Scrubbed Fore and Aft

Scrubbed Fore and Aft

by Glenn Crafts

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

From the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John, the 11th chapter, beginning with verse 21, Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. And even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” Yes. She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, He who is coming into the world.” And then on verse 38, they have moved from the home to the tomb of Lazarus. “Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to Him, ‘Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God?’”

So they took away the stone, and Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me. I knew that Thou hearest me always, but I have said this on account of the people standing by, that they may believe that Thou didst send me.” When He had said this, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him and let him go.” Amen.

What I am sharing with you this morning, I have shared with other CFO groups, and with some of you. I am doing this on purpose, because it has been requested, and also because God has used this message that He has given to me in a marvelous way in the life of many people.

If you will bear with me just for a moment, while we do some preliminary things that lead into the message, you will see that what I am doing really does go somewhere. It seems to me that there are two ways that people can look at and read the Holy Scriptures. One way is to say that the Bible is a book written about them. Back then, over there. The other way is to say that the Bible is a book written for us. About them, or for us. The difference is this. If the Bible is written about them, it is a book of history about Abraham and Moses and David and the children of Israel and Jesus and the apostles and Paul, written about them so that we can pick it up and read it like a book of history. They did this and they did that. And God said to Moses and God said to Abraham and God said to Paul, “Go here, go there.” And they went here, they went there. And that’s nice. Jesus said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and they received the Holy Spirit. It was something that happened to somebody else back then, say 2,000 years before Christ, back then in the days of Herod the king, over there on the Sinai Peninsula, over there on the shores of Galilee.

And the reaction can be, “That’s nice, that’s very interesting,” maybe even, “Wow, God sure was God back then.” But when we look at it the other way, the Bible is not written about them. It is written for us. It is God’s word to us. So that God isn’t speaking to Isaiah and Paul. He, God, is speaking to each one of us. He isn’t just moving in their midst. He is moving right here in our midst. He isn’t just telling them off. He is telling us off. He isn’t just promising victory to them. He is giving it to us. So that when we sit down and read the word of God, what we read is not just what God did. It’s what God is doing. Right here. Right now. This is what God is doing and will do for us. He is moving in our midst. And when we begin to look at the Holy Scripture in those terms, it begins to get pretty exciting. That means that God is alive and at work in the world right here, right now. That means that Jesus Christ really is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That means that God is still working miracles and answering prayer and changing lives and giving the kingdom of heaven and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and people receive the Holy Spirit.

You see, when we talk about Jesus Christ, we take Him at His word. He said, “I am with you always,” meaning He is with us always. We’re not talking about someone who lived and died and rose again and ascended to heaven 2,000 years ago. Oh, He did that. What we’re talking about is Jesus Christ alive and at work in the world right here, right now. When we worship, when we praise, we are paying our respects to a God who was something that used to be. Wasn’t it wonderful? Wasn’t it great back in those days when God was God? Wasn’t it great what He once did for His people? And it isn’t all in the future either, you know. One day we’ll all get to heaven and one day, maybe soon, Jesus will come again and the end of this age and ushering in the kingdom of heaven, but that’s out there somewhere. No, no, no. It’s not all past. God and Moses. God and David. God and Paul. It’s not all future. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. What it is, is now. God alive and at work in the world now. Jesus Christ alive and at work in the world now. The Holy Spirit alive and at work in the world right now.

Praise God. So when we turn to the Word of God, it isn’t a history lesson. This is what God did. It’s not God speaking about them. It’s what God is doing and will do. It is God speaking to us. For example, I want us to look at that familiar story of the raising of Lazarus, as it is recorded in the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John. And as we look at it, to remember, we’re not talking about history. We’re not talking about what Jesus did in Bethany, say, in the year 27 A.D. or whenever it was. Oh, that’s great. And we can accept what He did. But what we are looking at is the promise and the power of the living Lord to raise us from the dead right here, right now. There stands Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, saying, not to them, but to us, “He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.” Did you hear that? That is absolutely fantastic. Now, put your own name in there. Put the name of a loved one in there. John, Henry, Louise, Charles, Jean. You who believe will live even when he, she dies. Or what we call death, the world calls death.

He, she shall live. He, she shall never die. “Believest thou this?” Well, do you believe it? I don’t mean, do you believe it in your head? Do you believe that Jesus said it? I mean, do you really believe it? Not have you worked it out in your head, but has it gotten down in your gut that it is really true? Has your stomach been converted?

Now, please, don’t see this as a conversation between Jesus and Martha. The Lord Jesus is speaking not to her. He is speaking to each one of us. Maybe speaking directly to someone who is right here, right now. And I’m sure He is. He is saying to us, “What looks like death, what the world calls death, isn’t what it seems to be. If you live and believe in me, you won’t die. Ever.” You really won’t. Oh, you will set the body aside, but you know you’re not your body. You don’t die. Not if you live and believe in Jesus Christ, you don’t. “Believest thou this?” Well, do you? “Yes, Lord. I believe.” And maybe right now you would like to say it with me. “Believest thou this?” “Yes, Lord. I believe.” Thank God.

From there, Jesus went to the tomb of Lazarus. The tomb, it says, was a cave and a stone lay upon it. They stood looking for a moment at the stone and Jesus turned and said to them, “Take away the stone.” Just that. Take away the stone, meaning the stone at the door of the tomb. And Martha, who had just said, “Lord, I believe,” and she did. Oh, she believed, but now she began to have some second thoughts. “Lord, I believe.” You believe? “All right. Take away the stone.” “Now, just a minute. Let’s be sure we understand this situation. I think we’d better have a meeting about this.”

And that happens. It happens to me anyway. I come to a CFO meeting. I am with God’s people and, “Lord, I believe. Lead me to the Red Sea and say, ‘Raise your rod.’” And I’m just crazy enough that right now I would raise my rod.

I’m at some fellowship of spirit-filled Christians. The Spirit gets to moving and I have the feeling you could put me in the lion’s den and I’d reach out and pat him on the head. “Nice kitty.” I reach out in the name of Jesus and say, “Be healed in the name of Jesus. I believe.”

“Oh, Lord, You know I believe.” And then I go to my church board meeting and the Lord whispers something to me and I say, “No, Lord, not here.” Does that ever happen to you? You get all juiced up.

You don’t dare at that moment to say to the mountain, “Mountain, be moved,” because you rather like it where it is. “I believe. Yes, I believe. Bring on the Red Sea. Bring on the den of lions.” And then some simple thing comes along and the Lord says, “Do this, do that.” And our reply is, “Now just a minute.

We’d better talk this over. Lord, I want to make sure You understand the situation.” And there stood Martha and she believed, of course she did. And the Lord said to her, “Take away the stone.” And Martha said, “But, Lord, there’s something You ought to know about this. Lord, Lazarus has been dead now for four days. And I don’t know how to put this delicately, but he’s really dead.

This isn’t like some of those other persons, corpses You’ve dealt with. Some of them were still warm when You got there. But, Lord, this one,” the King James Version doesn’t pussyfoot around on this one. Some of you read the King James Version.

“Lord, he stinketh.” And as I thought about this, and prayed about this, and the Lord began to speak to me about this, I wonder just how many times the Lord has said to me, “Glenn, take away the stone. I’m not asking you to raise the dead. That’s my job. I am the resurrection and the life. I’ll raise the dead. All I ask from you is a simple act of faith. Take away the stone. I’m not asking you to do anything you can’t do. Human hands put the stone there. Human hands can remove it. I will resurrect the body, just move that human-sized stone.” And my answer has been, “But, Lord, four days dead, it stinketh.”

What this is saying to me is, am I willing to open up some of the problems of my life so that the Lord can deal with it? Or am I saying, “Lord, You don’t want to get mixed up in that? Lord, that is yucky poo. It stinks.”

“I’m ashamed, Lord. I’m just ashamed to open up this area in my life.” I’ve noticed that in my prayers, I’m not always honest. Maybe you are, but right now I’m talking about me. I’m not always honest. I don’t like to talk to the Lord about certain things that I’m afraid maybe He doesn’t approve of because I really don’t approve of. I find it so easy to pray about my church as a whole, but there are some things that go on in that church. Oh, Lord, I really don’t want to lay those things at the altar. Now, I say my church because that’s my life. We’ve had problems. Churches do have problems. I guess you know that. Some of them I’m really ashamed of, and I’m part of it.

I don’t want the Lord to know about it, because, Lord, it stinketh. So, Lord, if You don’t mind, I’m not going to roll away that stone. The Bible tells us to cast all your cares upon Him, meaning the Lord Jesus, for He careth for you, all your cares, and the key word is all, A-L-L, cast all your cares upon Him, including the stinky ones that leave you nauseated.

Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. Everything. I’ve noticed, too, that I don’t mind dealing with the nasty problems in your life. I don’t mind for a moment rolling away the stone for you, and I can say to you, “Let it out. I’ll accept it. I’ll pray about it,” that the Lord understands. I can cope with your problem. I don’t mind telling you to take it to the Lord in prayer. After all, you may as well. He knows about it anyway. Just take away the stone of your pride. Let the Lord deal with that stinking corpse that you want to keep covered up. But I have a hard time doing it myself. And I think I know why I have a hard time doing it myself.

I was raised that nice people don’t talk about nasty things. And I want to be a nice person. At least I want you to think I am a nice person. And certainly we don’t talk about that nasty yucky stuff in church.

You don’t bring that before the throne of God, do you? Now I don’t know about you, but as a child, before I went to church, I was scrubbed fore and aft, neck and ears, and everything I put on was clean, clean, clean, and most of it was starched.

Now I may not have been comfortable, but I was clean. Face washed, clean white shirt, Sunday go-to-meeting suit, the only time I ever wore, tie straight, shoes polished, hair combed, the works. Not only that, not only did we, you know, get all dressed up to go to the house of the Lord, but we had a special language. We talked to God in a way we didn’t talk the rest of the week. We wouldn’t have been caught dead talking that kind of talk any other time, any other place. So it was not so much we who came and stood before God, as though that’s how we really were. That wasn’t how we really were. That’s how we were dressed up. That’s how we were taught to talk and to appear to be. And there was no way to be stripped naked before the Lord. Oh, we would sew fig leaves first. We would hide in the bushes. “Lord, I don’t want You to see me as I really am.”

I went to Alfred University. One of the best things that happened to me there was that that’s where I met Betty. Back in those days, they had a daily chapel service. They did those things back in those days. And I went to chapel almost every day. I went for two reasons. One, I wanted to go and two, I knew I would see Betty there. I’m not sure which was one and which was two.

And it was only years later that she told me that she went there for exactly the same reasons. And that’s nice. While we were there, we would sing very often a hymn. I’m sure many of you know the hymn, “Give of Your Best to the Master.” And I believe we should give of our best to the Master, bring the first fruits. Surely we give the best of what we have to the Master.

It was a long, long time before I learned that we can give our worst to the Master. That we can bring these stinky, yucky things to the Master. “Here, Lord, I take away the stone so that You can deal with this area in my life.”

The Lord says to us, “Take away the stone.” And my whole reaction is, “But, Lord, You don’t want to see that. You don’t want to deal with that. It stinketh.” And He stands there saying, “Yes, I know. I got wind of it.”

“If you want to see a resurrection, take away the stone. Let me at that mess.” “But, Lord, it stinketh.” “Take away the stone.” I want to make this intensely personal. Some of you here have problems you have never opened up to the Lord. You’d be embarrassed. You’re nice people. You’re good Christians. You’re at CFO. Some of you are fanatics. Thank God. Why not go first class?

“Lord, it stinks.” Indeed, it does. “Take away the stone.” Maybe your problem is sex. I said it, didn’t I? Christians do have sex problems, you know. “Lord, it stinks.” He knows. I had a student from the College of Environmental Science at Syracuse come to me one day, a beautiful Christian young man, deeply troubled. He had a sex problem in his life, and we dealt with it as best I knew how.

And then as it was time to conclude the time together, I suggested that we pray. I’ll never forget the look that came over his face. He said, “Oh, Pastor Crafts, I could never pray about that.” Roll away the stone. What problem is it? A family problem? A work problem? A health problem? An alcohol problem? A money problem? A relative problem?

Problems that stink so badly you feel you can’t tell a soul. And if you’re like me, you haven’t opened it up to the Lord. You’re afraid somehow He would be disgusted, that He would hold His nose and walk away. Anyway, you’ve never felt free to talk about those things with God. And if He’s not embarrassed, you would be. Somebody told you good people don’t have nasty problems and you want to be a good person, of course you want to be a good person.

That’s why Jesus is saying to you, “Take away the stone, open this thing up, let me at that problem.” We’re going to have some healings here and some deliverances here and some burdens that are rolling away as we open up some areas that maybe we would rather keep closed.

One time our youngest son, Jeff, told us that he wanted to speak with us. That in itself was different. He hadn’t wanted to speak to us any more than was absolutely necessary for a number of years, but he said, “I want to talk with you.” So we knew it had to be important and he opened up to us the fact that he had been fooling around with drugs. Now, it was hard for him to open that up. He knew how we felt about that sort of thing. He knew it was unworthy. He knew it was very, very wrong. It was very difficult for him to open it up. It was difficult for us to have him open it up. But once the stone was rolled away, then we could make our love manifest in that situation. Then we could deal with it and cope with it and let him know that he was accepted. He was our son. We understood. But there could be no resurrection until he rolled away the stone. Jesus said to Martha, and He’s saying to you and to me, “If you believe, you will see the glory of God.” Now, if that’s not underlined in your Bible, I hope you will, “if you believe, you will see the glory of God.”

And mind you, He said it when they were standing before the grave, Lazarus dead, four days. But I want you to hear Him saying it not to Martha, but to you. “If you believe, you will see the glory of God.”

If you believe, you will see not the stinking mess you think is there, you will see the glory of God. And they rolled away the stone. Now, make no mistake about this, Jesus could have rolled away the stone. Just like that, the stone was no problem for Him. He didn’t need them to roll the stone away so that He could perform the miracle. They needed to roll the stone away. And when they rolled the stone away, that’s when they saw the miracle. He will bring us back to life, but there is a step we must take. We must roll away the stone. He will forgive us our sins, but first we must confess our sins. He will give us eternal life, but we must believe and accept. He will pour His Spirit upon us, but first we must be open to receive. We must be ready to let it flow into us and through us and out of us. He is the resurrection and the life, but we have to come to Him. He can solve even those stinking messes four days dead. But we have to show Him that we are willing and trusting to take Him at His word. He says to us, “I will raise the dead, but you must take away the stone.”

Well, take away the stone, and you will see the glory of God. And it happens. Thank God it happens. Or we can hold back and we can say, “No, Lord, it stinks. I’m going to keep it covered up. I’m going to keep it right there.” And He says, “All right, but what you’ve got is a rotting corpse. What you’ve got is a cemetery and a place for the dead. And you’ve got it as long as you want it. But if you want to see the glory of God, roll away the stone.”

And they took away the stone and they saw not a stinking corpse four days dead. They saw the power and the glory of God. They rolled away the stone and Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.”

And Jesus said to them, “Unbind him and let him go.” Amen. Let us pray. Oh, Lord Jesus, we believe and You know that we believe and yet You know that in our humanness when we come up against one of those stinky ones, we draw back. Lord, grant that in simple trust we may do the simple thing that You ask us to do, just to roll away the stone and let at the problem that we have been afraid to talk about with anyone. And we thank You that as we roll away the stone, we see the glory of God. Lord Jesus, we confess that we cannot solve these problems in and of ourselves, but we know that with You nothing is impossible, not even a corpse four days old. And we thank You that we have seen Your glory. We thank You that we do see Your glory. We thank You that we will see Your glory. And we just praise Your holy name. Amen and amen.