Bethany John 11,1-46

Extract

Bethany
Robert Murray MCheyne – Chapter One

“Now a certain man was sick named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby” John 11:1-4.

“Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” Sickness goes round — it spares no family, rich or poor. Sometimes the young, sometimes the old, sometimes those in the strength of their days, are laid down on the bed of sickness. “Remember those that suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.”

The reasons why God sends sickness are very various:
1. In some it is sent for the conversion of the soul. Sometimes in health the word does not touch the heart. The world is all. Its gayeties, its pleasures, its admiration, captivate your mind. God sometimes draws you aside into a sick-bed, and shows you the sin of your heart, the vanity of worldly pleasures, and drives the soul to seek a sure resting-place for eternity in Christ. O happy sickness, that draws the soul to Jesus! (Job 33). (Psa. 107).
2. Sometimes it is for the conversion of friends. When the Covenanters went out to battle, they kneeled down on the field and prayed; and this was one of their prayers: “Lord, take the ripe, and spare the green.” God sometimes does this in families. He cuts down the praying child, the child that was half ridiculed, half wondered at, that the rest may think, and turn, and pray.
3. Sometimes it is a frown of judgment. When worldly people go long on in a course of sin, against the light of the Bible and the warnings of ministers, God sometimes frowns upon them, and they wither suddenly. “He, that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” (Prov. 29:1). “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many …