Part 13

UNBELIEF.

Man--short-sighted man--often raises impossibilities when God does not. It is hard for rebellious unbelief to lie submissive and still. In moments when the spirit might well be overawed into silence, it gives utterance to its querulous questionings and surmisings rather than remain obedient at the feet of Christ, reposing on the sublime aphorism, "All things are possible to him that believeth." In the mind of Martha, where faith had been so recently triumphant, doubt and unbelief have begun again to insinuate themselves. This "Peter of her sex" had ventured out boldly on the water to meet her Lord. She had owned Him as the giver of life, and triumphed in Him as her Saviour! But now she is beginning to sink. A natural difficulty presents itself to her mind about the removal of the incumbent grave-stone. She avers how needless its displacement would be, as by this time corruption must have begun its fatal work. Four brief days only had elapsed since the eye of Lazarus had beamed with fraternal affection. Now these lips must be "saying to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister." Death, she felt, must now be stamping his impressive mockery on that cherished earthly friendship, and, attired in his most terrible insignia, putting the last fatal extinguisher on the glimmerings of her faith and hope. "What need is there, Lord," she seems to say, "for this redundant labour? My brother is far beyond the reach even of a voice like Thine. Why excite vain expectations in my breast which never can be realised? That grave has closed upon him for the 'for ever' of time. Nothing now can revoke the sentence, or reanimate the silent dust, save the trump of God on the final day."

Thus blindly did Martha reason. She can see no other object her Redeemer can have for the removal of the stone, save to gaze once more on a form and countenance He loved. Both for His sake, and the strangers assembled, she recoils from the thought of disclosing so humiliating a sight.

Alas! how little are fitful frames and feelings to be trusted. Only a few brief moments before, she had made a noble protestation of her faith in the presence of her Lord. His own majestic utterances had soothed her griefs, dried her tears, and elicited the confession that He was truly the Son of God. But the sight of the tomb and its mournful accompaniments obliterate for a moment the recollection of better thoughts and a nobler avowal. She forgets that "things which are impossible with men are possible with God." She is guilty of "limiting the Holy One of Israel."

How often is it so with us! How easy is it for us, like Martha, to be bold in our creed when there is nothing to cross our wishes, or dim and darken our faith. But when the hour of trial comes, how often does sense threaten to displace and supplant the nobler antagonist principle! How often do we lose sight of the Saviour at the very moment when we most need to have Him continually in view! How often are our convictions of the efficacy of prayer most dulled and deadened just when the dark waves are cresting over our heads, and voices of unbelief are uttering the upbraiding in our ears, "Where is now thy God?" But will Jesus leave His people to their own guilty unbelieving doubts? Will Martha, by her unworthy insinuations, put an arrest on her Lord's arm; or will He, in righteous retribution for her faithlessness, leave the stone sealed, and the dead unraised?

Nay! He loves His people too well to let their stupid unbelief and hardness of heart interfere with His own gracious purposes! How tenderly He rebukes the spirit of this doubter. "Why," as if He said, "Why distrust me? Why stultify thyself with these unbelieving surmises. Hast thou already forgotten my own gracious assurances, and thine own unqualified acceptance of them. My hand is never shortened that it cannot save; my ear is never heavy that it cannot hear. I can call the things which are not, and make them as though they were. Said I not unto thee, in that earnest conversation which I had a little ago outside the village, in which Gospel faith was the great theme, if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?"

This Bethany utterance has still a voice,--a voice of rebuke and of comfort in our hours of trial. When, like aged Jacob, we are ready to say, "All these things are against me;" when we are about to lose the footsteps of a God of love, or have perhaps lost them, there is a voice ready to hush into silence every unbelieving doubt and surmise. "Although thou sayest thou canst not see Him, yet judgment is before Him, therefore trust thou in Him." God often thus hides Himself from His people in order to try their faith, and elicit their confidence. He puts us in perplexing paths--"allures" and "brings into the wilderness," only, however, that we may see more of Himself, and that He may "speak comfortably unto us." He lets our need attain its extremity, that His intervention may appear the more signal. He suffers apparently even His own promises to fail, that He may test the faith of His waiting people;--tutor them to "hope against hope," and to find, in unanswered prayers and baffled expectations, only a fresh reason for clinging to His all-powerful arm, and frequenting His mercy-seat. He dashes first to the ground our human confidences and refuges, shewing how utterly "vain is the help of man;" so that faith, with her own folded, dove-like wings, may repose in quiet confidence in His faithfulness, saying, "In the Lord put I my trust: why say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?"

Reader! It would be well for you to hear this gentle chiding of Christ, too, in the moment of your spiritual depression;--when complaining of your corruptions, the weakness of your graces, your low attainments in holiness, the strength of your temptations, and your inability to resist sin. "Said I not unto thee," interposes this voice of mingled reproof and love, "My grace is sufficient for thee?" "The bruised reed I will not break, the smoking flax I will not quench." "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." We are too apt to look to ourselves, to turn our contemplation inwards, instead of keeping the eye of faith centered undeviatingly on a faithful covenant-keeping God, laying our finger on every promise of His Word, and making the challenge regarding each, "Hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not bring it to pass?"

Yes; there may be much to try and perplex. Sense and sight may stagger, and stumble, and fall; we may be able to see no break in the clouds; "deep may be calling to deep," and wave responding to wave, "yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me." If we only "believe" in spite of unbelief; hoping on, and praying on, and trusting on; like the great Father of the faithful, in the midst of adverse providences, "strong in faith, giving glory to God," He will yet cause the day-spring from on high to visit us. Even in this world perplexing paths may be made plain, and slippery places smooth, and judgments "bright as the noonday;" but if not here, there is at least a glorious day of disclosures at hand, when the reign of unbelieving doubt shall terminate for ever, when the archives of a chequered past will be ransacked of their every mystery;--all events mirrored and made plain in the light of eternity; and this saying of the weeping Saviour of Bethany obtain its true and everlasting fulfilment, "SAID I NOT UNTO THEE, IF THOU WOULDST BELIEVE, THOU SHOULDST SEE THE GLORY OF GOD?"

XV.

THE DIVINE PLEADER.

The stone is rolled away, but there is a solemn pause just when the miracle is about to be performed.

Jesus prays! The God-Man Mediator--the Lord of Life--the Abolisher of Death--the Being of all Beings--who had the boundless treasures of eternity in His grasp--pauses by the grave of the dead, and lifts up His eyes to heaven in supplication! How often in the same incidents, during our Lord's incarnation, do we find His manhood and His Godhead standing together in stupendous contrast. At His birth, the mystic star and the lowly manger were together; at His death, the ignominious cross and the eclipsed sun were together. Here He weeps and prays at the very moment when He is baring the arm of Omnipotence. The "mighty God" appears in conjunction with "the man Christ Jesus." "His name is Immanuel, God with us."

The body of Lazarus was now probably, by the rolling away of the stone, exposed to view. It was a humiliating sight. Earth--the grave--could afford no solace to the spectators. The Redeemer, by a significant act, shews them where alone, at such an hour, comfort can be found. He points the mourning spirit to its only true source of consolation and peace in God Himself, teaching it to rise above the mortal to the immortal--the corruptible to the incorruptible--from earth to heaven.

Ah! there is nothing but humiliation and sadness in every view of the grave and corruption. Why dwell on the shattered casket, and not rather on the jewel which is sparkling brighter than ever in a better world? Why persist in gazing on the trophies of the last enemy, when we can joyfully realise the emancipated soul exulting in the plenitude of purchased bliss? Why fall with broken wing and wailing cry to the dust, when on eagle-pinion we can soar to the celestial gate, and learn the unkindness of wishing the sainted and crowned one back to the nether valley?

It is Prayer, observe, which thus brings the eye and the heart near to heaven. It is Prayer which opens the celestial portals, and gives to the soul a sight of the invisible.

Yes; ye who may be now weeping in unavailing sorrow over the departed, remember, in conjunction with the tears, the prayers of Jesus. Many a desolate mourner derives comfort from the thought--"Jesus wept." Forget not this other simple entry in our touching narrative, telling where the spirit should ever rest amid the shadows of death--"Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me. And I knew that Thou hearest me always."

Let us gather for a little around this incident in the story of Bethany. It is one of the many golden sayings of priceless value.

That utterance has at this moment lost none of its preciousness; that voice, silent on earth, is still eloquent in heaven. The Great Intercessor still is there, "walking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;" loving to note all the wants and weaknesses, the necessities and distresses, of every Church, and every member of His Church. What He said of old to Peter, He says to every trembling believer--"I have prayed, and am praying for thee, that thy faith fail not!" "For thee!" We must not merge the interest which Jesus has in each separate member of His family, in His intercession for the Church in general. While He lets down His censer, and receives into it, for presentation on the golden altar, the prayers of the vast aggregate; while, as the true High Priest, He enters the holiest of all with the names of His spiritual Israel on His breastplate--carrying the burden of their hourly needs to the foot of the mercy-seat;--yet still, He pleads, as if the case of each stood separate and alone! He remembers thee, dejected Mourner, as if there were no other heart but thine to be healed, and no other tears but thine to be dried. His own words, speaking of believers, not collectively but individually, are these--"I will confess his name before my Father and his angels." "Who touched me?" was His interrogation once on earth, as His discriminating love was conscious of some special contact amid the press of the multitude,--"Somebody hath touched me!" If we can say, in the language of Paul's appropriating faith, "He loved me, and gave Himself for me," we can add, He pleads for me, and bears me! He bears this very heart of mine, with all its weaknesses, and infirmities, and sins, before His Father's throne. He has engraven each stone of His Zion on the "palms of His hands," and "its walls are continually before Him!"

How untiring, too, in His advocacy! What has the Christian so to complain of, as his own cold, unworthy prayers--mixed so with unbelief--soiled with worldliness--sometimes guiltily omitted or curtailed. Not the fervid ejaculations of those feelingly alive to their spiritual exigencies, but listless, unctionless, the hands hanging down, the knees feeble and trembling!

But notwithstanding all, Jesus pleads! Still the Great Intercessor "waits to be gracious." He is at once Moses on the mountain, and Joshua on the battle-plain--fighting with us in the one, praying for us in the other. No Aarons or Hurs needed to sustain His sinking strength, for it is His sublime prerogative neither to "faint nor grow weary!" There is no loftier occupation for faith than to speed upwards to the throne and behold that wondrous Pleader, receiving at one moment, and at every moment, the countless supplications and prayers which are coming up before Him from every corner of His Church. The Sinner just awoke from his moral slumber, and in the agonies of conviction, exclaiming, "What must I do to be saved?"--The Procrastinator sending up from the brink of despair the cry of importunate agony.--The Backslider wailing forth his bitter lamentation over guilty departures, and foul ingratitude, and injured love.--The Sick man feebly groaning forth, in undertones of suffering, his petition for succour.--The Dying, on the brink of eternity, invoking the presence and support of the alone arm which can be of any avail to them.--The Bereaved, in the fresh gush of their sorrow, calling upon Him who is the healer of the broken-hearted. But all heard! Every tear marked--every sigh registered--every suppliant succoured. Amalek may come threatening nothing but discomfiture; but that pleading Voice on the heavenly Hill is "greater far than all that can be against us!" He pleads for His elect in every phase of their spiritual history--He pleads for their inbringing into His fold--He pleads for their perseverance in grace--He pleads for their deliverance at once from the accusations and the power of Satan--He pleads for their growing sanctification;--and when the battle of life is over, He uplifts His last pleading voice for their complete glorification. The intercession of Jesus is the golden key which unlocks the gates of Paradise to the departing soul. At a saint's dying moments we are too often occupied with the lower earthly scene to think of the heavenly. The tears of surrounding relatives cloud too often the more glorious revelations which faith discloses. But in the muffled stillness of that death-chamber, when each is holding his breath as the King of Terrors passes by--if we could listen to it, we should hear the "Prince who has power with God" thus uttering His final prayer, and on the rushing wings of ministering angels receiving an answer while He is yet speaking--"Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory!"

Reader! exult more and more in this all-prevailing Advocate. See that ye approach the mercy-seat with no other trust but in His atoning work and meritorious righteousness. There was but One solitary man of the whole human race who, of old, in the Jewish temple, was permitted to speak face to face with Jehovah. There is but ONE solitary Being in the vast universe of God who, in the heavenly sanctuary, can effectually plead in behalf of His Spiritual Israel. "Seeing, then, that we have a Great High Priest passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, ... let us come boldly to the throne of grace." If Jesus delights in asking, God delights in bestowing. Let us put our every want, and difficulty, and perplexity, in His hand, feeling the precious assurance, that all which is really good for us will be given, and all that is adverse will, in equal mercy, be withheld. There is no limitation set to our requests. The treasury of grace is flung wide open for every suppliant. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name He will give it you." Surely we may cease to wonder that the Great Apostle should have clung with such intense interest to this elevating theme--the Saviour's intercession;--that in his brief, but most comprehensive and beautiful creed, he should have so exalted, as he does, its relative importance, compared with other cognate truths. "It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." Climbing, step by step, in the upward ascent of Christian faith and hope, he seems only to "reach the height of his great argument" when he stands on "the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense." There, gazing on the face of the great officiating Priest who fills all heaven with His fragrance, and feeling that against that intercession the gates of hell can never prevail, he can utter the challenge to devils, and angels, and men, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"

XVI.

THE OMNIPOTENT SUMMONS.

The moment has now come for the voice of Omnipotence to give the mandate. The group have gathered around the sepulchral grotto--the Redeemer stands in meek majesty in front--the teardrop still glistening in His eye, and that eye directed heavenward! Martha and Mary are gazing on His countenance in dumb emotion, while the eager bystanders bend over the removed stone to see if the dead be still there. Yes! there the captive lies--in uninvaded silence--attired still in the same solemn drapery. The Lord gives the word. "Lazarus come forth!" peals through the silent vault. The dull, cold ear seems to listen. The pulseless heart begins to beat--the rigid limbs to move--Lazarus lives! He rises girt in the swaddling-bands of the tomb, once more to walk in the light of the living.

Where Scripture is silent, it is vain for us to picture the emotions of that moment, when the weeping sisters found the gloomy hours of disconsolate sorrow all at once rolled away. The cry of mingled wonder and gratitude rings through that lonely graveyard,--"This our brother was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found!"

O most wondrous power--Death vanquished in his own territory! The sleeper has awoke a moral Samson, snapping the withs with which the King of Terrors had bound him. The star of Bethlehem shines, and the Valley of Achor becomes a door of hope. The all-devouring destroyer has to relinquish his prey.

Was the joy of that moment confined to these two bosoms? Nay! The Church of Christ in every age may well love to linger around the grave of Lazarus. In his resurrection there is to His true people a sure pledge and earnest of their own. It was the first sheaf reaped by the mower's sickle anticipatory of the great Harvest-home of the Final day "when all that are in their graves" shall hear the same voice and shall "come forth."