Do You Believe You Will Never Die?

Tom:

We are continuing with the gospel of John, we are in Chapter 11 and last week we got through verse 25 and we should be starting 26 but I think it’s important to read 25 again, Dave.“Jesus said unto her, (that is, Martha), 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?”Dave, these statements the just ought to, I know they do to me, it just grabs you by the heart, it’s so exciting,—“I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me….”And then it goes on, “And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.Believeth thou this?”Boy, the emphasis is on faith, trusting in Christ, putting your hope, your trust in him.

Dave:

Well, we can’t get away from the fact that though he were dead we are dead in trespasses and in sins, we are under God’s judgment.So, it’s talking about spiritual death here and you believe in Christ you have eternal life as a free gift.“And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die—Believeth thou this?”I mean, we’ve talked about the death penalty, we’ve talked about why doesn’t God allow man to live forever, why should there be any disease, why doesn’t God just heal everybody?Well, this is the healing, this is the solution, this is the cure to the problem of sin and suffering, and death on the earth and it’s because Christ paid the penalty for our sins.“I AM the resurrection”—she says, Oh, I believe he will rise at the resurrection.Jesus says, “I am the resurrection!”Why does he say that?Because there is no resurrection apart from him having paid the penalty for our sins.And, she doesn’t understand that.She is concerned, Martha and Mary are concerned.

Tom:

Well she has mixed purposes here and she loves her brother and wants to see him raised up.

Dave:

Right.All they are thinking of is physical death and could you restore him?Well, but even if you restore him, Lord, I guess that’s only going to be temporary, isn’t it?That’s another interesting fact.Jesus did raise a number of people from the dead when he was here.They all died eventually.In other words, he did not give them permanent physical life.He raised them from the dead.That only brought them back into this life of suffering and disease and so forth.We don’t know how much longer Lazarus lived, what he died of.

Tom:

Right, but he was a witness for Christ, for the Messiah.

Dave:

Absolutely.He had been dead and he came back to life.And also, we don’t read that, now Lazarus was a special emissary for Christ.And Jesus said, “Well, since you’ve been to the other side, you have died, then be a witness and tell people about this.”I think we talked about it a few weeks ago—Abraham said to the rich man—he wanted Lazarus, the beggar, to go back and tell his brothers.And, Abraham said, “Look, if they don’t believe Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even though someone comes back from the dead.”We have people today, especially in charismatic circles, claim they went to heaven, they went to hell, God commissioned them to come back and tell what it was like as a special warning and so forth.Now, we know that Paul went to heaven.He said it was not lawful for him to tell about it.That was up to John, the revelator, the Book of Revelation, or whatever the Bible tells us about it, and to say. Well, I’ve been to hell, now I’m coming back to warn people.It doesn’t work!So, it’s rather interesting that Lazarus was not given that mission.

Tom:

No, but he was a witness to the power of Christ.

Dave:

Absolutely.He was a witness in the fact that he had been dead four days and now he is alive and everybody knew it.I mean, they were there when he came out of the grave, bound with grave clothes hand and foot.He was dead, no doubt about it.

Tom:

Dave, these individuals who claim to have been to heaven, been to hell and so on, they come back with almost theology.In other words, their words are taken to—oh, this is what it was like, this is what I experienced, a very subjective experience that now has developed into a theology.This isn’t the case with Lazarus.His witness—the demonstration of him being raised from death to life really pointed to Christ continually and didn’t add additional theological ideas.

Dave:

Yeah, and sadly some of them come back with ridiculous stories—Oh, I got close to God and he has feathers—incredible!

Tom:

Right.Pastor Buck, you remember, a number of years ago?

Dave:

Incredible!Another one said he got there and he found Peter’s footprints in the gold streets because Peter got there just after the gold had been poured.People are willing to believe just absurd tales that come from these people.Okay, so it’s not biblical.The Bible does not give us anything like that.Lazarus did not come back telling people what it was like.But, he was a demonstration of the power of Christ, that Christ is the resurrection.“I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus said.Now he is trying to bring them on to something more than the restoration of physical life.He says, “He that liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.”That is the promise of the eternal life.“Believeth thou this?”And we could say that to everyone who is listening right now, do you believe this?Do you believe that God promises eternal life in Christ Jesus because he paid the penalty, and are you willing to receive this?This is the main thing that Jesus is getting at, although he does go ahead and raise Lazarus from the dead as a demonstration that he is who he claims to be.

Tom:

Now Dave, verse 27, Martha speaking, “She saith unto him, Yea, Lord:I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.”Now, what was her understanding here?

Dave:

I don’t know whether she had much understanding of what that really meant.

Tom:

She says the right things but—

Dave:

She does, but what did she think of Christ.For example, Jesus asked the Rabbi, “What think ye of Christ, the Messiah, whose Son is he?”And they say, “Well, he’s the son of David,” which is true, and Jesus says, Wait a minute, if he is the son of David, why does David call him, Lord?He’s trying to get them to understand that the Messiah must be God.Now, whether she understands that at this point—thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world—I don’t know, but I’m sure that she came to understand this.There was a gradual unfolding of the truth to these people because they did not understand.Now, when she had said that, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, “The Master is come, and calleth for thee.”Apparently Mary was so absorbed in her grief she didn’t know that Jesus had come into town.“As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto him.”Jesus hadn’t come into the town (so I was wrong, I said he came into the town, well, he’s next to the town, he’s in the outskirts, he was in the place where Martha met him).The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, “She goeth unto the grave to weep there.Some of them may have been professional weepers, they didn’t really know that there was a restoration to life, these people were weeping.Some of the Jews specifically denied the resurrection and now we have a very emotional scene which I think we had better defer until our next program, Tom, when Mary comes.And we have this tremendous verse, verse 35, we’ll get to next time, perhaps—Jesus wept.Shows his mercy, his love, his sympathy.He’s not an unsympathetic God.It goes back to our question again, why doesn’t he stop all suffering and sin?He’s concerned, he weeps.But there is only one solution and we have to accept that or there is no solution.