November 25

The God of our fathers hath glorified his Son Jesus. ACTS iii. 13.

This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. — JOHN xi. 4.

"LORD, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick." This is the touching, suggestive message which comes from two troubled hearts at Bethany to Jesus in his Perean retreat. "This sickness is not unto death." This is the short strange answer which the messenger is bidden to take back. Perhaps before the words were spoken, certainly before they could reach the sisters, their brother was dead. Did the Master mean to mock their grief, or was he too for the once mistaken? Ah, there is a ray of resurrection-light gleaming in that dark message, if they would only see it! A saint's sickness is never unto death. He may seem to die, but it is death in seeming only. The heavenly Father will have no dead children. What seemed to be the death of Lazarus was only the occasion for kindling in the hearts of his friends the flame of a heavenly hope. His grave was only a door through which the glory of the divine love and power shone anew upon the paths of men. Earthly affliction is but a means of manifesting and magnifying the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Sickness in the Master's friends is not unto death, but unto discipline, and the discovery of his glory to us, and through us to others.

J. M. Fible

Without murmur, uncomplaining, In his hand Lay whatever things thou canst not Understand: Though the world thy folly spurneth, From thy faith in pity turneth, Peace thy inmost soul shall fill, Lying still.

H. A. P. (Translation).