Four Days

Elder W. Mark Bassett taught in the most recent general conference: “Not long before His prophesied entry into the city, Jesus Christ was fully engaged in His ministry when He received word from His dear friends Mary and Martha that their brother Lazarus was sick. Although Lazarus’s illness was serious, the Lord ‘abode two days still in the same place where he was. Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judea again.’” When He arrived finally, Martha exclaimed, “By this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.” Elder Bassett commented, “These four days were significant to Mary and Martha. According to some rabbinic schools of thought, it was believed that the spirit of someone who died would remain with the body for three days, offering hope that life was still possible. However, by the fourth day that hope was lost, perhaps because the body would begin to decay and ‘stinketh.’” And yet, despite this, the Savior came and did indeed raise Lazarus from the dead. Elder Bassett continued, “When the Savior arrived in Bethany, all had lost hope that Lazarus could be saved—it had been four days, and he was gone. Sometimes during our own challenges, we might feel like Christ is too late, and our hope and faith might even feel challenged. My witness and testimony are that as we move forward with faith in Jesus Christ, the fourth day will always come. He will always come to our aid or to raise our hopes back to life.” He may not always come remove our trials when we hope, but He will always come in the right moment to help and sustain us. As I heard it said recently, “He is never on time but never late.”

There are many stories in the scriptures that indeed teach that sometimes we have to wait the long “four days” for the deliverance we seek from the Savior. Nephi learned this on the ship when He was tied up for four days: “They… bound me insomuch that I could not move… And on the fourth day, which we had been driven back, the tempest began to be exceedingly sore. And it came to pass that we were about to be swallowed up in the depths of the sea. And after we had been driven back upon the waters for the space of four days, my brethren began to see that the judgments of God were upon them, and that they must perish save that they should repent of their iniquities; wherefore, they came unto me, and loosed the bands which were upon my wrists, and behold they had swollen exceedingly” (1 Nephi 18:12-15). He was bound for four days, and then finally the power of God was so visible to even his brothers that they unloosed him before they all perished. Surely the Lord could have delivered Nephi the first day, but He chose not to. In another account, the disciples toiled until the “fourth watch” on the sea, nearly perishing in a storm: “But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea” (Matthew 14:24-25). That means that they struggled nearly the whole night long in the storm, and then the Savior came and saved them. Alma and Amulek were thrown into prison and suffered “for many days. And they did withhold food from them that they might hunger, and water that they might thirst; and they also did take from them their clothes that they were naked; and thus they were bound with strong cords, and confined in prison.” Finally after much suffering, Alma cried, “How long shall we suffer these great afflictions, O Lord? O Lord, give us strength according to our faith which is in Christ, even unto deliverance” (Alma 14:22, 26). Again, the Lord in His wisdom let them suffer for many days before He came and delivered them. And the Prophet Joseph Smith learned about the need for patience for the Lord’s hand to be revealed in our lives as he spent over four months suffering unjustly in Liberty Jail. The Lord taught him and us, “My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:7-8). However long our “four days” are, if we endure with faith they will indeed come to an end and the Savior will cause us to triumph over all our afflictions.