Resurrection of Lazarus
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disciples with him. Jesus had now given three years of public labor to
the world. His example of self-denial and disinterested benevolence
was before them. His life of purity, of suffering, and devotion, was
known to all. Yet this short period of three years was as long as the
world could endure the presence of its Redeemer.
His life had been one of persecution and insult. Driven from
Bethlehem by a jealous king, rejected by his own people at Nazareth,
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condemned to death without a cause at Jerusalem, Jesus, with his few
faithful followers, finds a temporary asylum in a strange city. He who
was ever touched by human woe, who healed the sick, restored sight
to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the dumb, who fed
the hungry and comforted the sorrowful, was driven from the people
whom he had labored to save. He who walked upon the heaving
billows and by a word silenced their angry roaring, who cast out devils
that in departing acknowledged him to be the Son of God, who broke
the slumbers of the dead, who held thousands entranced by the words
of wisdom which fell from his lips, was unable to reach the hearts
of those who were blinded by prejudice and insane hatred, and who
resolutely rejected the light.
It is not the plan of God to compel men to yield their wicked unbe-
lief. Before them are light and darkness, truth and error. It is for them
to decide which to accept. The human mind is endowed with power
to discriminate between right and wrong. God designs that men shall
not decide from impulse, but from weight of evidence, carefully com-
paring scripture with scripture. Had the Jews laid by their prejudice,
and compared written prophecy with the facts characterizing the life
of Jesus, they would have perceived a beautiful harmony between the
prophecies and their fulfillment in the life and ministry of the lowly
Galilean.
It was nearing the time of the passover, and many came to
Jerusalem from various parts of the country to purify themselves
according to the ceremonial custom of the Jews. There was much
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talk and speculation among these people concerning Jesus, and they
wondered if he would not be present at the feast. “Now both the chief
priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that if any man
knew where he were, he should show it, that they might take him.”
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