Our Lord Jesus, in this metaphorical language, doubtless adopted a view of death which was familiar to his countrymen, because presented in the works of their inspired and their uninspired writers - of seers and of sages. Yet, in adopting it, he imparted to it a tone and character peculiar to himself. On the other hand, what he says concerning the awakening is altogether original; herein he claims a power which is unprecedented and unparalleled.

I. To THE CHRISTIAN DEATH IS SLEEP.

1. It is the close of the day of toil.

2. It is the hushing and silencing of the many harsh and jarring voices of care, of anxiety, of restlessness.

3. It is the soothing of sorrow and trouble.

4. It is looked for and welcome, when the due time comes.

II. IT IS THE PREROGATIVE OF CHRIST TO AROUSE HIS PEOPLE FROM THE SLUMBER OF DEATH.

1. Our Lord awakens slumbering souls from the stupors of sin. The message of the gospel to such is, "Awake, thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, and he shall enlighten thee." This spiritual awakening is the pledge of the glorious and final awakening of the future unto the higher and immortal life.

2. As sleep is but for a season, so the sleep of death is appointed only as a temporary, a transitory experience.

3. The voice which woke Lazarus out of his sleep is the voice which summons from the slumber of death. Christ's assumption of this power is an implicit claim to Divine authority. God's omnipotence alone can create life, and alone can restore life when death has asserted its power and has done its work.

4. The awakening from death summons to an endless life of activity and holy service. Whilst the hours of slumber are hours of repose, the daylight which arouses the sleepers calls to the exertion of the powers of body and of mind. This law applies to the higher realm. When Christ awakens out of the slumber of death, it is to the happiness of conscious existence and to the energy of untiring effort. There is no reason to suppose that this brief earthly life is man's only period of service. It is the discipline and preparation for endless ages of glad devotion alike to the praise and to the service of our glorious Redeemer.

"If my immortal Savior lives,
Then my immortal life is sure:
His word a firm foundation gives;
Here let me build and rest secure." T.

I. We have A SWEET RELATIONSHIP DECLARED.

1. "Our friend." Behold here wondrous condescension. Our Lord does not turn to His disciples and say "Your friend sleepeth," but places Himself side by side with them in their affection and says "Our friend." It seems to me to teach so sweetly the blessed fact that Jesus is one with His people. It is equal to saying, "Do you love Him? so do I." Let us meditate upon the friendship Christ has to His children, and in doing so I would notice —

1. It is a real one. There is too much of superficial friendship abroad; plenty of the lip, but little of the heart. This is an age of shams; and among them, most hideous of the lot, is that of miscalled friendship. In the love of a saint to his Saviour there is a blessed reality. Whoever else he may not love with all his heart, his Saviour he must.

2. In this friendship there are no secrets kept on either side. The old saying runs "whisperers separate chief friends," but in close friendships nothing is hidden, so whispers have nothing to reveal. When Jesus says to anyone, "My friend," He declares a friendship that ignores all secret keeping, for "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." If there be a secret sin in the heart, if a fall in the life, O bear me witness, saints of God, that there is no peace for us until, like the woman of old, we have "told Him all." Heavy burdens roll off the soul, and sweet ease flows into it by telling Jesus everything.

3. Jesus shows His friendship by helping in time of need.

4. Moreover, if a person says to me, "my friend," I naturally expect he will show his friendship by calling in to see me; and sweet are the love visits that Jesus pays His friends. That disciple knows but little of the sweets of the religion of Jesus who knows but seldom what it is to hear his Lord's knock, and who but seldom sups with his beloved in closest fellowship.

5. Jesus is never ashamed of His friends. When once He has said "My friend," He never retracts the sentence. There are many butterfly friends fluttering round us all, to be seen in the summer of prosperity, but conspicuous by their absence in the winter of adversity.

6. That the friendship of Jesus lasts forever. The sweeter the friendship the more terrible the blow, that severs it. But severed it must be at last.

II. A SOLEMN FACT SUGGESTED. Christ's friends die.

1. The friendship of Christ does not exempt from death. This dread reaper spares none. Death asks not whether the shock of corn is ripe for glory, or is as yet green, and unprepared for the sickle. He asks not whether his victim is a child of God or one of the world's devotees.

2. Christ permits His friends to die in order to make manifest how completely He has conquered death. Suppose that, instead of tasting death, all Christ's friends were, like Enoch, translated into glory; might not death boast and say, "Aha! they dare not meet me in the field! Their Lord is afraid to put His conquest to the test."

3. Another reason why the friends of Jesus die is that they may be brought into conformity with their Lord. It may seem strange to some of your ears; but I believe there are many here who would rather prefer to die than otherwise, in order that in everything they might be conformed to their Master.

III. WE HAVE IN THIS TEXT A VERY CHEERING DESCRIPTION. "Our friend sleepeth." Not our friend is dead.

1. In sleep there is a rest from pain. There is rest from pain in death.

2. In sleep there is a rest from care.

3. Sleeping implies waking.

(A. G. Brown.)

I. JESUS IS THE FRIEND OF HIS PEOPLE. Human friendship is the choicest of earthly privileges. How much more the friendship of Christ! (John 16:14, 15). Note the qualities of a true friend.

1. Amiableness, or having those properties which are calculated to attract the heart. We may be grateful to those we cannot esteem, and admire those we cannot love; but to make a friend there must be something lovely. This exists in Christ in the highest degree.

2. Power of wisdom to guide, of strength to support and defend; of riches to help. These all exist in their fulness in Christ.

3. Faithfulness to keep our secrets and to fulfil His promises.

4. Tenderness. Friendship is like a foreign plant which requires delicate treatment. It shrinks from whatever is rough and unfeeling, and cannot confide in rudeness.

5. Unchangeableness. Christ is not a summer friend, who, like the butterfly, flutters round us while the sun is shining, but retires when the sun has gone. He is "a friend horn for adversity." He is "the same today," etc.

II. THE SERVICES WHICH CHRIST DISCHARGES FOR HIS FRIENDS.

1. He sympathizes with them, as one of them sharing their sorrows.

2. He is their abiding companion.

3. He has paid their debts, ransomed their persons, reconciled them to God at the expense of His own life.

4. He has purchased for them an inheritance incorruptible, etc.

5. He has fitted up mansions as the eternal residences of the bodies and souls of His people.

III. TO THE FRIENDS OF CHRIST DEATH HAS CHANGED ITS NATURE. They cannot die, they only sleep. The emblem expresses —

1. "The composure of soul which the Lord gives to His people in the hour of death," "Mark the perfect man," etc.

2. The temporary cessation of the powers of the body to recruit it for fresh service on the resurrection morn (Isaiah 26:19).

(J. H. Stewart, M. A.)

Jesus awakes men out of the sleep of IGNORANCE, to give them intellectual life. His teaching —

1. Awakes the power to think.

2. Strengthens the thinking powers.

3. Affords food for thought.

II. MORAL INSENSIBILITY, to give them spiritual life.

1. Men are dead in sin.

2. Christ's call awakes the soul, and Christ's power gives it life.

3. Christ supports, develops, and perfects this new life.

III. INDIFFERENCE, to give them a life of usefulness.

(Weekly Pulpit.)

I. IN LIFE.

1. The friend of Jesus. Expressing ideas of —

(1)Acquaintance.

(2)Endearment.

2. The friend of Jesus' friends. Adding thoughts of —

(1)Social intercourse.

(2)Loving brotherhood.

II. IN DEATH. Asleep.

1. Withdrawn from the ordinary activities of life, as the mind is during the hours of slumber.

2. Possessed of a real, though different existence, as the mind never ceases to be active during the hours of repose.

3. Certain to awake refreshed after the period of rest has terminated, as mind and body do when night is passed.

(T. Whitelaw, D. D.)

Estius well remarks, "Sleeping, in the sense of dying, is only applied to men, because of the hope of the resurrection. We read no such thing of brutes." The use of the figure is so common in Scripture, that it is almost needless to give references (see Deuteronomy 31:16; Daniel 12:2; Matthew 27:52; Acts 7:60; Acts 13:36; 1 Corinthians 7:39; 1 Corinthians 11:30; 1 Corinthians 15:6-18; 1 Thessalonians 4:13, 14). But it is a striking fact that the figure is frequently used by great heathen writers, showing clearly that the traditions of a life after death existed even among the heathen. Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Catullus, supply instances. However, the Christian believer is the only one who can truly regard death as sleep — that is, as a healthy, refreshing thing, which can do him no harm. Many among ourselves, perhaps, are not aware that the figure of speech exists among us in full force in the word "cemetery," applied to burial ground. That word is drawn from the very Greek verb which our Lord uses here. It is literally a "sleeping place."

(Bishop Ryle.)

For sleep is only the parenthesis, while death is the period of our cares and trials.

(M. Henry.)

All Wales, when I was there, was filled with the story of the dying experiences of Frances Ridley Havergal. She got her feet wet standing on the ground preaching temperance and the gospel to a group of boys and men, went home with a chill, and congestion set in, and they told her she was very dangerously ill. "I thought so," she said, "but it is really too good to be true that I am going. Doctor, do you really think I am going?" "Yes." "Today? Probably." She said: "Beautiful, splendid to be so near the gate of heaven!" Then, after a spasm of pain, she nestled down in the pillows and said, "There, now; it is all over — blessed rest." Then she tried to sing, and she struck one glad note, high note of praise to Christ, but could sing only one word, "He," and then all was still. She finished it in heaven.

(T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)

The angel of sleep and the angel of death reclined at eventide on a hill overlooking the abodes of men. As night came on, one rose from his mossy couch and scattered some seeds of slumber. The zephyrs bore them away to human dwellings, and presently the sick man forgot his pain, the mourner his sorrow, the poor his cares. "Oh, what joy," exclaimed the angel of sleep, "thus to do good unseen!" The other looked at him in sadness, and a tear gathered in his dark eye as he said: "Alas, that I can have no thanks! Earth calls me its enemy and destroyer." "Nay, my brother," answered sleep, "in the morning men praise me as their friend, and will not the good in the resurrection morn praise and bless thee also as a benefactor? Are we not brothers and messengers of one Father?"

Caiaphas, Didymus, Jesus, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, ThomasBethany, Ephraim, Jerusalem, JudeaAdded, Afterwards, Asleep, Awake, Awaken, Fallen, Friend, Lazarus, Laz'arus, Rest, Says, Sleep, Sleepeth, Sleeping, Spake, Spoke, Thus, Wake1. Jesus raises Lazarus, four days buried.
45. Many Jews believe.
47. The high priests and Pharisees gather a council against Jesus.
49. Caiaphas prophesies.
54. Jesus hides himself.
55. At the Passover they enquire after him, and lay wait for him.

John 11:11

     8122   friendship, with God

John 11:1-44

     5285   cures
     9165   restoration

John 11:11-13

     9105   last things

John 11:11-14

     5288   dead, the
     5535   sleep, and death
     9022   death, believers

John 11:11-23

     4925   delay, divine

March 28 Evening
Our friend sleepeth.--JOHN 11:11. I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. If the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. But now is Christ risen from the …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

November 6 Morning
When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.--COL. 3:4. I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.--God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

March 11 Evening
Jesus wept.--JOHN 11:35. A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.--We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.--It became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.--Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

June 22 Evening
Behold how he loved.--JOHN 11:36. He died for all.--Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. He . . . liveth to make intercession for them.--I go to prepare a place for you. I will come again, and receive you unto myself that where I am, there ye may be also.--Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.--Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. We love him, because he first loved loved us.--The …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

May 30 Evening
Thou hearest me always.--JOHN 11:42. Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.--Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.--Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.--Not my will, but thine, be done. As he is, so are we in this world.--This is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

Christ's Question to Each
For the Young '... Believest then this? She saith unto Him, Yea, Lord.'--JOHN xi. 26, 27. As each of these annual sermons which I have preached for so long comes round, I feel more solemnly the growing probability that it may be the last. Like a man nearing the end of his day's work, I want to make the most of the remaining moments. Whether this is the last sermon of the sort that I shall preach or not, it is certainly the last of the kind that some of you will hear from me, or possibly from any …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Open Grave at Bethany
'Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that 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. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying unto Him, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Seventh Miracle in John's Gospel --The Raising of Lazarus
'And when Jesus thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, Come forth. 44. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin.'--JOHN xi. 43, 44. The series of our Lord's miracles before the Passion, as recorded in this Gospel, is fitly closed with the raising of Lazarus. It crowns the whole, whether we regard the greatness of the fact, the manner of our Lord's working, the minuteness and richness of the accompanying details, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Caiaphas
'And one of them, named Caiaphas being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.'--JOHN xi. 49,50. The resurrection of Lazarus had raised a wave of popular excitement. Any stir amongst the people was dangerous, especially at the Passover time, which was nigh at hand, when Jerusalem would be filled with crowds of men, ready to take fire from any spark …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Delays of Love
'Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He abode two days still in the same place where He was.'--JOHN xi. 5, 6. We learn from a later verse of this chapter that Lazarus had been dead four days when Christ reached Bethany. The distance from that village to the probable place of Christ's abode, when He received the message, was about a day's journey. If, therefore, to the two days on which He abode still after the receipt of the news, we …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Miracles no Remedy for Unbelief.
"And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke Me? and how long will it be ere they believe Me, for all the signs which I have showed among them?"--Numbers xiv. 11. Nothing, I suppose, is more surprising to us at first reading, than the history of God's chosen people; nay, on second and third reading, and on every reading, till we learn to view it as God views it. It seems strange, indeed, to most persons, that the Israelites should have acted as they did, age after age, in …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

A Mystery! Saints Sorrowing and Jesus Glad!
Jesus is talking of the death of His friend, let us listen to His words; perhaps we may find the key to His actions in the words of His lips. How surprising! He does not say, "I regret that I have tarried so long." He does not say, "I ought to have hastened, but even now it is not too late." Hear, and marvel! Wonder of wonders, He says, "I am glad that I was not there." Glad! the word is out of place? Lazarus, by this time, stinketh in his tomb,and here is the Saviour glad! Martha and Mary are weeping …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 10: 1864

Beloved, and yet Afflicted
We need not be astonished that the man whom the Lord loves is sick, for he is only a man. The love of Jesus does not separate us from the common necessities and infirmities of human life. Men of God are still men. The covenant of grace is not a charter of exemption from consumption, or rheumatism, or asthma. The bodily ills, which come upon us because of our flesh, will attend us to the tomb, for Paul saith, "we that are in this body do groan." Those whom the Lord loves are the more likely to be …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 26: 1880

Though He were Dead
Martha, you see, in this case, when the Lord Jesus Christ told her that her brother would rise again, replied, "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." She was a type, I say, of certain anxious believers, for she set a practical bound to the Saviour's words. "Of course there will be a resurrection, and then my brother will rise with the rest." She concluded that the Saviour could not mean anything beyond that. The first meaning and the commonest meaning that suggests …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 30: 1884

Even Now
"Even now."--John 11:22 I HOPE that there are a great many persons here who are interested in the souls of those around them. We shall certainly never exercise faith concerning those for whose salvation we have no care. I trust, also, that we are diligent in looking after individuals, especially those who are amongst our own family and friends. This is what Martha did; her whole care was for her brother. It is often easier to have faith that Christ can save sinners in general, than to believe that …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 38: 1892

Oh, How He Loves!
"Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!"--John 11:36. IT WAS AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS that Jesus wept, and his grief was so manifest to the onlookers that they said, "Behold how he loved him!" Most of us here, I trust, are not mere onlookers, but we have a share in the special love of Jesus. We see evidences of that love, not in his tears, but in the precious blood that he so freely shed for us; so we ought to marvel even more than those Jews did at the love of Jesus, and to see further into …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 56: 1910

The Welcome visitor
IT seems that Martha had heard of Christ's coming, and Mary had not. Hence Martha rose up hastily and went to meet the Master, while Mary sat still in the house. From this we gather that genuine believers may, through some unexplained cause, be at the same time in very different states of mind. Martha may have heard of the Lord and seen the Lord; and Mary, an equally loving heart, not having known of his presence, may, therefore, have missed the privilege of fellowship with him. Who shall say that …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 61: 1915

The Displeasure of Jesus.
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.--John xi. 33. Grimm, in his lexicon to the New Testament, after giving as the equivalent of the word [Greek: embrimaomai] in pagan use, 'I am moved with anger,' 'I roar or growl,' 'I snort at,' 'I am vehemently angry or indignant with some one,' tells us that in Mark i. 43, and Matthew ix. 30, it has a meaning different from that of the pagans, namely, 'I command with …
George MacDonald—Unspoken Sermons

The Disciple, -- Master, what is the Real Meaning of Service? is it that We...
The Disciple,--Master, what is the real meaning of service? Is it that we serve the Creator and then His creatures for His sake? Is the help of man, who is after all but a mere worm, of any value to God in caring for His great family, or does God stand in need of the help of man in protecting or preserving any of His creatures? The Master,--1. Service means the activity of the spiritual life and is the natural offering prompted by love. God, who is Love, is ever active in the care of His creation, …
Sadhu Sundar Singh—At The Master's Feet

How to Make Use of Christ as the Life, when the Believer is So Sitten-Up in the Ways of God, that He Can do Nothing.
Sometimes the believer is under such a distemper of weakness and deadness, that there is almost no commanded duty that he can go about; his heart and all is so dead, that he cannot so much as groan under that deadness. Yea, he may be under such a decay, that little or no difference will be observed betwixt him and others that are yet in nature; and be not only unable to go actively and lively about commanded duties, yea, or to wrestle from under that deadness; but also be so dead, that he shall scarce …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

Of the Intimate Love of Jesus
When Jesus is present all is well and nothing seemeth hard, but when Jesus is not present everything is hard. When Jesus speaketh not within, our comfort is nothing worth, but if Jesus speaketh but a single word great is the comfort we experience. Did not Mary Magdalene rise up quickly from the place where she wept when Martha said to her, The Master is come and calleth for thee?(1) Happy hour when Jesus calleth thee from tears to the joy of the spirit! How dry and hard art thou without Jesus! …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

Peræa to Bethany. Raising of Lazarus.
^D John XI. 1-46. ^d 1 Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. [For Bethany and the sisters, see p. 478.] 2 And it was that Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair [John xii. 3 ], whose brother Lazarus was sick. [The anointing had not yet taken place, as John himself shows. For a similar anticipation see Matt. x. 4. There are five prominent Marys in the New Testament: those of Nazareth, Magdala and Bethany; the …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Retiring Before the Sanhedrin's Decree.
(Jerusalem and Ephraim in Judæa.) ^D John XI. 47-54. ^d 47 The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council [called a meeting of the Sanhedrin], and said, What do we? [Thus they reproach one another for having done nothing in a present and urgent crisis. As two of their number (Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathæa) were afterwards in communications with Christians, it was easy for the disciples to find out what occurred on this notable occasion.] for this man doeth many signs. …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

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