Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought he meant taking rest in sleep. Jesus himself declared it in the 11th chapter of John, verse 13. The first fact that faces us in the life of this man Lazarus is the somber truth that Lazarus is dead. The young man is Lazarus, and his story is found in the 11th and 12th chapters of John’s gospel. And it can hardly be accident or coincidence that the matters related about this young man trace for us the development of Christian experience from the beginning until the end. But today we are moving to the New Testament and looking at the story of a man whose history begins not with his birth, but with his death. Last week we looked together at the story of a man in the Old Testament whose history began with his birth and what his mother named him when he was born. This makes them fascinating to trace out and most rewarding to apply. For in these stories we see reflected by divine intention aspects and characters of ourselves, and learn lessons from them. We’ll discover that each Bible story is also a picture or perhaps more accurately, a mirror in which we see ourselves, and this is what makes them so eternally fascinating. From our youth we have been enjoying these wonderful Bible stories, exciting tales of intrigue and adventure, romance, but they’re not merely stories. These Bible stories as many of you have discovered are never merely stories. These morning hours we have been looking at certain Bible characters together.
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