WHAT a nice little text! perhaps you will say; I can learn it all myself in two or three minutes. Stop a minute, little one, and remember there are two ways of learning a text. One is to learn the words only; the other is to know the meaning of the words as well.
A short time ago a little boy learned ten verses of French poetry to repeat on his birthday. He did not let anyone know the secret except his teacher, till the day came. After tea he surprised everyone by repeating the verses without a single mistake. Then his father said,
“Ah! Bobby, I fear you have learned the words without their meaning.”
But father was mistaken this time, for Bobby went through them again, and at the end of each line gave the meaning in English.
Now it is something like this in learning texts of Scripture. Some boys and girls learn a whole chapter every week, yet many older scholars would have to confess they had not learned all that this little verse of two words contains. How is that? you ask. Well, we begin to wonder why Jesus wept; He who had been so kind to the widow of Nain, and had raised the ruler’s little girl to life again. Why did Jesus weep? It was because He was so sad to see, all around, the effects of sin. You know that the wages of sin is death. That is why you see so many white stones in the cemeteries, with the words on them to tell us whose body lies beneath. Here perhaps is a man’s grave, there a little girl’s, farther on family graves. These all tell us that sin has been here, and death, the wages, followed. But there are other and worse effects of sin than death of the body; for sin separated man from God, and for any that die with their sins unforgiven, there will be the second death that will shut them out from God forever.
How kind it was of Jesus to weep about Lazarus! and He wept for us too, because we are all born under sin. Afterwards Jesus died Himself to destroy the power of him that had the power of death. Those who now rest in the work Jesus has done will never die. They may fall asleep in Jesus, and their bodies be put in the grave, but they will be raised again, and go to be with Him.
When we read that Jesus wept, it seems to tell us more than many chapters. It tells of His heart of love, how His eyes follow us all the day long, though He is now seated in glory, and we still on earth. Who could distrust such a Saviour, after reading of His sympathy with those mourning for their brother? And those who have learned to trust in Him as their Saviour, how happy for them to have such a friend to go to, to tell all their troubles whatever they may be! He says,
ML 04/12/1925