Hosanna Restoration Church

Have you ever noticed that if people don’t want to believe something they will go to some pretty extreme measures in order to keep from facing the truth? For instance, someone might say that they are against abortion, but they think that it should be up the individual to decide what they want to do. It seems to me that they just want to have the option in case the need arises. What has happened to the need to do and to defend what is right?

More and more, we are seeing the gray areas squeezed out of our society. What is dark is getting darker and what is light is getting lighter. Evil is moving to an extreme and it is making the choices more obvious. Personally, I think that most people prefer not to live in darkness. In the past they have been able to wander in the gray areas, but as that is removed, a choice needs to be made. The choices we make reveal the truth about us. People can try to hide, but the truth will find them out.

Look at the scripture above. Jesus had recently raised Lazarus from the dead. This was a pretty big moment and a life-changing event for a lot people who had been sitting on the fence. For many of the people this was the final evidence they needed. This convinced them that Jesus was the Son of God and so they began to follow Him. This made the religious leaders even more determined to kill Jesus. But now they had another problem. More and more people were hearing about how Lazarus was raised from the dead. Every time someone came and saw him and heard his testimony they believed. Then they went and told someone else and someone else would believe. Then they would come to see for themselves and the circle started all over again.

Did this convince those religious leaders? Absolutely not! Rather than believe the truth, they decided it would be a good idea to kill Lazarus too. Now is that evil magnified or what? What were they going to do with all of the people who saw Lazarus themselves? They were just so locked up in unbelief that they thought if they got rid of the evidence the truth would go away. We know that the truth does not go away. In fact, it is pretty clear that the truth increases.

It is a bit like the DNA advances. Many criminals who thought they got away with things a long time ago, are suddenly finding out that they did not get away with it after all. The same is true for everyone who refuses the truth of Jesus Christ. One day they will discover that He is the truth and that He has always been the truth. Those leaders who thought that killing Jesus and Lazarus would make the truth go away found out it did not work.

In the same way, aren’t we guilty of trying to kill the truth when we to limit God? Mary and Martha had been willing to believe to a point, but they stopped at believing that Jesus could raise the dead. They found out that Jesus could raise the dead as easy as he could cure a fever. Jesus will prove Himself true if we will just let Him live to His fullest in our lives. Just as raising Lazarus convinced many people, the things God wants to do in our lives will be evidence for others. So don’t kill Lazarus, let his testimony live on.