Gods Sabbath

C HAPTER 24

The Resurrection of Lazarus

A prayerful reading of John 11 together with The Desire of Ages , chapter 58, can help to deepen the understanding of this chapter. T he story of Christ’s actions and those of His disciples and their counteractions throughout the sickness, death, and resurrection of Lazarus helps to shatter our trust in the short sighted plans of humans. Instead it builds our faith in the per fect plans of God. The course pursued by Christ as He obeyed His Father’s will, mystified and troubled the disciples because of their ignorance of God’s operating procedures. They reacted by forming plans for Christ and themselves which they could un derstand. But when Christ did not follow these plans as they ex pected, they became even more troubled and confused, which re sulted in a loss of their Sabbath rest. What makes the story of Lazarus more significant and there fore more impressive, is the crucial timing of the issues. It was not a situation where, because of people’s refusal to adopt God’s directives, their failure was redeemable some time later, as was the case when Israel turned back at Kadesh Barnea. In that case God was able to organize another opportunity, at which time they achieved what might have been accomplished at the earli er date. But not so on this occasion.

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