Shuffling Saints — Bill McLeod

Life and Liberty in Lazarus

John chapter 11. Well the chapter begins by saying that a certain man was sick and his name was Lazarus and he died. And there's about 50 verses in the chapter to tell the story of what happened when Jesus came and raised him from the dead.

Lazarus come forth and he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with grave clothes and his face was bound about with a napkin. And then Jesus said loose him and let him go. You know there's a vast difference between life and liberty.

You might have life but be in jail. So you've got life but not much liberty. In the story of Lazarus we have a beautiful picture of a Christian, a genuine Christian. He is born again, he's been raised to spiritual life by the power of the Son of God, but he doesn't have much liberty.

And we're going to think about that for a few moments today. Life and liberty. Loose him and let him go. Eighteen times in the book of Exodus God said to Pharaoh, let my people go. Let them go. You've had them in bondage, let them go.

And God kept crying from heaven, let my people go. And Pharaoh didn't want to let them go. Satan doesn't want to let you and I go. What is the Christian life supposed to be like? You know to a lot of people it's just a big drag and a bag of rules.

I mean even some born again believers when they get very honest they'll tell you that. They're not enjoying it, they are enduring it. I was raised in a Presbyterian church originally and my brother Bob and I, there were four boys in our family, but we learned a shorter catechism which was a series of questions and answers that went like this.

The first question, what is the chief end of man? We thought of that word end last night. What is the chief end of man? What is the chief reason that God put us here on the earth? And the response was, man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

And my brother told me he was in his early twenties before he discovered that he'd learned the response wrong. He'd learned that this way, man's chief end is to glorify God and to endure him forever. And that's the way a lot of Christians live.

They're not enjoying, they are enduring. How does the Bible speak about the Christian life? Well things like this, he that has clean hands shall be stronger and stronger. Are you stronger now than you were twelve months ago?

The path of the justice is the shining light that shines more and more unto the perfect day. Do you have more light on life's pathway than you had a year or five or ten years ago? Well you should have, but if you don't have it isn't God's fault.

He's promised this in the Bible, but many of us cannot honestly say I do have more light, I am getting more light. Sometimes as a matter of fact people tell me, well I'm drifting backwards, I'm not as sharp and keen as I was five years ago.

And that's a denial of course of what the Bible is saying. They go from strength to strength in Psalm 84. So are you stronger now than you were a year ago? Well the Bible says you should be, and there's something wrong if I'm not.

But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Am I growing in grace, am I growing in knowledge? John chapter 1 tells us of his, it means out of his, that is Christ, out of his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace, grace for grace.

You know yesterday's grace will not do for today. Every day we have to have new grace and new strength from God and we can have that if we're walking in the light, as the Bible says we should. If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

And we sang the chorus, Jesus sets me absolutely free. He died on Calvary, he gives me victory. Can you say that Jesus Christ has set you absolutely free? We were singing that chorus in a meeting one time and a lady got up and very hastily left the auditorium, and I thought perhaps she wasn't feeling well.

We discovered later on, because she gave her testimony publicly, that while we were singing the chorus it suddenly dawned on her that this was not a reflection of her life. She was not free, she was all bound up.

And so she ran downstairs to get alone in a room where she could pray and get things straightened out with God, and so she did, and was able to commit her life completely to God in a way that she had never been able to do before, and Jesus set her absolutely free.

So there's a difference between life being born again and liberty being filled with the Spirit of God, and the Bible makes that distinction quite clear. You know to people who had been Christians for some time at the place called Ephesus, Paul wrote and said now be filled with the Spirit.

They had the Spirit, he said so in chapter 1, he talked about it in chapter 2, he talked about it in chapters 3 and 4, but in chapter 5 he says now be filled with the Spirit. You have the Spirit, be filled with the Spirit.

You have life but you need liberty, and only the Spirit of God can give you the kind of liberty that God wants his people to have. Now is it right to spiritualize a story like the story of Lazarus in chapter 11 in John's gospel?

I think it is, because sometimes this is done in the Bible. Remember in John chapter 5, the Lord Jesus Christ said the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live.

The hour is coming, I think the reference there is to the judgment day or the day when Christ will return and the resurrection takes place, and the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear will live.

But he says now is. Now he's talking about something spiritual. The hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God. Now he's talking about those that are dead in trespasses and sins as all of us were until Jesus Christ became our personal Savior.

And you know this helps us to understand what really happened when I was born again. It was not something I did of my own self, it was something God did for me. He called me personally and I was born again by the power of the Spirit of God.

It took the voice of Jesus Christ to raise Lazarus from the dead and it takes the voice of the Son of God to raise you and I from that state in which we were actually born. We've inherited from Adam, our father, a sinful nature and we can't shake it off, we can't get loose from it, and we were dead, actually literally dead in trespasses and sins.

So we did not enjoy the company of Christians, we did not enjoy Bible study, we did not enjoy prayer, we did not enjoy gospel songs, we were dead in trespasses and sins. And then in the language of the book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament, the Lord passed by and He saw us in our condition, lying out there abondoned in a field and covered with blood and I said unto you, live.

I said live and you lived and that's what happened to you and I if you're a Christian today. Jesus Christ cried live and we lived by the power of God. We were dead in sins but we had a spiritual resurrection by the power of the voice of the Son of God.

Lazarus, come forth. He called your name too and you came forth from that tomb where you were lying, helpless and hopeless. You could not save yourself. Only Christ can do that. I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.

So we read in the book of Isaiah. And then the angel said thou shall call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins. Why even His enemies bore witness to that because they said He saved others or they admitted that He claimed to save others and they were mocking Him now because He could not save Himself.

Not understanding that it was not a case of could not, it was a case of would not. He could have but He chose not to because He was a lamb slain from the foundation of the world and He knew why He'd come.

He'd come to die on a cross for the sins of men. Now by the power of the Holy Spirit He speaks to our heart and we want to be absolutely sure first of all that we are born again, that we do have life, that we're not still dead in trespasses and sins.

A team with which I'm well acquainted had meetings in a large Christian college, a preacher's training college in the United States. And there were several hundred students in that evangelical institution that discovered they had never been born again.

The same team was in one of the largest Bible churches in the world and under one sermon by the blessing of the Spirit of God five hundred baptized church members came forward for salvation. They discovered they had never been born again.

There was a great revival in Shantung, China back about 1932 and the cry of the revival everywhere was this, have you been born again? Are you born again? Because thousands of church people discovered they had never been born again.

They knew the evangelical talk and language but they'd never been raised to life from spiritual death by the power of the Spirit of God. He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself. Do you have the witness in your heart that you're God's child?

God's Spirit bears witness with our spirit, with my spirit, that I am the child of God, the Son of God. Occasionally people have come to me and they will tell me what happened when they were five, four years old or at a Bible camp or something and then they will say to me as they occasionally have, do you think I'm saved?

They want me to tell them they're saved. Now I can't tell them that. That's the work of the Spirit of God. But if I'm really born again, the Spirit of God will then bear witness with my spirit. Remember, he that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself.

You will have the inner quiet witness of the Holy Spirit that you're God's child. And if that's lacking, you should seek God until it's there. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call you upon him while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. And let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him. And to our God for he will abundantly pardon. And God is just waiting.

If you're not saved, you're not sure about it, you know all the evangelical talk. During the meetings in Saskatoon back in 1971, a teacher from one of Canada's best known Canadian Bible schools came to me and said, Bill, do you mind being late on the platform tonight?

And I said, no, why, what's on your mind? He said, I would like to get saved. And I stared at him, I thought he was joking, and he wasn't. He says, no, he said, I've known the evangelical talk. I was raised from the time I was a child in a Christian home.

I knew all this talk backwards, and I know all the answers. I know how to show someone else how to be saved. But he said, I've never had the witness of God's spirit that I'm God's child. And so we knelt together in my office and he met the Lord.

He met the Lord. I remember a man, he lives now in Edmonton, walking with God. He'd be my assistant pastor for some while in Saskatoon. And then he left Saskatoon and went out further west. That was probably eight years before the revival in 71.

And then he heard about the revival and his life seemed to be so empty and dry. And so he, he came to meetings I had in Edmonton and came to meetings I had other places and he would keep coming forward and he never got anywhere.

He thought he was a Christian. And one night God showed him he'd never been born again. Oh, he was a rousing song leader. He was gospel magic with children. He'd been an assistant pastor. He'd been a pastor.

He'd worked in God's invasion army for several, several terms, two terms at least, and maybe longer. He'd led other people to Christ and God showed him he'd never been born again. And so he journeyed all the way from Edmonton to Saskatoon and we got a few people together and we knelt with him and we prayed with him and God touched his life and all of a sudden began weeping.

And when he was composed enough to talk, he said, for the first time in my life, Jesus is real. Jesus is real. For the first time in my life. Make sure you're born again. All right. Lazarus had life. Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth.

And Billy Sunday's comment on that was this. It's a good thing he said Lazarus or the resurrection would have occurred prematurely. It probably, it might have. Lazarus, come forth. I don't know if they have reruns in heaven, but if they haven't, this is one thing I want to see rerun.

I want to see what happened when he came shuffling out of the grave. I want to see the look on the face of the people when Lazarus came up because, you know, they couldn't see his face. They really didn't know if it was Lazarus or not.

Oh, Jesus had called his name and this was the grave where he'd been buried, but his face was bound with a napkin and he was bound. He was just shuffling along like this. You know, he could hardly even walk.

He couldn't see anything because his face was bound. And I can just see the people all staring at him. Who is it? Is it Lazarus? And they could hardly believe it. His sisters were there. His friends were there.

And then Jesus cried, loose him and let him go. What I'm saying is this, that Lazarus shuffling out of the grave is a picture of the new Christian, born again. He's got life, but he sure doesn't have much liberty.

Do you remember the story of the woman in the gospel of Luke? She was bowed together for 18 years. The scripture says she was a real believer. She was a daughter of Abraham, but Satan had bound her for 18 years.

And Jesus touched her, laid hands on her, and she was made perfectly straight. What a blessing. Almost like a picture of Lazarus in a different way, but the same idea. Loose him, loose her, and let her go.

David said, I will walk at liberty for I seek thy precepts. Do you walk at liberty by the power of the Spirit of God? Has Jesus set you absolutely free from the old habits, the old ways, the old life?

Or are you still struggling with the grave clothes of that old life? And you don't have the liberty that God has promised. Let's look at some things concerning Lazarus. First of all, his hands were not free.

They were tied by his side, because he was bound hand and foot with grave clothes, from top to bottom. And he couldn't move his hands. The Bible says, cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Do you have clean hands and a pure heart? Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

So then I am to cleanse myself. O Jerusalem, God-pride, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your vain thoughts lodge within you? There's something I can do. There's something you can do.

Cleanse your hands, God cries, and purify your hearts. So what I really need to do is this, because Jeremiah tells us in chapter 17 of his book that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? They brought a lady to me one time after one of the meetings. They'd been counseling with us. She was a pastor's wife. And I said, what's the problem? She says, I don't know. They've all prayed with me.

They've talked to me and so on, but it hasn't helped me at all. And I said, what is your problem? She said, well, I wish I knew. And I said, have you ever asked God to search your heart? Oh yes, she said.

I said, what did God tell you? She said, nothing. And I looked at her and gave her my biggest smile, because I had to say something rather sharp. And I said, now either one of two things is true. Either you're lying or God's lying.

Which one is it? She said, I'm not. Then God is? No, no, God is lying. Then who's lying? Well, she got quite stubborn, and she said, look, I have asked God to search my heart, and God hasn't told me anything.

I said, I can't believe that. I said, I think God was showing you things, but you turned your ears off. You didn't want to listen, because you were afraid of what God might say. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? I the Lord search the heart. I try to arrange. God is the only one. God searches the heart. This is mentioned many places in the Bible. The Spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts.

God by His Spirit. Remember, then He shows them their work and their transgressions that they have exceeded. God's just waiting to show us what the problems are, why I'm not free, why I don't have liberty, why I don't have power, why the Holy Spirit's not filling my life.

God is waiting to show me these things, if I'm only willing to listen. Well, I didn't know what to do finally, so I said to this pastor's wife, I said, well, let's kneel at the pew here, so we knelt at the pew.

And all of a sudden, God gave me something. I hadn't planned on asking her this. I mean, just sort of, just like God spoke up, threw me to her. Very simple question. I said to her, how do you like the work your husband's engaged in?

And she started to cry. And she got louder and louder till finally it was embarrassing. I mean, people started looking from other parts of church. She was just weeping her heart out before God. Then she must have confessed at least ten different things that were bottled up in her heart.

Going all the way back to the days when she and her husband went to the same Bible school and he found the studies so easy and she found them so hard and she resented that. Now they're married, they have several children, she had to stay at home and look after the children.

She thought, breezing around the country with the young people and so on, she resented that. She didn't like the area they were in, didn't like the church, didn't like the people, didn't like this, didn't like that.

Ten different things that were wrong in her life. They've been there all this time and God had been talking to her about them, but she wasn't paying any attention to what God was saying. Be still and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the heathen. I will be exalted in the earth. And some of us are too noisy and we're too much engaged in this and that. We don't have any time to be quiet enough for God to speak.

Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for He has raised up out of His holy habitation. The Lord is in His holy temple and all the earth keeps silence before Him. God wants to speak. The mighty God, even the Lord has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the sea.

God is calling, God is speaking all the time, every day, every moment, God is talking and we're not listening. We're too busy. Sometimes we're afraid to listen because of what God might say to our own hearts.

We want God to speak to our husband because we're not getting along too well with him or to our children because they're not walking with God. But it all begins when I say, God, speak to me. God, show me my sin.

That's when God begins to work in a person's life and heart. All right. His hands were not free because they were not clean. He that has clean hands shall be stronger and stronger. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

And somebody might be saying, well, it's addressed to sinners. We're Christians, aren't we? We're sinners also. Paul didn't say, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I was chief. He said, of whom I am chief.

We are saved sinners, others are lost sinners, but make no mistake about it, we're all sinners. Cleanse your hands, God cries. You sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep.

Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He shall lift you up. Many of us are so proud. God can't get through to us. God can't change our life.

We think everything's just fine. We're blaming other people and other things, our job or something else, for the problems we have in our Christian life. And we're just not honest enough because we're not humble enough to get down low enough for God to speak to us enough to change our life.

I, the Lord, search the heart. Oh, yes, He does. Let us search and try our ways and turn again unto the Lord. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. That's in Lamentations chapter 3.

He does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men, but He does afflict, not willingly, but He does afflict and He does grieve us and He does convict us and He does make us feel uncomfortable until we get to the place where we're willing to humble ourselves under His mighty hand.

Remember that verse from last night? Draw near to God and He will draw near to you? Of course He will. And He's just waiting for us to do something like this. Hands all tied up, feet all tied up. All a man could do was just shuffle along.

Straight Paths and the Danger of Stumbling Others

And you know, if you were walking behind Lazarus, he had no way of knowing where he was going. I'm sure he wasn't going, he was going like this, you know, crooked paths because he couldn't see. They have made them crooked paths.

Whosoever goes therein shall not know peace. The Bible says in Hebrews 12, make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed. Would you want a sinner to see your life every hour of the day and night?

Would you want him to follow you the path you're walking in? Oh, the Bible says make straight paths for your feet because the lame, the sinner, he's following, he's watching. You're God's light and he's watching you.

And if you don't walk right, you're liable to push him right off the road. And that sometimes happens. I remember with what tears a woman one time told me how Satan had used her. She was a social drinker and she went to a party that the community threw for a new couple that had moved into the area.

And this party, kind of a welcoming party, especially for them, and they had liquor there. And this Christian woman, she drank socially. She didn't know that that young couple who were not Christians, before they went to that particular gathering that night, they said, they knew there was going to be liquor there.

They had never touched liquor in their life, although they were not Christians. And they knew this lady was a Christian. And so here's what they decided. We will watch Mrs. So-and-so. And if she drinks, then it must be all right because she's a Christian.

She believes in the Bible and in God. And so they watched her and she drank that night. So they drank that night. They became alcoholics. And 20 years later, she called them one day to try and win him to Christ.

And they literally ordered her out of the house. They said, it's through you we got into this mess. Don't you talk to us about Jesus Christ. We don't even want to listen. You got us into this mess. The Bible says, make straight paths for your feet.

It's good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak. You are being watched. You remember Paul says, we are made a theater. We are made a spectacle.

The Greek word there is theatron, from which we get the English word theater. We are made a theater to the world, to angels and to men. Demons are watching. God's angels are watching. Satan is watching.

Redeemed people on the other side are watching. People on this side are watching. We are on stage, Christian. And it does matter how we live. Make straight paths for your feet. Let that which is lame be turned out of the way.

Somebody may get discouraged following you. Get the wrong concept of God and turn totally away. It's happening all the time. Satan, if he can get a Christian that's cold and backslidden and carnal and cranky and all this kind of thing, we'd rather have one like that than have a thousand drunkards in the world, because he can use that Christian to discourage others from seeking Jesus Christ.

It matters so much how we live that we be honest in all our business dealings and filled with the love of God. And again, last night we talked about being filled with God's love, love rising out of the pure heart.

Oh dear people, seek that above everything else in life, to be a Christian that's consumed. My heart, the altar, God's love, the flame, as we sing in one of our songs, to be filled with the love of God.

I don't know of anything that moves me more than that. And I know this as a Christian believer, the older I get, the more I want to be simply filled with the love of God. The more I want to know the love of God in my own life.

And I know that means there's going to be many times when my love is going to be challenged and perhaps challenged very, very deeply. I remember one time a lady threw a dipper of cold water in my face without any warning.

I mean, just like that. It wasn't even her house, there was a bunch of us in this home. So I said to her, I gave her my biggest smile and I said, now you provided the water, do you think you could find me a towel?

And she went off and got a towel and threw it at me like this. And I said, thank you very much. And she said, I suppose you're wondering why I did that. And I said, as a matter of fact, I am, because it never happened before.

And she said, I wanted to hear what you'd say if I could catch you off your guard. See, she was not a Christian and she knew I'd been a lumberjack and she thought this Christianity thing is just some kind of a veneer the guy's wearing, you know, and so she wanted to catch me off my guard.

I'm so thankful to God that she didn't catch me off my guard. You know, if you start the day right, the day will go right. Start it early in the morning, have a time with God. There's a little tract in the packet you got, starting the day with God.

Well, that's my own personal program. And I don't advertise the tract because I wrote it, because it was just something God gave to me one day. But I find it true for myself that if I get the day started right, then the day will always go right.

You don't get caught off your guard. Satan can't use you to discourage other people. All right, his hands, his feet, then, you know, it cost him a lot of energy to move. Could you imagine Lazarus in the condition he was in at that moment running a hundred yard dash?

I mean, he's just shuffling along. He couldn't make a hundred yards in 50 seconds. For one thing, he couldn't go in a straight line. Unless he had someone up at the far end blowing a whistle or something, then he might know where to go.

But he'd be constantly tripping and falling and all this kind of thing. No, he couldn't do it. He just couldn't do it. Neither can you. Neither can I. That's why God wants us to be loose. Let my people go.

Loose him and let them go. Let them go. I think of a verse over in Malachi chapter 4. It talks about the coming day of God. Unto you that fear my name shall the son of righteousness arise with healing in his wings, and you shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall.

Other translations say you shall grow up and gamble, G-A-M-B-O-L, which means, you know, when you let a calf loose from the stall, he runs up and he kicks his heel. You've all seen that happen. At least I've seen it happen.

And they're so glad to be out of the stall, they just go crazy for a little while. And that's what Malachi meant. That's what the Holy Spirit meant. You shall go forth and gamble as a calf let loose from the stall, kicking up your heels.

Solid Ground and Spiritual Strength

You remember that verse? It's in Habakkuk. It says that God will make our feet like the feet of a deer, like Heinz' feet. I read that. I knew it meant the feet of a deer. And I used to wonder about that until one time when I was with the Shanhemah's mission.

I was walking from one camp to another. I had about 12 miles to walk that day with a pack on my back with Bibles and stuff in it and so on. And I was on a hard-packed snow road. But that winter the snow in the bush was about this deep.

It was terrible. And the deer were dying like flies because, you know, except where they were yarded up and then they might run out of food and they had to try and make another yard. And I was walking down this road.

I had about 8 miles to get into this camp. And I saw 3 or 4 deer coming through this deep snow. We used to call it swimming. I mean, they were literally swimming. Just their heads sticking out. And the first guy would go a few feet and then he'd be all tuckered up.

And he'd kind of lean over and the next guy would pass him. Then he'd beat the trail a little bit. Then he'd lean over and the next guy would go past him. It was really neat to watch. I wished I'd had a movie camera, but I didn't.

So I just stopped and watched them because they didn't know I was there. And finally they hit that hard-packed snow road and I wish you could have seen them. They started jumping. You know, they call them jumping deer.

They call them jumpers. And they started jumping. I might be exaggerating, but I'd say they almost went 15 feet in the air. Jumping like this as high as they could go because there's something solid under their feet.

What a beautiful picture of the Christian. He'll make our feet like the feet of a deer because he'll put something solid, a new foundation, a rock. And he's put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.

Many shall see it in fear and shall trust in the Lord. But poor Lazarus, it cost him a tremendous amount of energy to move. And you know, I read this many years ago, the writer would say that machinery that's well oiled will last for years.