John 11,
THERE are three positions in this scripture in which we find Lazarus, and I use them as an illustration of the three conditions in which a soul may be found here on earth.
First then, Lazarus was dead.
Secondly. He was alive, but he was bound.
Thirdly. The word came forth, “Loose him, and let him go,” i.e., he got liberty.
In this present day, we find souls in all these conditions, dead, alive without liberty, and having both life and liberty, and I ask you, my reader, under which of these three classes will you range yourself? Have you life and liberty?
Do you know that you are the Lord’s? Are you a child of God, redeemed, saved, and waiting for the coming again of the Lord Jesus?
“No,” perhaps you answer, “I cannot say that: I am very miserable.”
Well, perhaps you are like Lazarus, alive, but with the grave clothes still on. Or do you answer, “I never thought about my soul at all.” It is clear then, where you are. You are dead—dead in trespasses and sins.
The story of Lazarus brings out what man is, in the flesh down here, and what Christ is as meeting man’s need.
First, the tidings came, “Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick,” and Jesus did not move.
It was not merely disease that He is going to have to do with now, but the question of death.
Many think they are not quite right, who are loath to own that they are dead in trespasses and sins. “But I am not dead,” you say.
Not yet, but stop a bit, and death must come. You are a sinner, and if you do not know redemption, death has a claim on you, death will take you, yea, death must absolutely absorb forever.
What is the lake of fire? The second death, not annihilation, not ceasing to feel. Death is only a relative change. In the first death, man goes out of man’s sight, but does not cease to exist. In the second death, he goes out of God’s sight forever, yet exists. How awful!
People do not like to own they are lost, and so they do not get to know they are saved, they will not own they are dead, and so they do not come to Jesus to get life.
“Lazarus is dead;” not sick merely, and you, if you have not Christ, are dead too. I grant you that no cold tomb may surround you.
No stone may cover your grave, but the seed that brings forth death as its fruit is already germinating in you, and the fruit will follow.
You may be in life and health today, and ere a week has run its course, may be a cold and stiffened corpse, and the ghastly work of corruption already commenced, and why? Because you are a sinner.
Unless I have heard the voice of the Son of God, I am dead. Have you heard His voice yet? “They that hear shall live.”
You may answer, “I have listened to the gospel preaching.” I did not ask you that.
I ask you yourself personally, my reader, Have you heard the voice of the Son of God? If not, there is no life in you; the seed of death is there, and soon death will claim its prey.
Eternal life is not in you. You think man is only sick: he is dead, says Christ, his probation is over, there is nothing in man that is fit for God.
Are you anxious and troubled, my reader?
Depend upon it then, the voice of the Lord has been heard in your heart, and perhaps that is the first thing He has told you, that you are dead. Here is the charm of the gospel, that the Son of God comes out to His enemies, comes out to those who had no thought for Him, comes out to those who had no pulse of life for God in them. It is His own blessed grace alone that can meet man’s case. Your case is too bad for anyone but Christ.
Nothing but God’s own mighty remedy can meet man’s state, and what is that remedy?
The cross of Christ.
Let us look at Him entering into man’s case. He stands before the sepulcher; it is man in death, and God in life standing there face-to-face. Man is powerless, everything is gone when death comes in.
Did it ever strike you, the Lord never allowed death in His presence. The moment, Christ is brought into the presence of death, that moment death is conquered by life. He is the Prince of life and glory.
“I am the resurrection and the life,” He says to Martha—He says the same to every dead sinner now. “Does death claim you?” says Christ. “I am the resurrection and the life.” “Ah,” you say, “but He is not here now.” No, but it is to a risen Saviour in glory I would turn your eyes now; One who has been into death, on account of sin, and come up out of it. It is to a living Saviour that God calls you. On the throne of God today there is a living Saviour, and what doer; He say to you?
“I am alive, but I have been dead, I died for you; believest thou this?” Oh! can you not trust Him? He came down to meet man in death, and to give him life. It needed more faith on Martha’s part to believe it, than it does on yours, for He had not proved it then as He has now. Do you believe that Jesus has gone into death and plucked out its sting; that lie has risen superior to death and the grave, and now offers you in resurrection glory eternal life—the fruit of His death?
Martha thought her brother’s case too bad for Jesus. “By this time he stinketh,” she says. The Lord had raised the damsel who was just dead, with the word of His mouth; He had raised the widow’s son going to the grave; but in this case, Lazarus had been four days dead. Is the case too bad for the Lord of life and glory? Not so; he is superior to death in every form.
“Take ye away the stone,” He says. He lets us come in and share with Him in the blessed work of rolling away the stone of unbelief that covers poor dead sinners. Oh, how the devil loves to get the stones there, and sealed too—loves to say the case is too bad for Christ.
The moment Jesus speaks, everything is made right. “Lazarus, come forth,” He says, and the dead man was face to face with the living Saviour, a word from Him having given him life. I ask you, my reader, Has the hour come in your history yet, when you, a dead sinner, have come face to face with the Lord of life and glory? If so, you have got life from Him, for He never lets death be in His presence. Do you know why Jesus died before the two thieves? Because death could not be permitted in His presence.
“Lazarus, come forth!” Jesus said, and he came forth; but though alive, he was bound with the grave clothes. Yet he obeyed the Lord notwithstanding the grave clothes. And to you Jesus says “Come—come unto me.” Will you obey?
What are the grave clothes that people have now-a-days? Doubts and fears. A soul says, “I feel I am sinful, and I have not peace, and I am not sure that I am converted.” The Lord says, “Loose him, and let him go.”
There are no captives in Christ’s camp, but the captives of love. Doubts and fears do well enough for the devil’s kingdom, but they are not indigenous to Christ’s. Doubts and fears cannot be where love reigns supreme. The devil has no right to hold you if you belong to Jesus. “Loose him, and let him go,” said Jesus of Lazarus, and I can fancy someone stretching forward and taking out those stitches and pins. And what is the first act think you of the one alive from the dead?
He looks at Jesus—right at Jesus. Oh, may you, my reader, if still bound, get your grave clothes taken off, and get a full sight of the face of Jesus. For whom did He die? For me, I say. He went into the grave for me—came up out of it for me. When I know this, I am let go, I am taken out of the place I was in as a sinner, set free; what to do, where to go?
In the 12th chapter, I find where Lazarus goes, to the side of Jesus—into the company of the One who had given him life. If I am free, I will keep close by Jesus, he says; being let go, he keeps fast by Jesus: and in Acts we read of the apostles, that “Being let go, they went to their own company.”
Lazarus goes in, and sits down to feast with Jesus, that is the illustration of Christian position, a man alive from the dead and sitting down with Christ. Our title is to be where Christ is the moment He has saved us.
Lazarus here then illustrates the Christian’s position. Martha illustrates the Christian’s practice, I may say, service, and Mary illustrates the Christian’s worship, occupied with Christ. I might call it the Christian’s pleasure, to delight himself in Christ.
Now, my reader, in closing, I ask you again, Which are you like? Lazarus dead, or Lazarus risen and alive, but bound; or are you like Lazarus set free, and let go to keep company with Christ henceforward?
The Lord grant you may be able to answer from your very heart, “I was dead, but Jesus the Lord, has given me life, and set me free, and now being set free, I will go nowhere but with Him, go with no one but Himself who has set me free at such a cost.”
W. T. P. W.