The moment has now come for the voice of Omnipotence to give the mandate. The group have gathered around the sepulchral grotto--the Redeemer stands in meek majesty in front--the teardrop still glistening in His eye, and that eye directed heavenward! Martha and Mary are gazing on His countenance in dumb emotion, while the eager bystanders bend over the removed stone to see if the dead be still there. Yes! _there_ the captive lies--in uninvaded silence--attired still in the same solemn drapery. The Lord gives the word. "_Lazarus come forth!_" peals through the silent vault. The dull, cold ear seems to listen. The pulseless heart begins to beat--the rigid limbs to move--_Lazarus lives_! He rises girt in the swaddling-bands of the tomb, once more to walk in the light of the living. Where Scripture is silent, it is vain for us to picture the emotions of that moment, when the weeping sisters found the gloomy hours of disconsolate sorrow all at once rolled away. The cry of mingled wonder and gratitude rings through that lonely graveyard,--"This our brother was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found!" O most wondrous power--Death vanquished in his own territory! The sleeper has awoke a moral Samson, snapping the withs with which the King of Terrors had bound him. The star of Bethlehem shines, and the Valley of Achor becomes a door of hope. The all-devouring destroyer has to relinquish his prey. Was the joy of that moment confined to these two bosoms? Nay! The Church of Christ in every age may well love to linger around the grave of Lazarus. In _his_ resurrection there is to His true people a sure pledge and earnest of their own. It was the first sheaf reaped by the mower's sickle anticipatory of the great Harvest-home of the Final day "when all that are in their graves" shall hear the same voice and shall "come forth."[20]