Raising The Dead – The Big One!

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LIVING WATERS

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SAVE THE DATE – APRIL 22-24, 2022 HOUSE CHURCH ROUND TABLE WEEKEND IN NASHVILLE TN

…that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.  John 17:21 NKJV

These weekends have been a lot of fun and are wholly different than conferences or seminars you have been to in the past. They are truly ‘roundtable’ events where everyone contributes. Our theme will be ‘One’ as in John 17:21 with Dr. Henry Hon, the author of ‘ONE’ coming to participate with us. More details to follow, so SAVE THE DATE!

RAISING THE DEAD – THE BIG ONE!

Do you feel like God is calling you up higher? I get the unmistakable sense in my spirit that the Lord is challenging the status quo, that He is challenging the mediocrity of low expectations and challenging us to come up higher, truly into the places of authority and blessing that He gave us before the world began, our sonship realities. Do you feel that?

John 11:1-44 is probably the most detailed exposition of a healing incident as found in the Word and would be worthy of our study even if we weren’t studying the subject of raising the dead. That’s why I call it THE BIG ONE. It occurs during that period of Jesus’ ministry that we call THE REJECTION OF THE KING.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 NKJV

Everything Jesus did on earth He did as a man with limitations just like you and I. He had to eat, sleep, and walk, bathe and keep clean clothes, keep a job until He went ‘full time’ and get revelation continuously to fulfill the Father’s will. He had to keep Himself from sin even though His nature was pure and righteous, unlike our original nature. So, as you study this record, think “If He can do it, I can do it through Him!”

Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore the sisters sent to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love (Grk. PHILEO: to love as a friend) is sick.” John 11:1-3 NKJV

Did Jesus have friends, like you and I? Yes. Friends are a huge part of the more abundant life. Lazarus was one of them.

When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” John 11:4 NKJV

Does sickness glorify God? No! But deliverance from sickness glorifies Him. That’s where the glory comes in! Sickness is death in part, or in whole if it reaches its full end. Death is an enemy. Sin introduced sickness and death into the creation, but Jesus overcame both sickness and sin for all men – one of my favorite healing testimonies is of an unsaved Hindu woman who got healed, and then saved – through His death and resurrection.

How did Jesus know that about Lazarus? This is the first inkling we have that Jesus had revelation about the whole situation with Lazarus and knew how to walk forward. Listen, the more you and I seek to give the Lord our full attention, the more He will fill us in about the details of life. I used to take my dog with me on prayer walks, but I sensed that He didn’t want Rex there because He wanted my full attention. If you’ll think about a bride and groom, and the passion of their full attention to one another (there’s a great scene in the movie PRIDE AND PREJUDICE where the two are dancing in a group, but then the filmmaker shows them dancing alone, their eyes locked on each other in love as if no one else is there – do you see it?), you’ll begin to grasp the relationship the Lord seeks in our lives.

The Lord can and will give detailed revelation for you to be able to handle situations when and if He has your full attention. One time I had twenty minutes to preach to five hundred people to get them filled with the Holy Spirit. I said in my heart, “Lord, are You sure about this?” He said, “What? You think I can’t handle this?” Then He said, “Preach to them and then pray for them to be filled. Most won’t get filled! Then invite those who want to get filled to stay after church. Then take them through deliverance without telling them you are taking them through deliverance. Call it, preparing your heart to receive the Holy Spirit. Then line them up, lay hands on them individually, and I’ll fill everyone.” The whole church stayed, God’s glory filled the place, and everyone got filled, JUST LIKE HE SAID!

Now Jesus loved (Grk. AGAPAO – love based on principle, not emotion) Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. John 11:5-6 NKJV

I’ve fallen into this trap. You hear some one is sick, you drop everything and rush over there to minister, not even waiting to be invited. It’s called presumption – as in ‘the sin of…’ – and it bears little if any fruit. Jesus was operating in AGAPAO love, not PHILEO emotion. We will see that He gets criticized for it by His friends (v.32,37), but it’s the right thing when you walk it out properly. Emotion isn’t wrong but it is too easily moved by the flesh. You have to stay quiet in your spirit to continually pursue the leading of God. Do you see it?

Then after this He said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to Him, “Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone You, and are You going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”  John 11:7-11 NKJV

The light here is the light of revelation. We walk in the light of revelation not the emotion of presumption. The authority released in revelation enables you to go into potentially deadly situations without being hurt or losing anyone. I know a man who was a Marine captain who led his platoon through months of combat and never lost a man, because of the Lord’s presence and revelation. One night it was pouring down rain and his men saw a hut they wanted to enter. The Lord said, “No!” Five minutes later, the hut exploded… but none of his men were in it.

These things He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.” Then His disciples said, “Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.” However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.  And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.” John 11:11-15 NKJV

David said, of his dead son, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me (2 Samuel 12:23)” Jesus knew by revelation that they would go to Lazarus, and Lazarus would return to them.

So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away. And many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.  Now Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met Him, but Mary was sitting in the house. Now Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.  And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” John 11:17-27 NKJV

Here we start to see why this incident is so important in the Word. In the midst of THE REJECTION OF THE KING, Jesus is proclaiming HOPE, that even if He suffers and dies, He will rise again, because HE IS THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE, the hope of all mankind. Raising Lazarus will be an object lesson to demonstrate that great reality, which is why the Jews later sought to kill Lazarus as well (Jn 12:10).

Mary and the Jews criticize Jesus for not showing up sooner. Jesus has to tune them up a little bit!

Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?”  Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. John 11:38-41 NKJV

I love it! Jesus walks in and starts issuing orders. This is the authority that revelation brings. Martha pipes up when she should have shut up, and Jesus deals with her. Listen, when you are walking in this kind of authority the sun and the moon will listen to you (Joshua 10:12). Sometimes, especially when I’m casting out demons, I feel like I’m ten feet tall. I call it the John Wayne anointing, “Come out…or I’m coming in after ya’!”

And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.  And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.” John 11:41-42 NKJV

Remember that Peter prayed before he commanded Dorcas to arise? Jesus similarly prays, but He prays out loud so that people can hear. This is going to be the demonstration of Him as the Resurrection and the Life.

Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!”  And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.” John 11:43-44 NKJV

I can just see him kind of jumping and bouncing out of the cave because he is bound hand and foot! He’s trying to talk but can’t because he is kind of gagged as well. Remember Jesus’ body had a face mask! (Was this because there was an ancient Jewish FAUCI putting worthless face masks on everyone? Just a thought.)

Here in a season of great disillusionment and hopelessness for believers – THE REJECTION OF THE KING – Jesus was saying, “I am the Resurrection and the Life! There is Hope for all mankind!” Here is Lazarus – the object lesson and great demonstration of this reality, this Hope. Brothers and sisters, God is calling us to bring Hope to the lost and despondent, by preaching the Word and demonstrating the reality of the risen Christ, even to the point of raising the dead. We can do this by walking in revelation authority with AGAPAO love coursing through our veins. The Lord is calling us out of the place of mediocrity and low expectations into the place of being seated at His right hand, the place we truly call Home. Amen? Love you!

Remember dear ones, we must be about our Father’s business…