Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1052
“Jesus said, Take away the stone.” John 11:39.
“Jesus said to them, Loose him, and let him go.” John 11:44.
THERE lay Lazarus in the grave, dead. His restoration to life was utterly hopeless upon any ordinary principles. Certainly Lazarus could not raise himself! His affectionate sisters could not, with all their weeping, give him a resurrection nor could the disciples call back the departed spirit and reanimate the decaying corpse. If was a hopeless case, for who could revive a dead man who had lain in the grave so long that he had begun to stink?
This is a parallel case with that of every unconverted sinner in the world. He is dead in trespasses and sins—not a little sick or somewhat wounded, or in a swooning fit—but spiritual death reigns over him. The sinner never gives life to himself. The thing is inconceivable. There are persons who imagine that the natural will of man sometimes inclines towards good, but, alas, this flattering supposition is far from the fact. Jesus said, “You will not come unto Me, that you might have life.” Neither will they come, now, any more than they did then! Until we see dead men raising themselves, we do not expect to meet with sinners who have spontaneously and without Divine assistance turned themselves towards righteousness.
Neither can relatives or friends regenerate the soul in which they take an interest, nor can the most earnest ministers bestow the quickening spirit. Those whom God has blessed in other instances are yet quite powerless in any fresh case unless the same power shall again be put forth through them. Death is a terrible picture of our natural state, but it is by no means an exaggerated one. The whole world lies before us as a valley of dry bones, according to Ezekiel’s vision, and if ever the dry bones are to live, it will not be through an energy innate within themselves nor through a power resident in the most zealous of men, nor through any might which even a Prophet could exert apart from God.
Education cannot develop life out of death. Persuasion cannot excite it. Reasoning cannot infuse it—the Divine arm must be revealed, or the case is past hope. Jesus must come to the tomb of Lazarus and His voice must cry, “Lazarus, come forth,” or else the corpse shall remain inanimate and increase in putrefaction. All that can be done by mortal man may be done, but nothing will be effected unless Jesus, who is the Resurrection and the Life, shall speak the quickening word! In His Omnipotent voice lies the power, but only there.
Now, let this be taken as a plain statement of our belief as to the Lord’s work in salvation, and taken without any mitigation or dilution. We believe that in every case, salvation is of the Lord alone and altogether! Regeneration is a supernatural work. Man must be born-again from above—any power short of that from Heaven will be ineffectual. The new creation is as much and entirely the work of God as the old creation—
“Can anything beneath a power Divine
The stubborn will subdue?
‘Tis Your Eternal Spirit, Yours
To form the heart anew.
To chase the shades of death a way,
And bid the sinner live!
A beam of Heaven, a vital ray
‘Tis Yours alone to give.”
And, having said this, we proceed to bear witness that what can be done by us ought to be done, since what can be done by man will not be done by Christ. It is a rule with our Lord never to work needless miracles. Indeed, He only
begins the miraculous when the ordinary means can go no further. He follows the ordinary up to its verge, and then the extraordinary comes in. If a multitude are to be fed, so long as there are barley loaves and fishes to be had, Jesus will use them. He will multiply them and make them go further than they naturally could, but He will use them as far as they will go. Had there been neither loaf nor fish I do not doubt He would have commenced with an act of creation, but as it was, since there were a few loaves and fishes, He does not ignore them, but makes them the basis of a work of multiplication.
What a man can do for himself God will not do for him, and what Christian people can do for sinners they must not expect the Lord to do—they must work themselves according to the ability God has given them up to the point of possibility—and then they may look for Divine interposition. Observe in this instance that there was a stone before the mouth of the cave in which Lazarus was interred. Could not our Lord have removed that stone with a word? Could not He have said, “Be you removed, O stone,” and it would have been done?
Yes, He could have consumed the stone with a glance if He had so minded. But He did not choose to do so, because the bystanders were quite competent to take away the stone. Therefore He said to them, “Take away the stone.” And when Lazarus was raised, when he had come forth from the niche in which his friends had laid him, he was enshrouded with the cerements of the tomb. Rolls of linen were about his body, and a napkin wrapped around his head—and Jesus did not, by Divine power, remove the vestments of the grave.