Standing En Masse Against Evidence

Tom Shrader examines how even after witnessing Jesus' miracles, many rejected Him due to fear of man rather than fear of God. Using the backdrop of Jesus' final week and the miracle of Lazarus, he shows how group psychology and peer pressure can lead people to reject overwhelming evidence of Christ's deity.

“Everything other than Jesus, I guarantee you, will disappoint you.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Dumb Mistakes: How to Avoid Them (2017)

Recorded: October 19, 2017

Duration: 39 min

Themes: fear, peer pressure, courage, rejection, faith, conformity, witness, boldness, struggling with peer pressure, facing rejection, new believer, young adult, parent, feeling intimidated, workplace witness, navigating social pressure

Scripture: John 12:20-43, John 2:4, 2 Timothy 3:12, John 3:16-19, Luke 9:19-27, Luke 9:59-62, John 2:11, John 11:1-46, Isaiah 53, Isaiah 6, Philippians 2:7

Theological Themes: fear of god, fear of man, godly fear, reverence, idolatry, heart transformation, theological foundation, christology

Handout Link

Full Transcript

Today, session five of our eight-session series "Dumb Mistakes"—and we would prefer that you focus on the subtitle "and how to avoid them." I come back to this over and over again: there's a theological aspect to what we do, and there's a practical aspect. They can't be separated, but my fear is always that we focus on the behavior rather than the theological reality of it.

I had a discussion with somebody the other day—a woman at church who said, "My husband's doing this and this and this. Can you help him?" What she meant was, "Can you get him to stop doing what he's doing?" The answer, of course, is I can't. But I tried to say to her, "We want to make sure we address that. We don't want to ignore it. But our ultimate concern is not the behavior—the ultimate concern is the heart."

I think you can change behavior. I watch the Golf Channel, and I have certain things I watch or tape. Every day I tape two Frasiers, selective Seinfelds, and Oprah's got a new show called Last Chapter where she does these hour interviews. She just had an hour interview with Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes and Lady Gaga. She also interviewed Gloria Steinem, who famously said, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle," and then ended up getting married when she was 73 years old to a guy named Schwinn. That just popped into my mind.

The Heart vs. Behavior

But I fear we can focus so much on behavior that we miss the idea that our real concern is the heart. The theology is really important—I'm not saying that behavior isn't. On the Golf Channel, I watch the Feherty show every week, and he's got great guests. I think they make him play too much of a buffoon, because he's really a serious guy. I'm afraid they have this caricature and sometimes he feels like he has to live up to it.

He had an interview last week with Samuel L. Jackson, and the week before with Gary McCord. Feherty himself, and all of them talked about drug abuse and how they're sober, which is good—we want to celebrate that. But you need to understand you can be sober in hell. I'm not minimizing the behavior, and we want to address that, but we want to really understand that the importance here is God and who He is.

That's why this series started with dumb mistake number one: fear God. If you missed that one, the rest of it isn't going to matter a ton. Then we talked about behavioral things: "A little booze won't hurt you, maybe." "Confuse lust and love." Last week was "Finding safety in numbers." This week isn't radically different from that.

We've had case studies of individuals—Samson, David, Ben-Hadad. Today, the main character is something called "the group." Dumb mistake number five has to do with peer pressure or group psychology—fear of man stuff.

Greeks Seeking Jesus

The background is in John chapter 12, verse 20: "Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the feast, and they came to Philip"—Philip is one of Jesus' disciples—"and they said, 'Sir, we'd like to see Him,' see Jesus. And Philip went to tell Andrew, and Andrew and Philip went in turn to tell Jesus."

I don't know why they went to Philip, and I don't know why Philip went to Andrew. I'm very comfortable saying there was a pecking order in the disciples—we know that. Peter, James, and John were the big three. The Greeks themselves said, "We don't feel comfortable going on our own necessarily to Him, so we're going to come to you."

At this point in Jesus' ministry, it was in full swing. We're early in John's gospel, but we're late in Jesus' life. His public ministry is essentially over, and we're near the crucifixion. He's come into Jerusalem for Passover. They assume that at that Passover, the population of Jerusalem swells to about 3 million, and they would kill as many as 250,000 lambs. This is a big deal.

Jesus comes in—"Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna." He has performed miracles, and His popularity is really high. If He were up for re-election, it would be a great time for Him to have the election. He's very popular in the polls. By the way, that doesn't last a week, but He's popular.

God's Perfect Timing

They come to Him in John 12:20 and ask the question, "We want to see Him." Jesus responds and says, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." This is new information. If you go back as early as John 2:4—the miracle at Cana—Mary comes to Jesus and says they're out of wine, and He says, "Woman, what do you want Me to do? The hour has not yet come."

It reads rude, but we know it's certainly not that because He doesn't sin. There's a timing component to it—God's timing, God's perfect timing, God's plan. So often I hear people who think that Adam sinned and screwed everything up, and when he did, God was kind of behind the curve, trying to make things up as He goes. But in reality, it's all part of God's plan and God's timing.

He says, "The hour has yet come." Now understand this: we're going to be in John's gospel—I think I'm there the whole day today, except for the very end when we'll move a little into Luke, but very similar. John wrote this gospel, and he tells us in chapter 20, verses 30-31, for a specific reason. So often, maybe you were investigating the faith, and somebody said to you, "Read John's gospel." That's kind of where everybody starts.

reason. John tells us, here's the life of Christ. I hand-selected these things. He did a whole lot more, but I selected these so that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and by believing in Him, you'll have eternal life. That's probably why somebody said to you, start in the gospel of John.

John's driving to conclusion here. John's systematically building a case. In fact, John, the gospel writer, also wrote 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, and the book of Revelation, and over 75 times in those five books, he uses the word testimony or testify. So he's really building a case here.

Jesus says, the hour has come. So let's say we don't understand, at this point, everything He's about to do. What He's saying is, whatever it is, it's now. The hour has come for the Son of man. That phrase appears over 80 times in the New Testament. It's Jesus' favorite description of Himself, and the implication there is not that He's lesser than God, but that He's God who comes in flesh, that comes for a very specific purpose to save His people.

The Kernel of Wheat Must Die

Then He tells them, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed, but if it dies, it produces many seeds. The one who loves his life will lose it, while the one who hates his life in this world will keep it. He's speaking now in the context of the hour's come and the Son of man must die. So He's been preparing them.

If you go back and read through the Gospels, it's really difficult. You have to shift gears a little bit because it's really hard for us to do that without understanding the whole story. But if you can put yourself in the disciple setting, they don't know the end of the story. So there's a whole bunch of times when Jesus is explaining things to them, and they're going, we don't get it, but they're living it. Along the way, He shifts from the hour's not yet come to an idea that when the hour comes, the Son of man must die, and now He's saying, this is it.

He continues in this whole process, and He begins to talk about service. He talks about if anyone loves his life, he should lose it, hates his life, save it, verse 26. If anyone serves me, he must follow me, and where I am, there my servant will be also, and if anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

Following Christ to the Cross

Jesus begins to talk about following, and within this, think about the context now. I'm going to the cross, you follow me there. 2 Timothy 3, verse 12, Paul says to Timothy, those who decide to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. My fear is so often, we project the Christian life as one that's absent persecution, hardship, difficulty. That is among other things one of my big beefs with the health and wealth and prosperity guys.

I'm so uncomfortable, primarily because I don't think it's biblical and beyond that it's so destructive. To tell people, if you really love Jesus, you'll be prosperous financially or you'll be healthy. I think it's really important to understand God may want you sick and poor. Now, you may go, I don't know why. I can think of one big reason: you're a lot easier to deal with when you're sick and poor.

Jesus goes and says, listen, birds have nests, foxes have holes, Son of man has nowhere to lay His head. Huge mistake we make if we think there is a necessarily direct correlation between our financial or physical condition and our spiritual condition.

Financial Success Doesn't Equal Spiritual Success

So I would step back, for example, and say, I don't know. I'm making an assumption here. I don't know anything about Bill Gates, other than he seems to be a very successful businessman. So I think he's doing really well. I do know, now this doesn't mean anything, doesn't mean he's a believer, but I have read somewhere he's got a great quote about I can do more productive things with my Sunday mornings than go to church.

Now, he's doing great work, by the way. He and Melinda are doing great work around the world. Obviously, that doesn't make you a Christian, doesn't get you into heaven. But let's, for the sake of this discussion, assume that Bill's not a Christian. But boy, look at all that success. That financial success doesn't necessarily equate to spiritual success.

Conversely, when we see Paul beaten and in prison in Philippi, we can't go, Paul, there must be sin in your life, something's wrong. No, God's using that. So we want to be careful. The idea of following Christ always comes with a price.

Jesus' Troubled Soul

Now, look at verse 27. My soul has become troubled. What should I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose, I came. That word troubled has with it deep anguish, anxiety, agitation. There's a deep uneasiness. We see Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, under such stress and pressure that He is sweating blood.

It is really clear that Jesus understands the cross is going to be difficult. He's not just skipping His way to the cross. It also is really clear from this language that Jesus understands that if He doesn't go to the cross, there's no salvation for His people.

I used to be in a small group and we met for four or five years and then broke up over this specific issue. Was there any other way that God could have saved people? And by save people, I mean save us from our sin, the consequence of our sin, eternal destruction. There was one group that said, yes, He's God. He's God. He can do anything. Now, here's the problem with that. Can God do anything? Well, no, God can't sin. So there was one group. That's what they said. There was the other group, my group, the right group, that said, no, there was no other way. Here's how I

Jesus said, "If there's another way, let's do it." So we need to understand sin produces God's judgment and wrath. God's judgment and wrath for us to be redeemed has to be satisfied. So it requires a sacrifice. That's what all that Old Testament blood is—blood sacrifice. And it required a perfect sacrifice. The only perfect sacrifice would have been if somehow God became a man (by the way, why the virgin birth) and died on that cross to pay the price for our sin. That's all those things tied together, and Jesus understood this.

We were studying Sunday, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." I was telling a story, again, imagery. They knew lamb. They knew forgiveness. They knew that there was a perfect lamb coming.

The Problem with Modern Imagery

Years ago, we did a Seder dinner. I wanted to make it as authentic as we could. So we're going to have all the meal, we're going to have lamb. The ladies came to me and said, "We're having a really big problem here with the lamb. We can't get the lamb right." So I said, "Why don't you call one of the synagogues in town and see how they prepare the lamb for the Seder dinner."

So they came back a couple of days later and they said, "We called three synagogues and they told us we don't use lamb anymore, we use chicken." I said, "Well, some of the imagery is gone." I mean, you say, "Behold the chicken of God who takes away the sins of the world." I don't know. It not only sounds funny, I think the imagery is off. The Old Testament chicken picture.

Then what I spent some time on is "who takes away the sin of the world." He's a picture. That's why He came. Then we went to Isaiah 53 that says Jesus was a man of sorrow and grief.

Jesus: A Man of Sorrow

I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but there's not one incident that we have portrayed for us in the Gospel of Jesus smiling or laughing. It doesn't mean He doesn't have joy, but there's not one incident where we go, "Hey, I was like, hey, did you get that one?" Now, I believe they did. I mean, I just know guys, twelve guys living together. There had to just be a thousand of them. I'm sure they had water fights in the Jordan and all that goes with it, and I'm sure Jesus participated. I knew He wasn't this old curmudgeon.

Here's how you know, because the children were attracted to Him. But I think even as Jesus celebrates, it's always under the shadow of a cloud of why He came in the condition of man. So He could look at the human situation, and we're going to look at one of my favorite miracles in a minute, and He would understand there indeed is just a real issue here.

The Voice from Heaven

The crowd comes to see Him and they stood by and they heard, they hear an angel. It's a voice from heaven in verse 28. Jesus said this voice has not come for me, but it's for you. By the way, that says so much in Jesus' life. John chapter 9, there's the blind man. They said, "Why is he blind? His sin, sin of his parents." He said, "No, it's for your benefit."

So there again, God uses disease and sickness for our benefit, whether He caused that sickness or not. He certainly allowed it. You could extrapolate, though I don't know with certainty that He caused it. I don't know that. He certainly used it.

The Judgment and the Lift

"This is the judgment that comes on the world. The ruler be cast out." Verse 32, "If I'm lifted up, I'll draw all men to myself." He's talking about the kind of death He will have. He said, "We've heard out of the law that the Christ will remain forever. The son of man must be lifted up." That doesn't make sense. They're missing the Messiah and the redemption. They're looking for, again, a political Messiah, just like us.

I mean, it's this—the election year is so difficult. I'm fairly off the news, but it's that time of year. I'm starting to get them out church and at home with the politicians. "Can we come by? We want to meet," all this stuff. One of the things that I think that's happened is, and it's a fine line, but I think the church periodically puts more faith in the Republican Party than they do in Christ.

If we can just elect Mitt Romney—you understand Mitt Romney is not the answer. This thing's out of control so big, I don't think you can rein it in. Or if I just had this money. My fundamental problem is spiritual. The answer is spiritual. That's not to say don't engage, by the way, in the political process. It's just that they don't put your faith and trust in them.

The Ultimate Disappointment

I'm watching this interview the other day, Peggy Noonan—you know that name. She wrote a book called, and it was, I think, released, I want to say in the 90s, early 90s, called "What I Saw at the Revolution." It is a wonderful book, wonderful political book. If you don't want to buy the book, I'm going to give you—this is really good. When you're at the bookstore, pick it up, go to the back and look at Gettysburg Address. She has a section in there, and Peggy's a speechwriter, she has a section in there, what a speechwriter today would do with the Gettysburg Address. Like she's saying, "We wouldn't use a term like conceived in liberty? I don't believe we'd use that." It's a wonderful book.

In that process, she talks about, and I like Peggy Noonan, a little on the arrogant side for me, but then New York. So she says, "Every politician you're around will ultimately disappoint you." Well, here, let me expand. Everything other than Jesus, I guarantee you, will disappoint you. What you're looking for ultimately can only be fulfilled by Jesus. So you'll never find happiness, joy, love, peace, all that in a person, place or thing other than Jesus.

Walking in the Light

Jesus says, "Here's what I want you to understand. I'm going to be with you here. I'm going to be with you for a little while." He's telling them this, He says in verse 35, "For a little while longer, the light"—you'll see larger case, He's speaking of Himself—"is among you. While you have the light, so the darkness will not overtake you. He walks in the darkness..."

Though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him. Now you have to ask yourself what do these people need to see? John's making the point He's done all of these things and yet they don't believe.

So dumb mistake number four is they stood in mass against the evidence. They stood perhaps as a group, and we're going to see later part of what motivates them is fear of man, not fear of God.

Right now if you're a professor at the U of A and you go into a faculty meeting or a staff meeting and you start talking about Jesus, that's going to cost you professionally. You can talk about Buddha, you can talk about worshiping a rock, you can talk about Earth Day, you can talk about saving the forest, you can talk about recycling and they think you're brilliant. You talk about Jesus they think you're a moron who's committed intellectual suicide.

The National Day of Reason vs. The National Day of Prayer

I don't know if you know it, today's the National Day of Prayer. There is another organization that's leading today something called the National Day of Reason and the idea is this. In fact I didn't bring it, but I have a quote from one of the leaders and it said, "We know in times of difficulty we look to a higher power. What we're coming along with our day is saying let's look within ourselves, find the solutions within ourselves."

Their reason isn't working too well for them in this law. In fact in Putnam, Connecticut, I don't know where it is, today is book exchange. If you bring in a Bible they'll give you a free copy of Darwin's Origin of the Species. So it's that—let's go to reason, let's go to ourself.

Well that is, if Spock were here, here's what he'd say: "That's typically human." It's typically human to say I'll fix myself—that's religion. This is not complicated stuff. It's always the same story.

The Problem of Blindness and Hardness

They wouldn't believe. Why wouldn't they believe? Well verse 40: because their eyes are blind and their hearts are hardened. Now it really says because He's blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts. What it's not saying is that God intervenes and does this. It's just simply saying this: we come into the world blind with hard hearts and God says to these people at this point, "I'm just going to leave you there." Doesn't owe you anything.

Got a group of people that are going to believe and they're only going to believe for one reason—because God changed their hearts. But because God changed the hearts of some people doesn't mean He changed the heart of everybody. Doesn't obligate Him. Otherwise there's no grace. Here's a big thing: God is God. He's the potter, we're the clay.

But like the National Day of Reason, I want to go, "I'm reasonable, I'll fix it." Remember John Kennedy. John Kennedy's looking around and that's my thing—I'm listening to this and I'm listening to how smart Obama is and how smart, what a businessman Romney is. We've had smart—how many Harvard Law guys do we need to screw this thing up? I'm sick of smart people.

The Limits of Human Intelligence

I'm not anti-intellectual, but there's something more than smartness. John Kennedy and the best of the brightest brought you Vietnam and we've been screwed up ever since. John Kennedy said, "We got ourselves into this, we'll get ourselves out of it." Well that doesn't work.

It may work economically. You may save GM. We still haven't got our money back, but here's the deal. You got a sin problem that only Jesus can fix. That's the big issue and we get distracted with all these other things. Because we can make a buck or build something or start a nation we think, "Oh gosh, we can solve our spiritual problems too," and He says no, that isn't the case.

The result of all of this, verse 40, is these things Isaiah said because he saw His—Jesus'—glory. As a result of this what's happened is nevertheless even the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him for fear they'd be put out of the synagogue. Verse 43: "For they love the approval of men rather than the approval of God."

Jesus as the Light

Turn to the left to John chapter 3 verse 16—you know that, probably the most famous Bible verse we have: "God so loved the world gave His only begotten Son, whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life." Jesus speaking, verse 19, similar language to what we saw in John 12: "This is the judgment that the light"—Jesus speaking of Himself—"has come into the world." Now here's the problem with men: they love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Everyone who does evil hates light and does not come to the light—why? For fear the light will expose his deeds.

Jesus is the light and all of a sudden He comes into the world and we now see who we really are. So when we talk about light, we talk about functions of light. Light energizes—cut off the sun, boom, we're dead. Light becomes a way of measurement—we talk in terms of light years or speed of light. Light is not just the life giver and just the measurement, but light becomes the one that exposes.

So people are in the midst of their sin and sorrow, in comes Jesus as the truth, and they reject it.

Why People Hate the Light

So many people hate you—sometimes for good reason—but so many people hate you when you start talking about Jesus not because they don't like you, because they've already proven they like you. They want to go the movies with you and dinner with you and have a glass of wine with you and talk with you and go the ballgame with you. What they hate—this should be encouraging—they hate the Jesus they see in you.

All of a sudden you come along and you say, "I don't think I'll do that," and they go, "Well who do you think you are?" and they have this visceral strong reaction.

I don't understand. I'm not asking you to stop or do it, so I'm just saying I'm not going to do it. "Who are you to judge me?" I'm not judging you, but you feel judged because now you're seeing a standard or a different way of life. So these people, because they stood in mass, they miss this.

The Most Important Question

Now let me just deal again with a sense of urgency. Keep going left to the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 9, similar to what we've seen. Verse 19: Jesus comes to the disciples and He said, "I'm curious, who do people think I am?" And they say John the Baptist, Elijah, and so on. Then in verse 20, Jesus turns to Peter and says, "Who do you say that I am?" Most important question that Peter ever had to deal with. Most important question you'll ever have to deal with.

And Peter gets the answer correct. He says, "You are the Christ of God. You're the Messiah." And Jesus said, "All right, for now let's not tell anybody this."

Verse 22: "The Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and on the third day He will be raised." And He's saying to them, all of them, "If you wish to come after me, you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. Everyone who seeks to save his life will lose it. Everyone who loses it will save it for me. What is the profit of man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?"

The Problem with Easy Believism

Here's the objection that we have to so much easy believism. This happens all the time in event evangelism. You bring someone in to hear an inspiring message by an inspiring speaker, and you often hear the story about "I was so unhappy, I was so miserable, and such a wretch. Here's all the things I did." Or the flipside: "I was so successful, but there was an emptiness in my life. Now I have Jesus in my life. It's fulfilled and I have peace."

So the answer is "I come to Jesus and you'll have peace and fulfillment," which is true. But in the spirit of full disclosure, we don't give them "deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me" because there's a lot of stuff that comes with that. It's hardship too, because all of a sudden, if Jesus is indeed going to be the one who becomes my Lord and Savior—let me go ahead and say master—then all of a sudden, as a slave, if He's the master, my concern is one thing: to meet the needs, desires, and agenda of my master, not mine.

Understanding True Discipleship

In the ultimate sense of a bond servant, we had that term "slave." I think we think in the context of one type of slave in this culture. There would be literally rungs of slaves. Some would live on their own, be on their own. They would just be subservient to the master. The bond servant was a slave who didn't own anything, who had no clothing or anything. He had or she had was given to her or him by the master, and their total concern was to please the master. That's what Jesus is saying.

Jesus says, "Listen, if you want to follow me, here's the deal: you're going to have to follow me perfectly." He goes on. By the way, let's drop down to Luke chapter 9, verse 59: "Follow me." And then one of the guys said, "Lord, permit me to go and bury my father." And He said to them, "Allow the dead to bury the dead, but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God."

And another said, "I'll follow you, but first let me say goodbye to those that are at home." And Jesus said to him, "No one puts his hand on the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God."

The Real Meaning Behind the Excuses

Let me give you what He's saying. Let me give you the solution. What He's saying is He's not against burying dead people. In that economy, the death of a father was related to the inheritance. It's not like his father's laying there dead and we need to bury him because we have a hygiene problem. What he's saying is, "Let me go take care of this." And that may be five, ten, fifteen, twenty years away. But when that's taken care of, then I'm ready to follow you.

We hear that all the time, don't we? "If I just get this deal closed, Jesus, I'll really be yours." "If I can just get into this—and it's a busy season, Jesus. I know you know busy seasons, Christmas and everything. It's a busy season of life." I see them parenting all the time. "When I get through this, we will do that."

There's Never a Good Time

I guess I knew it and had it reinforced with Susan. There's never really a good time to die. There was a guy that was in here one day, and he was all bent out of shape. I don't mean to demean this at all, but all bent out of shape because his grandmother had died. I said, "Well, how old is she?" And he said, "94." When you're 94, you die. I mean, come on, seriously? You're upset about this?

I get missing Nana, but really? Trying to figure out what God's doing? God's taking her home. These next six years, you don't want to watch. There's never a good time to die. There's never really a convenient time to follow Jesus. There's always an expense attached to it. There's always a distraction for my agenda. What He's saying is, "Listen, there's no good time for this, so you need to move."

The Simple Solution

The solution to all of this is John 2, verse 11. It's really simple. You could figure it out. It's believe. John 2, verse 11 simply says, "This was the beginning of the signs Jesus did and manifested, and the disciples believed in Him."

Turn to John 11. It's my favorite miracle. It's the miracle of Lazarus. I like the backdrop here. Oftentimes, we don't think of Jesus in the context of a single adult man, but He's a single adult man who, when He goes to Bethany, hangs with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, who are also three single adults. He loves Lazarus very much, so much so that He gets a text in verse three. The sisters send word to Him, and they say, "Lord, the one whom you love is sick."

Verse five: "Jesus loved Mary and Martha, so when He heard this, that he was sick, He stayed two days longer." Isn't that interesting? So my phone's here, and I've got it on vibrate, but it's set up face up, so if a text comes in, it'll catch my eye. That's not during teaching—I don't necessarily—

The Unexpected Response to Love

Picture this scenario: you're in a meeting, and you receive a text about someone you love deeply - perhaps a child, spouse, parent, or close friend. The message says this person is very, very sick. What would you do? At the very least, most of you would excuse yourself, step outside, and call to get details. What does "very sick" mean - a bad cough or something serious? You'd gather the information, and if it was truly serious, you'd simply get in your car and go. If they were in Dubuque, you'd catch a flight to Davenport, rent a car, and drive up.

But when Jesus received word that His beloved friend Lazarus was sick, He stayed. That's weird. Then He stayed two more days, and word came that Lazarus had fallen asleep - that he was dead. In verse 15, Jesus said, "Lazarus is dead, and I'm glad." That's weird too.

Why would Jesus respond this way? Obviously, He knew something we didn't know. He understood this was temporary because He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.

The Miracle at the Tomb

That's exactly what happened. Jesus arrived at the tomb, and in verse 39 of John 11, He said, "Remove the stone." The people protested - this wasn't a good move because Lazarus was going to smell. He was dead, after all. But Jesus insisted they roll away the stone. He raised His eyes, prayed, and in verse 43 declared, "Lazarus, come forth!" The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot in wrappings, his face wrapped in cloth. Jesus told them, "Untie him and let him go."

Now that's awesome. Let me paint the full picture I've been skipping. Jesus came to Mary and Martha while they and their neighbors and friends were in a seven-day process of mourning because Lazarus was dead. Jesus took them out to the tomb, had the stone rolled away, and Lazarus came forth alive. Can we just stipulate that this is amazing?

The Shocking Division

What's far more amazing to me is what happened next in verse 45: "Therefore, many of the Jews who came to Mary saw what He had done and believed in Him." But verse 46 adds, "But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done."

There were two groups of people who witnessed this miracle. One group saw it and believed Jesus was who He said He was. Another group saw the exact same thing and said, "We'd better go tell somebody about this and stop it" - and they didn't believe in Him.

Isn't that amazing? What would it take for some people to see? They watched all of this unfold. They knew Lazarus was dead - that's why they were there mourning. They witnessed Jesus raise him from the dead, and yet they still didn't believe. When we couple this with other instances in Scripture, we see that in some cases, it was really fear of man driving their unbelief.

The Greater Evidence We Have Today

I don't know where you are in this process, but I know this: if you're saying "show me a miracle," you have many more miracles available than they had. You have all these biblical accounts plus 2,000 years of seeing Jesus preserve His church.

That's my Easter message every year - I don't have a different one. Jesus rose from the dead, and here's my point: this is a big deal. Sometimes we're so familiar with the story that we miss how significant this really is.

Beyond the Empty Tomb

We have people who don't know Christ, and I'm trying to say Jesus rose from the dead. Not just the empty tomb - a lot of people get excited about the empty tomb, but an empty tomb doesn't prove a risen Savior. It just proves an empty tomb. But we see Jesus Himself. We have firsthand eyewitness accounts. We have people who experienced Him, and Jesus is alive.

Let me tell you something: if that's true, you may want to think about this carefully. If that's true, then maybe what He said about Himself and about you is also true.

Isaiah's Vision of Christ

Remember what Scripture says? Isaiah saw Jesus. How can that be when Isaiah lived hundreds of years before Jesus was born? In Isaiah chapter 6 - and you ought to become proficient in outlining this crucial chapter - Isaiah sees the Lord Jesus high and lifted up. Remember in Philippians where Paul says Jesus emptied Himself and became a man? He emptied Himself not of His deity, but of His glory - the very glory that Isaiah witnessed in Isaiah 6.

When Isaiah sees this vision, here's his response: "Woe to me for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips." In other words, Isaiah sees God for who He really is, understands who he really is, and realizes he's in serious trouble. He thought he had it all together, but it all fell apart in God's presence. Then God moves and saves him.

The Call to Service

Here's what's really remarkable: God says, "We have a whole bucket load of work to do. Whom shall I send?" And Isaiah responds, "Here I am, send me." That's the picture and story of our redemption.

Don't Make This Dumb Mistake

Dumb mistake number five is to look at these facts and for whatever reason - whether it's fear of man, concern about the people around you, worry about your standing, or something about crowd dynamics that makes you do things in a group you'd never do alone - in this case, to not believe.

The call is really simple. The solution is really simple: come to Christ in repentance and faith. If you believe in Him, you will have eternal life. It's that simple.

Next week we'll look at dumb mistake number six.

Father, thank You that this is true. I pray that You would drill it deep in our hearts. As we leave this place, some have hard decisions to make. God, I pray that You would give us this supernatural ability to deny ourselves and follow You. We ask this in Christ's name, amen.