Dead or Alive
John 11 10/31/2006
After church, Johnny tells his parents he has to go and talk to the minister right away. They agree and the pastor greets the family. "Pastor," Johnny says, "I heard you say today that our bodies came from the dust & when we die our bodies go back to dust.” "Yes, I’m glad you were listening. Why do you ask?"
Johnny says, "Well you better come over to our house right away and look under my bed ’cause there’s someone either commin’ or goin’!"...
Sometimes we may feel like that. We don’t know whether or not we are coming or going. The title of my message is “Dead or Alive”. Now for you Bon Jovi fans, we will not be singing the song this morning, but our topic will be one that all of us can relate too.
We all fall in one of the two choices, we are all either dead, or maybe you just have your eyes closed and our sleeping, or you are alive. And this morning we will look at one of the very few people who did just that. He was dead, and then he was made alive. And from that I want to make three points to remember.
We must all expect Death (Vs. 1-6)
Lazarus was sick. Now Lazarus was evidently a close friend of Jesus, “he whom You love is sick”. He was the brother of two of Jesus’ favorite woman, Mary and Martha.
Bethany was a small village on the slopes of Mount of Olives, about 2 miles from Jerusalem. We often read about Jesus going there and we read many times in the Bible that when we He did that He would spend time, and a meal or two at their house. It is safe to say that that they all are close.
But some would find it strange that when He received the word that His good friend was sick, that instead of dropping everything and running to healing His friend, He hangs out a couple more days where He is.
Now we know that He delayed for a reason that we are going to explore latter, but He wanted to make sure that Lazarus was dead, and I mean good and dead. And those around Him might have wondered why Jesus did not go to heal His good friend, but He explained to them that the sickness was not unto death. What we would think as “He is sick but he will live”. But as we read the words in verse 14 Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead”.
Those are words that we all will have said about us sooner or latter. Dean Meadows is dead. I can remember my first experience with someone I know dying. A family with 5 kids of whom I was a friend and grew up with. Their father passed away. I was a senior in high school and so I thought I should go to the wake, but having not ever been to one, I was not sure how should act. My mom told me to be myself. For those of you who know me very well, being myself usually is not such a good idea.
So when I arrived at the funeral home the first person that I saw was the deceased’s daughter who was one year older than me; so I walked us to her (Being myself) and said, “Hey Donna, what are you doing here”. She went on to inform me that her father was the one in the casket over there. I felt like a heel.
But the first time that I heard the words of someone I loved being dead was in 1981 when I was at the beach for the first time without family. I returned to my motel room to see the light on my phone flashing and when I went to retrieve my message I was given those words that no one like to hear. Your Grandpa is dead. I was devastated and took the first plane I could home.
Those are words that we don’t like to hear. We even try to butter up those words with things like, they expired; sounds like something you read on some food item. Or they have passed on, or gone on, they deceased, but the truth of the matter is that they are dead.
But no one likes to hear those words. We don’t like to talk about it and most don’t even plan for it. They say that six out of ten people do not have a will. I am one of those six. And did you ever wonder why they call it Life insurance? Shouldn’t we call it death insurance because someone has to die before you collect it? And I am not even going to get into the question of why do we call it a wake?
It is something we all must do. Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.
We all are going to die. No matter what we do. We can buckle up, exercise, eat right and we still will die. Reminds me about a story of a middle-aged woman had a heart attack and was taken to the hospital. While on the operating table she had a near death experience. Seeing God, she asked "Is my time up?" God said, "No, you have another 43 years, 2 months and 8 days to live."
Upon recovery, the woman decided to stay in the hospital and have a facelift, liposuction and a tummy tuck. She even had someone come in and change her hair color. Since she had so much more time to live, she figured she might as well make the most of it.
After her last operation, she was released from the hospital. While crossing the street on her way home, she was killed by an ambulance.
Arriving in front of God, she demanded, "I though you said I had another 40 years?" God replied, "I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you."
Make no mistake about it, the society in which we live does everything in its power to deny the fact of death. Every plucked gray hair, every chemical peel, every tofu diet, every bottle of Viagra, every tummy tuck is a putting off of the inevitable conclusion - gravity wins! Ashes, ashes, we all fall down....
We all are going to die. You will die, I will die, some sooner, some latter, but die we must. So because we all will die, then we must…
Experience the Force of death (Vs. 17-21)
Martha comes to meet Jesus and when she gets there, she says, “Lord if you had been here, my brother would have not died”.
How many times have you heard a statement like that? Lord is you would have been there my spouse would have not died. Lord if you would have been there, my marriage would have not failed. Lord if you would have been here I would not have lost my job, or I would not have gotten cancer.
I have a friend of mine who is very bitter at God. He was leaving church one night and his car was struck by a drunk driver and left his 9-year-old son a vegetable to this day. And a few years ago I run into him and when he learned that I was a preacher he began to voice his opinion about God. He was angry that he was trying to live the right life and God allowed this happen. He asked me, “Where was God when my son got hit by that car?” Do you know where God was? He was in the same place He was when Son hung on the cross and bled and died for our sins.
The one thing that we need to realize is this. If you don’t remember anything else, remember this. The presence of death doesn’t mean the absence of God.
Read verse 25-26
This sounds kind of contradictory. He says that you will die but then He turns around and says that you will live. You see in verse 25 it is talking about the physical death. But in verse 26, He is talking about the spiritual death.
The Bible tells us in Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death.
This is not talking about a physical death. We have already determined that we all will die. This is a spiritual death. A spiritual death means eternal separation from God in a place called Hell.
But then the latter part of that same verse is “But the gift of God is eternal life though Jesus Christ our Lord.”
If you have been saved, by entering into a personal relationship with God, then you may die a physical death but you will never die a spiritual death. You will live forever with our Lord and Savior in a place built just for you in Heaven.
But one thing about our text that you might not have realized is that while everyone else wanted a healing, Jesus wanted a resurrection. The power of that is that when we go through difficult times in our life, that God often allows what is bad for us so that He can ultimately give us what is best for us.
Remember that when you go through your next trial.
Then we need to realize that
We can escape the Fear of Death (Vs.38-44)
In verse 34 Jesus makes a request, “where have you laid him?”
They probably think that He is going to pay His last respects to His friend. But then we read that in verse 39 that he makes another request. “Take away the stone”.
In those days what they would do is they would take the body of the deceased and they would place spices on the body and then wrap it up with cloth like a mommy. Then they would place the body in a tomb and roll a stone in front of it to keep the animal’s form getting to the body.
Martha said Lord, he stinks by now. But Jesus when the stone was rolled away says a prayer then He gives the command, “Lazarus come forth”.
Talk about dead man walking.
It reminds me of the three buddies who die in a car crash and go to heaven to an orientation. They are all asked, "When you are in your casket and friends and family are standing over you, what would you like to hear them say about you?"
The first guy says, "I would like to hear them say that I was a great doctor of my time, and a great family man."
The second guy says, "I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and school teacher which made a huge difference in our children of tomorrow."
The last guy replies, "I would like to hear them say...LOOK, HE’S MOVING!!!!!"
So the question is, why did Jesus allow Lazarus to die? Let me tell you what I think. Because He wanted show you, He wanted to show me, He wanted to show everyone that He was in charge. That He holds the keys to life and death. He holds the trump card of eternal life that He paid for with His own life. He wanted people to believe that not only could He raise up Lazarus up from the dead but that He could also raise up Himself on the third day after His death.
How did Jesus get rid of his fear of death? In chapter 12:9-10 we read about the Chief Priest seeking to kill Lazarus. Many people had come to believe if Jesus because of Lazarus’s resurrection. Do you think Lazarus was afraid of their threats? He probably thought, “Been there, done that”.
And you don’t have to fear death either.
2 Corinthians 5:8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
We all will die a physical death. Lazarus eventually died again, but we don’t have to die a spiritual death.
Romans 10:9,13 That if we confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, YOU WILL BE SAVED! (Vs.13)For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How about you? Are you dead in your trespasses of your sin? You can be alive today.
