain men are sent to hell. Lazarus will be put in the witness box. "Did you die and were you raised from the dead?"

"Yes, I was. I did die and I was raised from the dead."

"And you, were you standing by, did you see this?"

"Yes, I saw."

"Did you believe in Christ?"

 

"Well, I was pretty busy. I had other things to do. My feet were pretty well in flypaper at that time. I was absorbed with the world, and I didn't make too much of an effort to get off. It would have interfered with my way of living. I didn't believe in Christ."

That's why Jesus could say; "The queen of the South will arise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them"' (Luke 11:31). And so will Lazarus and so will we all. So the death of Lazarus had an effect upon the bystanders.

 

Then, most beautifully, this passage tells us that not only did this event affect Lazarus, his sisters, the disciples, the family friends, the acquaintances, and the bystanders, but it also had an effect on the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Notice verse 4 in this chapter again. "When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." Jesus Christ Himself got a man into a predicament in order that He might get him out of it. I quite believe that God does that with everyone of us-all the time. That's the Lord's way. If God wants you to trust in Him, He puts you in a place of difficulty. If he wants you to trust Him greatly, He puts you in a place of impossibility. For when a thing is impossible, then we who are so prone to move things through by the force of our own being can say, "Lord, it has to be you. I am utterly, absolutely nothing."

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