When Men Arise

When Men Arise

We have often sung the song, especially at prayer meetings, “Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered.”But how ironic to think that Heaven also sings, if only we can hear, “Let men arise, let God’s enemies be scattered!”

There are some enemies that will never be scattered until mortals arise.God, Almighty though He is, is limited in many ways until humans arise.

Case 1:Lazarus

Drawing a lesson from the story of Lazarus in John 11, I have often said that God will not do for us what He has given us hands to do for ourselves.When Jesus was shown to the tomb of the dead man, with everybody gathered, expecting a miracle, He asked the people, first of all, to roll away the stone.That was not an easy task, but it was something that they had hands to do. Whatever Jesus was going to do for them that day was going to be dependent on that primary task that they were to perform: rolling the stone away.

It must have taken them much time and tedious labour to roll that stone away, but Jesus waited and watched while they did it.If they had waited for Him to use Divine power both to roll away the stone and bring Lazarus back to life, the man may have rotted away in the tomb while each party waited on the other; and that miracle could have been lost not because God had not come to raise the dead man, but because mortals would not arise to play their part.

Imagine this scene at the tomb: Mary and Martha, with their many sympathizers, and a hired orchestra, singing fervently all day, “Let God arise, let this stone be rolled away,” and Jesus with His disciples at the other end of the graveyard, singing and drumming, “Let men arise, let God’s enemy-stone be rolled away”; meanwhile, Lazarus decays as each awaits the other.

34 And [Jesus] said, Where have YE laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see

39 Jesus said, Take YE away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days (John 11:34, 39).

Case 2:Elijah

I have learned a lot and preached much on the subject of human responsibility, from the life of the prophet Elijah.

After a long spell of genocidal drought, the prophet announced, to the relief of the king and every dying Israelite, “there is a sound of abundance of rain” (1 Kings 18:41). But Elijah did not go to sleep after his prophetic declaration of the coming rains of restoration.He went up the mountain to pray, so that he could convert into tangible manifestation the rains whose sounds he had heard in his prophetic ears.I say, therefore, that, between the “It shall come to pass” of prophetic declaration and the “It came to pass” of prophetic manifestation there usually ishuman intervention. Had Elijah never arisen beyond his prophetic declarations, there may never have been a manifestation of his revelations, valid though his prophecy had been.

Much later in his life, he got run out of town by the wicked Queen Jezebel who was after his life.His flight took him into the wilderness, where an angel of God met him twice with food and water for his invigoration.He was told then to “Arise and eat…” (1 Kings 19:5).God had provided the meal, but he had to arise and eat.If he had done nothing about the provision, it would have meant nothing to his welfare.He would have fainted and died in vain; wasted in the wilderness in spite of divine provisions just a stretch of the hand away.

There is always a limit to what God can do among men, until they arise.

Case 3: The Lepers of Samaria

You will never arrive until you arise.That is the lesson to be learned from the forward-looking lepers of Samaria, who would not consign their case into the hands of fate; men who would neither look back blamefully on their countrymen who had discriminated against them and cast them out of town, nor look ahead disgustingly against the Syrian enemies who had stolen their future, and would not let anyone move freely into their abundance.With a famine behind, which had ravaged the land, and an enemy in front who was merciless, they chose to go forward.They said to themselves, “Why sit we here until we die?” They took stock of the odds, but they chose to take the risk and do something.

If you keep sitting, you may soon die.

If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die (2 Kings 7:4).

Death stared them in the face, but they chose to move.After all, the prophet had already made his declaration, that bread would be abundant by that morning.When those despised lepers arose, they arrived at the camp of the enemy and found that a miracle had been waiting for them while they debated whether or not they should take the risk forward.Had nobody moved, strangers may have invaded that blessing, leaving scraps for them by the time they found out, if ever they did.

As it would be generally said, it is better to fail attempting something than to die sitting down.Who knows, you might not fail after all.

Case 4: The Prodigal Son

This was a young man whose actions took him in the wrong direction, but who, when the time came, also knew that his private initiatives were equally imperative to bring about the desired change in his circumstances.He had asked for his portion of his inheritance while his father was still alive, as if he had been wishing for the death of the father, and could stand the wait no longer.

He got what he asked for, and took it away to a “far country” (Luke 15:11-32), where he wasted all.Eventually, his troubles drove him back to his senses; then he said, “I will arise and go to my father” (v.18).A feast awaited him a far-country away, with a father’s embrace for which he had been longing, but first, he had not just to pray and have faith for a miracle; he had to “arise and go.”He never could have arrived at the place of his celebration if he never arose and went.Where you are is your starting point to where you are going.If you never leave where you are, you’ll never get where you ought to be.Even Jesus did more than pray.He also moved.We read in Acts 1:1 of “all that Jesus began both to do and teach.”He was not all words without action.

Case 5: The Women at the Tomb

Often, we worry too much about a future of which God has already taken care.Early on the Resurrection morning, a group of women, with spices to anoint the body of Jesus, debated among themselves, “Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?” (Mark 16:3); meanwhile they had not arrived at the tomb.It was when they got there that they found out that a miracle had been waiting to be discovered by them, while they worried for nothing.The stone they had been worrying about was merely a stone in their imaginations.They never found out until they arose and arrived.

And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great (Mark 16:4).

God will not do for you what He has given you hands to do for yourself.There are many miracles you may never see, notbecause God is yet to arise, but because you are too scared or too lazy to arise.There is some place of ready miracles you may never reach until you arise.The stone has been rolled away.Go and you shall find it so.Amen.