DEAD MEN OBEY HIS VOICE | Pastor Nathan Hurst

John 11 brings the whole question to the graveside. Death is the enemy nobody can buy off, outrun, or argue down. The wind can stop, demons can flee, blindness can lift, but the grave looks like the place where every human story ends. Jesus walks straight toward that tomb, not away from the grief, not away from the stench, because that is where people need him most.

John writes Lazarus as more than a funeral story. Lazarus is four days dead, past every loophole and every maybe. Jesus does not arrive to heal a sick man. Jesus arrives to raise a dead one. Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, so he stayed two more days. That little word, “so,” breaks the shallow idea that love always acts on panic’s timeline. God’s delay is not denial. God’s clock does not run on human anxiety, two day shipping, spinning pinwheels, or road rage impatience. His timing stretches faith, and what looks like absence is often preparation for a greater glory.

Jesus also shows that power over death does not make him cold to grief. Jesus wept. He was not weeping because death had beaten him, and he was not weeping because the tomb would stay full. He wept because death is an obscenity, an intruder into God’s good world. The Lord of life stood in total command and still cried real tears in front of the crowd. Grief is not weakness. Pretending to feel nothing is not strength. Christ stands at the grave both grieving with mourners and furious at death itself.

Jesus then speaks with the same authority seen all along. “Lazarus, come out.” Three words are enough. The voice that spoke creation into being calls a four day dead corpse out of the tomb, and death has to let go. Lazarus becomes a preview of the day when every grave will hear the Son of God and come out.

Jesus tells the people, “Unbind him and let him go.” The miracle belongs to Lazarus, but the unbinding belongs to the community around him. New life cannot be lived while still wrapped in grave clothes and isolation. Jesus calls dead people out by name, and God’s people help untie what still clings to the old life. Lazarus came out and died again, but Jesus came out of his own grave never to die again. Lazarus was a resurrection. Jesus is the resurrection. The question at the graveside still stands: “Do you believe?”

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Key Takeaways

• 1. God’s delays are not denial Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, so he stayed. That delay was not neglect, and it was not emotional distance. God’s timing often feels slow because human panic wants control, but divine delay may be setting the stage for a glory healing alone could not show. [36:36]
• 2. Christ weeps at the graveside Jesus’ authority over death did not make him detached from grief. His tears reveal a Savior who enters pain rather than explaining it away from a safe distance. The strongest man who ever lived wept openly, showing that honest mourning can stand beside real faith. [44:26]
• 3. Death must obey Jesus’ voice “Lazarus, come out” is not a request made to the grave. It is the command of the author of life, and death has no power to negotiate. If a rotting corpse can hear that voice, then no dead place in a person’s life sits outside Christ’s reach. [51:52]
• 4. New life needs unbinding hands Jesus raised Lazarus, but the people around him had to unwrap the grave clothes. Resurrection life is not meant to stay tangled in isolation, old failures, and burial cloths from the former life. The community of faith becomes part of Christ’s mercy when it helps freed people learn how to walk. [55:45]
• 5. Jesus is resurrection itself Lazarus came out of the tomb and would die again, but Jesus came out never to die again. That difference matters because Christ does not merely perform resurrection as an event. He is resurrection and life in person, and faith stakes even death itself on him. [58:23]

Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [31:44] - Death Meets the Voice of Jesus
• [34:31] - Lazarus and the Early Church’s Hope
• [35:44] - God’s Delays Are Not Denial
• [37:58] - Four Days Dead, No Loopholes
• [39:19] - God Is Not an Errand Boy
• [41:22] - A Culture That Cannot Wait
• [43:36] - Jesus Weeps With the Grieving
• [45:32] - Christ’s Anger at Death
• [47:03] - Grief Is Not Weakness
• [51:26] - Lazarus, Come Out
• [53:33] - Nothing Refuses Jesus’ Voice
• [55:45] - Unbind Him and Let Him Go
• [57:54] - Lazarus Raised, Jesus Risen
• [60:15] - Trust, Grieve, Believe

Bible Reading

John 11:25-26
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” [33:58]

John 11:5-6
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. [36:26]

John 11:33-35
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. [44:24]

John 11:43-44
When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” [52:01]

Observation questions

1. In John 11:5-6, what does Jesus do after hearing that Lazarus is sick, and how does the passage connect that delay to his love for the family? [36:36]
2. In John 11:33-35, what words describe Jesus as he stands near the tomb, and what do the people around him seem to be doing?
3. In John 11:43-44, what happens immediately after Jesus says, “Lazarus, come out,” and what condition is Lazarus still in when he comes out? [52:01]
4. What details show that Lazarus was truly dead and not just barely hanging on, and why does the “four days” detail matter in the story? [37:58]

Interpretation questions

1. John says Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, so he stayed two more days. What does that suggest about how divine love and human timing do not always line up? [37:14]
2. Jesus wept even though he was about to raise Lazarus. What does that reveal about the kind of Savior he is in the presence of grief and death? [45:21]
3. Jesus does not negotiate with death; he commands it. What does “Lazarus, come out” show about Jesus’ authority, and why does that matter for how people face death itself? [53:45]
4. Jesus tells the crowd, “Unbind him, and let him go.” Why might new life in Christ still need the help of other believers after someone has been called out of the tomb? [55:50]

Application questions

1. Where has God’s timing felt painfully slow lately: a prayer, a relationship, a diagnosis, a family situation, or something else? What would it look like to trust him there instead of assuming the delay means he does not care? [42:44]
2. Jesus wept at the graveside. Is there a loss in life that still needs honest grieving instead of pretending to be fine? What makes it hard to bring that grief into the open before God and trusted people? [47:24]
3. If Jesus’ voice can reach a four-day-dead tomb, what feels dead in life right now that needs to hear his word: faith, hope, joy, a marriage, a calling, or something else? [55:07]
4. Some people stay wrapped in grave clothes even after being called into new life. What old patterns, shame, isolation, or fear still cling tightly right now? [56:21]
5. Jesus calls people out by name, and then others help unbind them. Who has helped remove grave clothes in life before, and who might need that kind of help now? [55:57]
6. “Do you believe this?” is not just a question for Martha. When thoughts turn toward death, suffering, or disappointment, what does real belief in Jesus as the resurrection and the life actually look like? [01:00:03]
7. Christianity does not ask people to deny death or grief, but to face both under the rule of Christ. In everyday life, what would it look like to stop flinching before death and live with that kind of hope? [49:00]