Replies

AMEN FAITH AND AMEN ALL!
GRACE TO YOU BRETRHEN AND A GOOD LORD'S DAY!

Ps 114:1 When Israel went out of Egypt, The house of Jacob from a people of strange language,
2 Judah became His sanctuary, And Israel His dominion.
3 The sea saw it and fled; Jordan turned back.
4 The mountains skipped like rams, The little hills like lambs.
5 What ails you, O sea, that you fled? O Jordan, that you turned back?
6 O mountains, that you skipped like rams? O little hills, like lambs?
7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, At the presence of the God of Jacob,
8 Who turned the rock into a pool of water, The flint into a fountain of waters.
(NKJV)

2Co 11:23 Are they ministers of Christ? --I speak as a fool--I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often.
24 From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one.
25 Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep;
26 in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
27 in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness--
28 besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.
(NKJV)

"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.

C.H. SPURGEON

SOLI DEO GLORIA!