Four Days Late But He’s Still On Time
Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hardest been here, my brother had not died. John 11:21
My brothers and sisters, our text today is dealing with a place, a family and a problem. The place of our text is called Bethany. Bethany means house of song and well as house of afflictions. I think I ought to tell you my brothers and sisters, it seems that we can do well to learn a lesson from this model today. That no matter what your afflictions may be, it’s good to have a song. If you get the right song, it can help you through your afflictions. When you are going through, you can sing, “The Lord will make a way somehow.” When doors are closed in your face, you can talk about and sing the song, “He’s just a way maker.” When things get difficult in your life, you can sing, “Trouble in my way, I have to cry sometimes, but Jesus will fix it, after while.” It just seems that songs go well with afflictions. In that they will help us through our experience. Can I get a witness? The place of our text is called Bethany. Bethany represented a place with unfulfilled possibilities. For it is in Bethany that dreams and aspirations and hopes take a detour. And I stopped by to tell y’all that all of us have a Bethany.
No matter where you are or who you are, all of us, there is something in our lives that we have desired to see grow and be something, yet it didn’t make it. All of us have a dream that dies. All of have some aspirations and some desires and in fact sometimes we find ourselves looking where we are and thinking about where we ought to be. And there’s a great big gap between where we are and where we felt like we should be. We should have been farther than where we are now. But we are having some Bethany experiences. But oh brothers and sisters, I thank God that the good news about Bethany is that Jesus can show up. No matter what your Bethanys are, He’s able to make a difference in your life. When you think about Bethany, think about a place. But my brothers and sisters, this text is also about a family. The text talks about a place called Bethany, but it also talks about a family. One named Martha, one named Mary and one named Lazarus. You know them. Martha was better known as the worker. Mary was known as the worshiper. But Lazarus became known as one without life. You understand what I’m talking about. Oh brothers and sisters, they all can teach us a little something. Martha teaches us that no matter how hard you work, work ain’t everything.
Some folk throw themselves in the work. And let me tell you that sometimes we even struggle in our church work. Because sometimes we have to put up with folk with bad personalities and funny ways and character. Yet we try to tolerate them with a footnote saying that they are a good worker. I stopped by to tell you that work ain’t everything. Martha was a worker, but Mary was a worshiper. Jesus had declared that Mary had chosen the better part. No wonder Mary was a worshiper. Oh brothers and sisters, it was this same Mary that Christ redeemed. You know the story about how she was possessed. He turned her life around. And my brothers and sisters, if the Lord has turned your life around, you ought to learn to sit at His feet. If the Lord has ever picked you up, you ought to shout hallelujah, not every now and then, but every time you think about how good He’s been to you. If the Lord kept making a way, took a nobody and made you a somebody, you shouldn’t have no problem sitting at His feet and worshipping Him. Martha was the worker and Mary was the worshipper, but Lazarus was the lifeless. Martha teaches us that work ain’t everything. Mary teaches us that worship is all that we are called to do.
Lazarus teaches us about the love of the Lord. Lazarus is an example for us. He gives us a picture of how we ought to learn to look at God. For the record says that Lazarus, even though the Lord loved him, he got sick. I think I ought to tell you that we need to be careful about how we take a yard stick to try to measure God’s love for us. Some folk think that we can measure God’s love by the type of car that we drive. By the house we live in. By the clothes we wear. By how much money we have and our social standings. But oh brothers and sisters, we need to be careful, because we shout and praise the Lord and nothing wrong with that, but we must be careful using things as our foundation to determine whether God loves us. Can I tell you why? Because there are some folk who never call God’s name are driving better cars than you. There are some folk who care less about Jesus got a better job than you have and as a matter of fact some them own the job. You can’t even move to their neighborhood. They dress better than you. They have more money than you.
As a matter of fact if you check out Forbes Magazine for the top millionaires in the world and you will find out that none of our names are on it. Are you praying with me? And I want to boldly say today that all of those millionaires on that list don’t belong to anybody’s church. Yet they have more than we have. We cannot determine how much God loves us based upon what we have, based our positions, and our little power. Oh brothers and sisters, we can’t even use our health to determine how much God loves us. For if the truth be told this evening, most of us in here right now got some pills in our pockets or in our pocketbooks right now. Most of us can open up a mini drug store in our home. Because all of us got something wrong with us. And if we say that God loves because we are well, we miss the mark. But I stop by to tell you that there’s only got one yardstick to determine God’s love for us. Some of us are broke, but God still loves us. We struggle, but He still loves us. We find ourselves going up high mountains and through the storms and the rain, but He still loves us. Oh brothers and sisters, the Bible said while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Can I get a witness?
Lazarus teaches us that God loves us in spite of our circumstances. The text this today is about a place, about a family and it’s about a problem. Notice if you will, the Bible said that Lazarus got sick. The sisters sent for Jesus. The message said, “He whom thou loves is sick.” And the Bible said that Jesus was not in a hurry. As a matter of fact Jesus put them on hold. And I wonder this evening if there’s anybody here ever been put on hold? You know, when you call and you’re trying to take care of business and what they do is put you on hold. And notice that while you are holding, they put on music that you don’t like, trying to soothe you, but it don’t work, because you have an issue that need to be straighten out. And most of the time the longer you hold the worst you feel and the next person on the line will find out just how bad you feel. Folk don’t like to be put on hold. Oh brothers and sisters, I stopped by to tell you that sometimes the Lord will put you on hold. Somebody here today, you’re on hold. You prayed and you prayed. And just because your prayer hadn’t been answered, don’t let nobody tell you that you don’t have faith, you do have faith.
Don’t you let nobody tell you that you don’t love God, you do love God. Don’t you let nobody tell you that the reason you going through what you are going through is because you are unrighteous. Some things that happen to you in life is not because you are being punished. If you have accepted Christ and Christ has forgiven you, why in the world would He punish you? If He has forgiven you, the Lord said, “As far as the east is from the west so far has He plotted out my transgressions. And as a matter of fact He has cast them out into the sea of forgetfulness.” No if
you are going through, it ain’t because God is punishing you, but it may be that God is putting you on hold. I know that somebody in here is asking, “Why would God put us on hold?” First of all maybe the reason why God put us on hold sometimes is because He is trying to get us to see that sometimes things are not always what they seem. You know how we are. We are emotional, we get excited. As soon as we hear somebody holler, we start hollering. When folk look up in the air, we all start looking. We’re emotional and we get caught up and sometimes things are not always what they seem. Every once in a while the Lord puts us on hold because He wants to give us a little more time so that we can review, reassess, relook at what the situation is and you will discover that it is probably not as bad as you assumed it was in the first place. Can I get some help in here? The next reason why maybe the Lord put us on hold is because sometimes He wants to take a little thing and turn it into a big thing. You see, we don’t think nothing about little things. Sometimes we only respond to big things happening in our life. We only praise God when something big happens. Can I just show y’all what we have done. We have taken what is really a big thing and we are now treating it like it’s a little thing. I’ll give you an example, waking up this morning. Now it doesn’t matter if you blood was running warm in your veins. It doesn’t matter if you got food on your table or clothes on your back, or you got transportation and a house. Those things wouldn’t do you any good if you didn’t get up. But look how we are. We are calm, cool and collected and we are laying back as if we are suppose to get up. We shouldn’t have to wait to get to church to praise God. We shouldn’t have to wait for somebody to pump us up to praise God.
Somebody should be shouting right now. We should have nothing on our mind but to say, “Lord I thank you, Lord I praise you.” And when folk ask you what are you shouting about, all you need to tell them is, “I got up.” Just to get up is worth a shout by itself. If they ask you why you are taking so long to give your testimony and holding up the service, just tell them because He woke me up. But you know what has happened? We have woke up so many times that we think that we ought to wake up anyhow. And not only that be my brothers and sisters, we have gotten beyond waking up. We even have the nerve to worry about whether we woke up on the wrong side of the bed or if you are in a good mood. Oh brothers and sisters, I don’t know how you feel about it, but I don’t care what side of the bed I got up on as long as I got up. Now we got folk in here acting like getting up ain’t no big thing. And oh brothers and sisters, I got another praise because I realize that He didn’t have to do it, but He did it anyhow. It is such a little thing now.
We don’t think nothing about it. So it is, God takes a little thing and makes a big thing. I don’t care how long it took me to get up, I’m just grateful that He let me get up. God takes a little thing. That’s why He puts on hold. That’s why for some of us He puts us flat on our backs because sometimes we won’t look up until we are on our backs and can’t do nothing else but look up. Sometimes the Lord puts you on hold because He’s trying to get you to see how much faith you really have. You’re out here trying to act holy. Walking around saying, “Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord.” Talking about you know that the Lord is going to work it out. You know what I’m talking about. When we get in our little circles, we talk about God and brag to each other. But sometimes you know our problems go beyond our Sunday show ups. God knows how you praise Him when you come to church. He knows how you talk about how much you love Him and how you are on the Lord’s side when you show in here, but what happens when you leave here? What happens when you go home and the doors are shut and the windows are closed and ain’t nobody there but you? And the devil start talking in one ear and as long as he can get you to keep your eyes on stuff, you will always never make it.
Satan understands that we must always walk by faith and not by sight. And you know we can’t help ourselves, we just keep looking. Sometimes the Lord put us on hold because He wants you know that talking faith is cheap. We got to put our faith in action. Then when you get to the place where you can’t move to left or to the right and everything that can go wrong goes wrong. When it starts raining, it really pours. And you don’t have no answers, no explanations. You’re not able to understand. You cannot figure out or have any reason and in your own little mind you don’t understand what’s going on and why everybody is looking at you, that’s when you have to stand right there, fold your arms and say I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m putting my trust in the Lord. I can’t explain it, I can’t obtain it, I’m having a hard time. Sickness has showed up. My situation is dying everywhere. Folk are falling on every side. I tried and I tried, I done my best and my best don’t seem to be good enough, I just don’t understand. But oh brothers and sisters, I here a voice saying, “Trust me?”
Can I get a witness? He puts us on hold because He wants to know do you trust Him. And here He is now showing up four days later. Jesus does show up, but He shows up four days late. And when He comes Martha greets Him. And Martha says, Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died. In other words Martha is saying, “Lord I know you could have done it, but it’s too late to do it. Martha said, “Lord if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. But then she said, “even now.” And can I just tell you before I close you might be broke but even now. You might be sick, but even now. You might be outdoors, but even now. You might on your way to a bad situation, but even now. You might have struggles, problems and stresses that have arrived in your life and it has been so long, but I stopped by to tell that the way you handle your missed moments is to get you an even now spirit. If can get hold to an even now spirit, God will give you an I am answer. That’s what Christ had to remind Martha about. When Martha made the remark that they would see their brother again in the resurrection, Jesus reminded her that He was the resurrection. Do I have a witness?
* My brothers and my sisters, as I hurry on to a close, if you can take the even now spirit, God will show up. And He will work it out. Christ is all that we need. All you got to do is just show Him what your problem is. Somebody here need to lay out all your problems and show them to the I am. Jesus said, “show me where you laid him.” and when He gets there, there are three things that the Lord does for Lazarus and there are three things that the Lord will do for you and I. The first thing the Lord does is, He makes Lazarus alive. And I stopped by to tell you tonight that God is trying to put some new life in you. For the Bible said that “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, all things become new. That Christ of ours is trying to give us life. And after He made Lazarus alive, the next thing He did was, He made him loose. All because it’s one thing to be alive, but what good is it to be alive and you can’t move. What good is it to be alive and you can’t praise. What good is it to be alive and you can’t shout. So Christ said, loose him and let him go. But after making him alive and after loosing him, then that Christ of mine made Lazarus lethal.
Conclusion:
That means that He made him dangerous. And I stopped by to tell you, if the Lord ever make you alive, it will make you dangerous. I’m going home when I tell you, that it was four days. And in this text it was Lazarus. But in another text when God was taking a long time. It wasn’t four days, but it was three days. It wasn’t Lazarus, but it was the Lord. He died one Friday and He was laid in a tomb all night Friday night. He laid there Saturday night, but early, early, Sunday morning, three days and He got up. Oh my brothers and my sisters, He may not
come when you want Him, but He’s always on time. Is He alright? Is He alright? Oh my brothers and my sisters, I’ve had many tears of sorrow. I’ve even lost my hope for tomorrow, but every situation that God of mine gave me consolation. He let me know that He’s able to bring me through. So I thank God for my mountain. I thank God for my valley. I thank God for the way He brought me through. Because if I never had a problem, I wouldn’t have found out that God is a problem solver. If I’ve never been sick, I wouldn’t have known that He’s a doctor in a sick room.
Through it all, through it all, through it all, He showed up right on time. Four days late, but He’s still on time. He can do it because He’s the timer who times the time. And not only that, but He is the time. He can do it because He’s been here before been here got here. He can do it because He shows up when He just left. He can do it because He can overlap time. Ain’t the Lord alright? Ain’t the Lord alright? Say yeah, say yeah, oh yeah.
