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Lazarus (John 11–12)
We have no recorded words of Lazarus, but his “resurrection life” was such a strong witness that people believed on Jesus simply by seeing the man alive whom they knew had been dead (John 11:45; 12:9–11). See Romans 6:4.
There was no question that Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters (John 11:3, 5, 36), yet he permitted Lazarus to get sick. He also delayed going to Bethany until Lazarus was already dead. The grief that we experience is not evidence that the Lord does not love us, and his delays are not denials of his blessing. Romans 5:8 and 8:28 are still true. Jesus had his plan and it brought glory to his name.
Jesus raised many people from the dead (Matt. 11:5), but only three of these resurrections are recorded: the daughter of Jairus (Luke 8:41–56), the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11–18), and Lazarus (John 11). We have a twelve-year-old girl, a young man, and an older man, and all three were raised by the power of his word (John 5:24).
The man was wholly raised, but not wholly freed. See, here is a living man in the garments of death! … Moreover, he was a moving man bound hand and foot.
CHS, 30:222
Lot and Lot’s Wife (Genesis 12–14)
There is not in the whole Bible a more instructive history than that of Lot and his family. His own history shows how the righteous scarcely are saved. His sons-in-law show well the way in which the Gospel is received by the easy careless world. His wife is a type of those who are convinced, yet never converted—who flee from the wrath to come, yet perish after all; while the angels’ laying hold on the lingering family is a type of the gracious violence and sovereign mercy which God uses in delivering souls.
Robert Murray M’Cheyne, Additional Remains, pp. 249–50
Three “memorable” women: Lot’s wife (Luke 17:32), Miriam (Deut. 24:9), and Mary of Bethany (Matt. 26:1–3).
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Abraham took Lot out of Egypt but he could not take Egypt out of Lot. The Lord had the same problem with the people of Israel. “It took one night to get Israel out of Egypt but forty years to get Egypt out of Israel.”
George Morrison
If there was a man under the sun that needed Abraham’s counsel, and Abraham’s prayers, and Abraham’s influence, and to have been surrounded by the friends of Abraham, it was Lot.
D. L. Moody
Where there is one Abraham, or one David, or one Elijah, you may find a thousand Lots.
Moody, Words, Work, and Workers, p. 115
Lot went into Sodom with his eyes wide open. He knew he was taking his children into bad company, and bringing his household into the midst of the most abominable heathen; but the main question with him seems to have been business, business—money, money.
Moody, Words, Work, and Workers, p. 117
A man is spiritual when the things of the spirit are the great realities for him. A man is spiritual who lives and moves under the felt power of the unseen. A man is spiritual to whom the things of sense are but the shadows of things that are invisible, and who in every choice that he is called to immediately takes account of the unseen. The carnal man judges by the senses. The spiritual man judges by the spirit. The carnal looks at temporal advantage, the spiritual at the welfare of the soul.
GHM, Morning Sermons, pp. 182–83
Lot’s wife was almost saved, but not quite.
CHS, 25:488
She did actually perish through sin. The first sin that she committed is that she lingered behind…. Having slackened her pace, the next thing she did was she disbelieved…. [Her] next movement [was] a direct act of rebellion: she dared to look back.
CHS, 25:488–89
Beware of a half-hearted religion. Beware of following Christ for any secondary motive—to please relations and friends—to keep in with the custom of the place or family in which you reside—to appear respectable and have the reputation of being religious. Follow Christ for His own sake if you follow Him at all. Be thorough, be real, be honest, be sound, be whole-hearted. If you have any religion at all, let your religion be real. See that you do not sin the sin of Lot’s wife.
J. C. Ryle, Holiness, p. 173
Pharaoh saw all the miracles which Moses worked; Korah, Dathan and Abiram had heard God speaking from Mount Sinai; Hophni and Phinehas were sons of God’s high priest; Saul lived in the full light of Samuel’s ministry; Ahab was often warned by Elijah the prophet; Absalom enjoyed the privilege of being one of David’s children; Belshazzar had Daniel the prophet hard by his door; Ananias and Sapphira joined the church in the days when the apostles were working miracles; Judas Iscariot was a chosen companion of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. But they all sinned with a high hand against light and knowledge; and they were all suddenly destroyed without remedy…. They tell us, like Lot’s wife, that it is a perilous thing to sin against light, that God hates sin, and that there is a hell.
Ryle, Holiness, p. 174
Lot was a good man (2 Peter 2:7) who acted upon a wrong principle with disastrous results…. The real hours of crisis that face men invariably occur in the commonplaces of life…. God’s visits for testing are always unannounced. Genesis 12:12; 14:12; 19:1.
GCM, 3:41
His choice had as its purpose, his own self-enrichment; as its principle, compromise. “Like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt”; as its peril, that it was not a choice based on faith, but rather the result of the process of sight and reason.
GCM, 26 Sermons, 3:45
Lot was a success to the world, “from tent to mayor’s office.”
GCM, 26 Sermons, p. 46
Not for the first time nor the last in human experience was it found harder to bear prosperity than adversity. When they were poor, uncle and nephew had no difficulty in keeping together and sharing one fortune. But wealth divided them, introduced friction, and ultimately forced them to separate,
Black, Listening to God, pp. 43–44
The fact is that Lot, though a pilgrim, had never really broken with his past. It was the faith of Abraham that had moved him rather than a faith that was his own.
GHM, Morning Sermons, p. 184
Why was it that Lot did not save Sodom? He could not help Sodom because Sodom knew that his motive for living there was selfish, that of gaining, getting.
GCM, 54:161
We may forget our decisions, but our decisions never forget us.
Her sons-in-law, her friends, her house, her goods, her treasure, were still in Sodom; so her heart was there also…. Lot’s wife fled out of Sodom, led by the angel’s hand, and yet she was lost. An awakened soul is not a saved soul. You are not saved till God has shut you into Christ.
M’Cheyne, Additional Remains, p. 256
When Abraham interceded for Sodom, he based his appeal on the righteousness of God (Gen. 18:23–33), because his nephew Lot was “a righteous man” (2 Peter 2:9). Lot may not have lived like a righteous man, but he did possess that righteousness that comes only by faith (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4). God rescued Lot in his grace and mercy (Gen. 19:16, 19) because Lot was righteous in his sight.
Lydia (Acts 16:6–15)
A man summoned Paul to bring help to Philippi, but when Paul and his party arrived, they found a group of women at prayer, and the heart of Lydia had been prepared by God to receive the Word of the Gospel.
Is it not wonderful that the Lord can open a human heart; for he who made the lock knows well what key will fit in.
CHS, 37:489
Two women identified with Thyatira: Lydia, a businesswoman who opened her heart and her home to the Lord; and Jezebel, a false prophetess who led God’s people astray (Rev. 2:18–29).
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