The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

And now I will go on to another point — THE QUICKENING. These three people were all quickened, and they were all quickened by the same being — that is by Jesus. But they were all quickened in a different manner. Note, first, the young maiden on her bed. When she was brought to life, it is said, “Jesus took her by the hand and said, maiden, arise.” It was a still small voice. Her heart received its pulse again, and she lived. It was the gentle touching of the hand — no open demonstration — and the soft voice was heard — “arise.” Now, usually when God converts young people in the first stage of sin, before they have formed evil habits, he does it in a gentle manner; not by the terrors of the law, the tempest, fire and smoke, but he makes them like Lydia, “whose heart the Lord opened” that she received the word. On such, “it drops like the gentle dew from heaven upon the place beneath.” With hardened sinners grace comes down in showers that rattle on them; but in young converts it often comes gently. There is just the sweet breathing of the Spirit. They perhaps scarcely think it is a true conversion; but true it is, if they are brought to life.

      17. Now note the next case. Christ did not do the same thing with the young man that he did with the daughter of Jairus. No; notice the first thing he did was, he put his hand, not on him but on the bier ; “and they that bare it stood still,” and after that, without touching the young man, he said in a louder voice, “Young man, I say to you, arise!” Note the difference: the young maiden’s new life was given to her secretly. The young man’s was given more publicly. It was done in the very street of the city. The maiden’s life was given gently by a touch; but in the young man’s case it must be done, not by the touching of him, but by the touching of the bier. Christ takes away from the young man his means of pleasure. He commands his companions, who by bad example are bearing him on his bier to his grave, to stop, and then there is a partial reformation for awhile, and after that there comes the strong outspoken voice — “Young man, I say to you, arise!”

      18. But now comes the worst case; and will you please at your leisure at home notice what preparations Christ made for the last case of Lazarus? When he raised the maiden, he walked up into the bedroom, smiling, and said, “She is not dead, but sleeps.” When he raised the young man, he said to the mother, “Do not weep.” Not so when he came to the last case; there was something more terrible about that: it was, a man in his grave corrupting. It was on that occasion you read, “Jesus wept”; and after he had wept it is said that “he groaned in his spirit”; and then he said, “Take away the stone”; and then there came the prayer, “I know that you hear me always.” And then, will you notice, there came, what is not expressed so fully in either of the other cases. It is written, “Jesus cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth!” It is not written that he cried with the loud voice to either of the others. He spoke to them; it was his word that saved all of them; but in the case of Lazarus, he cried to him in a loud voice. Now, I have, perhaps, some of the last characters here — the worst of the worst. Ah! sinner; may the Lord quicken you! But it is a work that makes the Saviour weep. I think when he comes to call some of you from your death in sin who have gone to the utmost extremity of guilt, he comes weeping and sighing for you. There is a stone there to be rolled away — your bad and evil habits; and when that stone is taken away a still small voice will not do for you; it must be the loud crashing voice, like the voice of the Lord, which breaks the cedars of Lebanon — “Lazarus, come forth!” John Bunyan was one of those rotten ones. What strong means were used in his case! Terrible dreams, fearful convulsions, awful shakings to and fro — all had to be employed to make him live. And yet some of you think, when God is terrifying you by the thunders of Sinai, that really he does not love you. It is not so: you were so dead that it needed a loud voice to arrest your ears.

      19. III. This is an interesting subject: I wish I could enlarge upon it, but my voice fails me; and therefore, permit me to go to the third point very briefly. THE LATER EXPERIENCE OF THESE THREE PEOPLE WAS DIFFERENT — at least, you gather it from the commands of Christ. As soon as the maiden was alive, Christ said, “Give her food”; as soon as the young man was alive “he delivered him to his mother” as soon as Lazarus was alive, he said, “Loose him, and let him go.” I think there is something in this. When young people are converted who have not yet acquired evil habits; when they are saved before they become obnoxious in the eyes of the world, the command is, “Give them food.” Young people need instruction, they need building up in the faith; they generally lack knowledge; they have not the deep experience of the older man; they do not know so much about sin, nor even so much about salvation as the older man that has been a guilty sinner; they need to be fed. So that our business as ministers when the young lambs are brought in, is to remember the injunction, “Feed my lambs”; take care of them; give them plenty of food. Young people, search after an instructive minister; seek after instructive books; search the Scriptures, and seek to be instructed: that is your principal business. “Give her food.”

      20. The next case was a different one. He gave the young man up to his mother. Ah! that is just what he will do with you young man, if he makes you live. As sure as ever you are converted, he will give you up to your mother again. You were with her when you first as a babe sat on her knee; and that is the place where you will have to go again. Oh, yes; grace knits together again the ties which sin has loosed. Let a young man become abandoned; he casts off the tender influence of a sister and the kind associations of a mother: but if he is converted, one of the first things he will do will be to find the mother, and the sister, and he will find a charm in their company that he never knew before. You who have gone into sin, let this be your business, if God has saved you. Seek good company. Just as Christ delivered the young man to his mother, do you seek after your mother, the church. Endeavour as much as possible, to be found in the company of the righteous; for, as you were carried before to your grave by bad companions, you need to be led to heaven by good ones.

      21. And then comes the case of Lazarus. “Loose him, and let him go.” I do not know how it is that the young man never was loosed. I have been looking through every book I have about the manners and customs of the East, and have not been able to get a clue to the difference between the young man and Lazarus. The young man, as soon as Christ spoke to him, “sat up and began to speak”; but Lazarus, in his grave clothes, lying in the niche of the tomb, could do no more than just shuffle himself out from the hole that was cut in the wall, and then stand leaning against it. He could not speak; he was bound about in a napkin. Why was it not so with the young man? I am inclined to think that the difference lay in the difference of their wealth. The young man was the son of a widow. Very likely he was only wrapped up in a few common things, and not so tightly bound about as Lazarus. Lazarus was from a rich family; very likely they wrapped him up with more care. Whether it was so or not, I do not know. What I want to hint at is this: when a man is far gone into sin, Christ does this for him — he breaks off his evil habits. Very likely the old sinner’s experience will not be a feeding experience. It will not be the experience of walking with the saints. It will be as much as he can do to pull off his grave clothes, to get rid of his old habits; perhaps to his death he will have to be rending off bit after bit of the grave clothes in which he has been wrapped. There is his drunkenness; oh what a fight will he have with that! There is his lust; what a combat he will have with that, for many a month! There is his habit of swearing; how often will an oath come into his mouth, and he will have as hard work as he can to thrust it down again! There is his pleasure seeking: he has given it up; but how often will his companions be after him, to get him to go with them. His life will be always afterwards a loosing and letting go; for he will need it until he comes up to be with God for ever and ever.

      22. And now, dear friends, I must close by asking you this question — have you been quickened? And I must warn you that, good, or bad, or indifferent, if you have never been quickened you are dead in sins, and must be cast away at the last. I must bid you, however, who have gone the furthest into sin, not to despair; Christ can quicken you as well as the best. Oh, that he would quicken you, and lead you to believe! Oh, that he now would cry to some, “Lazarus, come forth!” and make some prostitute virtuous, some drunkard sober. Oh! that he would bless the word, especially to the young and amiable and lovely, by making them now the heirs of God and the children of Christ!

      23. And now only