Spurgeon: November PM
* 11/21/PM
"Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with Him."
--John 12:2
He is to be envied . It was well to be Martha and serve, but
better to be Lazarus and commune. There are times for each
purpose, and each is comely in its season, but none of the trees
of the garden yield such clusters as the vine of fellowship. To
sit with Jesus, to hear His words, to mark His acts, and receive
His smiles, was such a favour as must have made Lazarus as happy
as the angels. When it has been our happy lot to feast with our
Beloved in His banqueting-hall, we would not have given half a
sigh for all the kingdoms of the world, if so much breath could
have bought them.
He is to be imitated . It would have been a strange thing if
Lazarus had not been at the table where Jesus was, for he had
been dead, and Jesus had raised him. For the risen one to be
absent when the Lord who gave him life was at his house, would
have been ungrateful indeed. We too were once dead, yea, and
like Lazarus stinking in the grave of sin; Jesus raised us, and
by His life we live--can we be content to live at a distance
from Him? Do we omit to remember Him at His table, where He
deigns to feast with His brethren? Oh, this is cruel! It behoves
us to repent, and do as He has bidden us, for His least wish
should be law to us. To have lived without constant intercourse
with one of whom the Jews said, "Behold how He loved him," would
have been disgraceful to Lazarus, is it excusable in us whom
Jesus has loved with an everlasting love? To have been cold to
Him who wept over his lifeless corpse, would have argued great
brutishness in Lazarus. What does it argue in us over whom the
Saviour has not only wept, but bled? Come, brethren, who read
this portion, let us return unto our heavenly Bridegroom, and
ask for His Spirit that we may be on terms of closer intimacy
with Him, and henceforth sit at the table with Him.