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Come Alive In Christ By Charles Spurgeon

Come Alive In Christ” is abridged from Charles Spurgeon’s piece “How to Raise the Dead,” which appeared in his book “The Soul Winner.” The resurrection of the dead occurs when a sinner is regenerate and reconciled to our Loving Saviour. This article discusses “coming alive in God(Christ)” through regeneration

Fellow laborer in the Lord’s in the vineyard, let me draw your attention to a highly instructive miracle performed by the prophet Elisha in 2 Kings 4:4. The Shunammite woman’s generosity had been repaid with the gift of a son; but, alas! All earthly graces are fleeting, and the infant became ill and died after a few days.

The distressed but believing mother hastened at once to the man of God. Through him, God had spoken the promise which fulfilled her heart’s desire, and she resolved to plead her case with him, that he might lay it before his Divine Master, and get for her an answer of peace. The following verses record Elisha’s action:

“He said to Gehazi, “Tie up your garment and take my staff in your hand and go. If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not reply. And lay my staff on the face of the child.” Then the mother of the child said, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So he arose and followed her. Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the face of the child, but there was no sound or sign of life. Therefore he returned to meet him and told him, “The child has not awakened.”

When Elisha came into the house, he saw the child lying dead on his bed. So he went in and shut the door behind the two of them and prayed to the Lord. Then he went up and lay on the child, putting his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands. And as he stretched himself upon him, the flesh of the child became warm. Then he got up again and walked once back and forth in the house, and went up and stretched himself upon him. The child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. Then he summoned Gehazi and said, “Call this Shunammite.” So he called her. And when she came to him, he said, “Pick up your son.” She came and fell at his feet, bowing to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.” 2Kings 4:29-37

Elisha Had To Deal With A Dead Child

The position of Elisha in this case is exactly your position, brethren, in relation to your work for Christ. Elisha had to deal with a dead child. True, he died of natural causes, but the death you must face is no less real because it is spiritual. Your students are “dead in trespasses and sins.” just like you. 

May you never lose sight of the inherent condition of all humans! 

Unless you have an obvious sense of the utter ruin and spiritual death of your children, you will be incapable of being made a blessing to them. Go to them, I beg you, not as sleepers you can shake awake, but as spiritual corpses. Only heavenly power can revive. 

Elisha’s goal was to bring the kid back to life, not to clean up the corpse, embalm it with spices, wrap it in fine linen, or position it in a suitable posture. 

Beloved teachers, may you never be content with aiming at secondary benefits, or even with realizing them. May you strive for the grandest of all ends, the salvation of immortal souls! Your job is not just to educate the children in your courses to read the Bible, or even to teach them the letter of the gospel, but to be the instrument used by God to bring life from heaven to dead souls. 

Your Sunday teaching will fail if your children stay dead in sin. Even if your young charges grow up to be respectable members of society, regular attendees of the means of grace, you will not feel that your prayers to heaven have been answered, nor your desires granted.

To Raise The Dead Is Our Mission

Our goal is to be resurrected! To raise the dead is our mission! We have a young Dorcas or Eutychus to bring to life, like Peter or Paul at Joppa. Then how is it done? A lack of faith will leave us stunned by the realization that the work to which God has called us is much above our human ability. We cannot resurrect. “Am I God, to kill and to make alive?” we may all question if asked. But we are no weaker than Elisha, who could not return the Shunammite’s son. 

True, we cannot spiritualize our scholars’ lifeless hearts, but Paul or Apollos would have been as impotent. Does this deter us? Does it not rather direct us to our true power by shutting us out from our own fancied might? I’m sure we’re all aware that the man who lives in the faith world lives in the domain of miracles. Faith deals in wonders and wonders are her merchandise.

“Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees, And looks to that alone; Laughs at impossibilities, And cries, ‘It shall be done.”

God’s Spirit Was Upon Him, Calling Him To God’s Work

Elisha was no common man now that God’s Spirit was upon him, calling him to God’s work, and aiding him in it. In this way, you have become the temple of the Holy Ghost, God lives in you, and by faith, you have begun your career as a wonder-worker. You are sent into the world not to do what man can do, but to do what God can do through His Spirit and His believing people. You are going to do miracles. The restoration of these dead children, which you are asked to do in God’s name, is not improbable or impossible when you realize who works through your poor instrument. “Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?” “Can these dry bones live?” Unbelief will whisper as you see your children’s giddiness and early obstinacy. “O Lord, Thou know” you must say. It is your duty to prophesy to the dry bones and the heavenly wind, and you will soon see the triumph of life over death in the valley of your vision. 

Let us now take up and realize our actual position. Our spirits desire to resurrect the dead children before us. Only the Lord can quicken, and we beg Him to reveal to us what He wants us to accomplish if He would use us in connection with His miracles of grace.

Followed His Master’s Lead

It would have been good if Elisha had remembered that he was once Elijah’s servant and had followed his master’s lead. If so, he would not have dispatched Gehazi with a staff but would have done it immediately. 

There is a tale in 1 Kings 17 about Elijah reviving a dead child. The master had set a full example for his servant, and it was only when Elisha followed it completely that the miraculous power manifested. 

It would have been prudent if Elisha had followed the master’s lead from the start. It will benefit us as teachers if we imitate our Master—if we study His modes and methods and learn at His feet the skill of winning souls. If we want to see souls lifted from the state of sin, we must draw close to them, yearn for them with His yearning, and grieve over them with His tears. We can only win souls by imitating the Lord Jesus’ spirit and manner.

Elisha would want to choose a route for himself that would more clearly show his prophetic dignity. He let Gehazi, his servant, lay his staff on the infant, as though he sensed heavenly force so abundantly upon him that his own presence and efforts might be dispensed with. The thoughts of the Lord were not like that. 

I’m concerned that much of the truth we preach from the pulpit—and I’m sure it’s the same in your classes—is something external and outside of ourselves, like a staff, we hold in our hand but isn’t a part of ourselves. We lay theological or practical truth on the child’s face, but we do not agonize for its soul. So long as the truth we deliver is unconnected to our deepest being, it will have no more effect on a dead soul than Elisha’s staff did on the dead kid. 

Alas! I worry I have proclaimed the gospel in this area many times, confident that it was my Master’s gospel, the real prophetic staff, and yet it has elicited no response because I fear I have not preached it with the vehemence, earnestness, and heartiness that it deserved! So why did it not work out well for you because you were not feeling the truth, nor caring for the child to whom you were teaching the truth, but were just liars? It was no wonder that you had to say with Gehazi, “The child is not awaked,” for the true awakening power found no appropriate medium in your lifeless teaching. In fact, Gehazi seemed to speak as though the youngster was just asleep and required rousing up. 

God will not bless those teachers who do not grasp in their hearts the really fallen estate of their children. If you believe in the innocence of children and the dignity of human nature, it should not surprise you if you stay barren and unproductive. How can God bless you to work a resurrection if you can’t see it? If the boy had awoken, Gehazi would have assumed he had awoken from an exceptionally sound slumber. If God were to bless the testimony of those who do not believe in man’s total depravity for the conversion of souls, they would simply say, “The gospel is very moralizing, and exerts a most beneficial influence,” but they would never bless and magnify the regenerating grace by which He who sits on the throne makes all things new.

Fail At One Try, We Must Not Give Up

Consider what Elisha did when his first attempt failed. If we fail at one try, we must not give up. My dear brother or sister, if you have been unsuccessful up to this point, you must not assume that you are not called to the task, any more than Elisha could have decided that the kid could not be returned. 

The lesson of your failure is to change the technique, not to stop working. It is not the person who is out of place; it is the plan which is unwise. Try, try, try again if you haven’t been able to achieve your goals.

However, do not repeat the process until you are certain it is the best. If your first approach failed, try again. Examine your failures, and the Lord may prepare you for greater service by modifying your manner or spirit. If the kid was not awake, Elisha girded up his loins and hurried to the task before him.

Notice Where The Dead Child Was Placed

Notice where the dead child was placed: “And when Elisha came into the house, behold, the child was dead and laid upon his bed.” This was the bed which the hospitality of the Shunammite had prepared for Elisha, the famous bed which, with the table, the stool, and the candlestick, will never be forgotten in the Church of God. That famous bed had to be used for a purpose which the wonderful woman little thought of when, out of love to the prophet’s God, she prepared it for the prophet’s rest. I prefer to imagine the dead infant on that bed because it is where our unconverted children must sleep if they are to be rescued. 

They must be our daily and nightly charge if we are to be a gift to them. We must bring our children’s situations to our quiet couch: we must think of them in the night watches, and they must share our midnight concerns. Our beds must bear witness—” Oh, that Ishmael lived before you! Oh, that my students would become God’s children!” Both Elijah and Elisha instruct us to lay the kid close to us, not far away, or in a vault of icy oblivion, but in the deepest sympathies of our hearts.

Much More Power In Private Prayer

“He went in, therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord.” we read later. Now the prophet is working hard, and we discover the secret of reviving dead children from the prophet. According to Elijah’s story, Elisha followed his master’s method. You will see, “Give me your son, he said. And he grabbed him from her and carried him up into his loft, where he slept. O Lord, my God, have Thou also slain the son of the lady with whom I sojourned? And he stretched himself three times over the child, pleading with the Lord to let the child’s soul return. And when the Lord heard Elijah’s words, the child’s spirit returned to him, and he lived.” “He shut the door upon them twain and prayed unto the Lord.” 

The proverb is, “Every true pulpit is set up in heaven,” which is meant that the true preacher is much with God. Our open ministry will fail if we do not pray for God’s blessing and build the pulpit in private prayer. So it is with you; true teaching ability comes from above. How can you expect God to honor you in your child’s conversion if you never enter your closet and lock the door? It’s a great idea to take the kids one by one into your room and pray with them. You will witness your children converted when God allows you to pray with and for them individually, with the door closed. 

There is much more power in private prayer than in public prayer, not with God, but with the kid. Such prayers are frequently answered by God, who may use them as a hammer to crush hearts that simple addresses had never broken. Pray with your children separately for a wonderful blessing. Then there must be prayer, much prayer, constant prayer, vehement prayer, prayer that does not require denial, like Luther’s prayer, which he called the bombarding of heaven; Planting a cannon at heaven’s gates to blow them open, for fervent men prevail in prayer; they will not leave the mercy-seat until they can see the mercy-seat open. “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.” 

May we pray in such a way that the Lord does not allow us to seek His face in vain!

After Praying, Elisha Adopted The Means

After praying, Elisha adopted the means. The two must coexist. Means without prayer—presumption! Prayer without means—hypocrisy! There lay the child, and there stood the venerable man of God! He stoops over the body and kisses the child’s mouth. The prophet’s warm, live lips contacted the child’s cold, lifeless mouth, throat, and lungs, sending a vital stream of new, hot breath down their stone-like passageways. The holy man then placed his hands on the child’s hands and his eyes on the child’s eyes, his warm hands covering the child’s chilly palms. Then he extended himself over the kid as if transferring his own life into the lifeless body, or making it live. 

We’ve heard about the chamois hunter who, when they reached a perilous stretch of the route, secured the passenger to himself and declared, “Both of us or neither; we are one.” So the prophet forged a strange bond with the boy, deciding to either be chilled by his death or warm him with his life. What can we learn?

How The Death Are Raised

The lessons are many on how death was raised in this instance: 

Realize The Child Is Dead In His Trespasses

We see here, as in a picture, that if we would bring spiritual life to a child, we must most vividly realize that child’s state. It is dead, dead. God will have you feel that the child is as dead in trespasses and sins as you once were. God would have you, dear teacher, come into contact with that death by painful, crushing, humbling sympathy. 

I told you that, in soul-winning, we should observe how our Master worked; now how did He work? When He would raise us from death, what did it behoove Him to do? He must needs die Himself: there was no other way. So is it with you. If you would raise that dead child, you must feel the chill and horror of that child’s death yourself. A dying man is needed to raise dying men. I cannot believe that you will ever pluck a brand from the burning without putting your hand near enough to feel the heat of the fire. 

You must have, more or less, a distinct sense of the dreadful wrath of God and of the terrors of the judgment to come, or you will lack energy in your work, and so lack one of the essentials of success. 

I do not think the preacher ever speaks well upon such topics until he feels them pressing upon him as a personal burden from the Lord. 

“I did preach in chains,” said John Bunyan, “to men in chains.” Depend upon it, when the death that is in your children alarms, depresses and overwhelms you, then it is that God is about to bless you.

Understanding The Child’s Condition

Understanding the child’s condition, putting your mouth on its mouth and your hands on its hands, you must now try to adapt to his nature, habits, and temperament. Become a study of juvenile sin, a sympathizer in juvenile trials, and a participant in childhood’s pleasures and sorrows as much as you can. You must not be bothered by the difficulty or humiliation of this issue, for you have no business at the Sunday school if you do. If you are asked to perform something tough, you must do it. God will not revive a dead kid unless you are prepared to become everything to that child in order to earn its soul.

Adaptation Of Himself

So says the Bible, “stretched himself upon the child.” “He contracted himself!” He was an adult, and the other a child. Isn’t it “he contracted himself”? Nobody stretches themselves harder than a man to a child. A simpleton who believes his foolishness may attract boys and girls is a fool. To teach our children, we must use our sharpest minds, most diligent studies, most sincere ideas, and most mature skills. You won’t be able to speed up the child until you’ve extended yourself; and, odd as it may sound, this is true. To be an excellent teacher of the young, the smartest man must use all his gifts.

Sympathy

We see in Elisha a sense of the child’s death and an adaptation of himself to his work; but, above all, we see sympathy. While Elisha felt the cold of the corpse, his own warmth was entering it. The elderly man’s body heat flowed into the child and became the channel of quickening. In loving you, we were prepared to impart not only the gospel of God but also our own souls, since you were precious to us. True soul-winners understand this. When the Lord helps me preach, I have frequently shoved my soul into the cannon and fired my heart at the congregation, and this discharge has, under God, won the victory. God’s Spirit will bless our warm compassion with His truth and make it do what the truth alone cannot achieve. So here’s the deal. It’s up to you, dear teacher, to impart your soul to the young. You must feel as if the kid is still under God’s wrath. As a priest before God, you must confess the child’s sins as if they were your own. Elisha’s body covered the kid, and you must cover your class with your compassion and agonizing stretching before the Lord. The Holy Spirit’s works remain a mystery, yet the outer means are plainly exposed in this miracle.

The Flesh Of The Child Waxed Warm

“The flesh of the child waxed warm.” because of the prophet’s efforts. How delighted Elisha must have been, yet I don’t see him relaxing his efforts. Never be satisfied, dear friends, with finding your children in a barely hopeful state. “Teacher, pray for me,” a girl cried to you. Be grateful for this token, but seek more. Did you see a boy cry as you spoke of Christ’s love? Thankful for the warm flesh, but not satisfied. Can you now relax? You haven’t reached your goal yet! You desire life, not just comfort. What you want in your loving charge, dear teacher, is conversion, not just impression; you seek life, God’s life, Jesus’ life. Nothing less will do for your scholars.

Restlessness Of The Man Of God

Watch Elisha again. Now there was a pause.”Then he returned and walked in the house to and fro. “Notice the restlessness of the man of God; he cannot be easy. This causes the prophet to move about restlessly, uneasy, moaning, gasping, yearning and ill-at-ease. Is the kid restored?” she asked, but he kept pacing the house as if his body couldn’t rest because his spirit was unsatisfied. Imitate this consecrated restlessness. “The child is very hopeful, thank God; I am perfectly satisfied.” Do not sit down when you see a boy affected. If you ever become a parent in the Church, you will be sad, restless, and troubled. “I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,” Paul says. Oh, may the Holy Ghost give you such inward travail, such unrest, disquietude, and sacred uneasiness, until you see your hopeful scholars savingly converted!

Perseverance And Patience

After a short period of walking back and forth, the prophet again went up and stretched himself upon the child.

What it is well to do once, it is proper to do a second time. What is good twice, is good seven times. There must be perseverance and patience. 

You were very earnest last Sabbath; do not be slothful next Sabbath. How easy it is to pull down, on any one day, what we have built up the day before! If by one Sabbath’s work God enables me to convince a child that I was in earnest, let me not convince the child next Sunday that I am not in earnest. If my past warmth has made the child’s flesh wax warm, God forbid that my future chilliness should make the child’s heart cold again! As surely as warmth went from Elisha to the child, so may cold go from you to your class unless you are in an earnest state of mind.

Show Trace Of Grace

“The child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes.” Elisha prayed, sighing and believing. Any action would be a sign of life to the prophet. “My head! My head!” he cried to his father, and the sneeze cleansed the choked passages of life. We don’t know. The inhalation of fresh air may cause a sneeze. The sound wasn’t very articulate or melodic, but it signaled life. This is all we can expect from youngsters who have been spiritualized. To me, it is enough if the children sneeze—if they show some trace of grace, however faint. Should we not thank God, and receive the child, and nurse it for the Lord, if the dear child only feels its lost estate, and rests upon the finished work of Jesus, even if we only find out the fact by a very indistinct statement, not such as we should accept from a doctor of divinity, or expect from a grown-up person?

Perhaps, if Gehazi had been there, he would not have thought much of this sneezing, because he had never stretched himself upon the child, but Elisha was content with it. If we have agonized over souls, we will be eager to notice the first evidence of mercy, and grateful to God if it is only a sneeze.

Opened His Eyes

Then the kid opened his eyes, and Elisha believed he had never seen such beautiful eyes. What I know is that every eye that God helps you open will be a beautiful eye to you. I recently heard a teacher mention “a fine boy” who had been saved in his class, and “a dear girl” who had been saved in hers. You presented them to Jesus, therefore they are better and dearer in his sight. Beloved friends, may you frequently see through opened eyes that would have been darkened by spiritual death without divine mercy! Then you will be blessed.

Experience Work Of Grace

Caution! Is there a Gehazi here? I pity the Sunday-school teacher who can only carry the staff. Oh, dear friend, may God in His kindness grant you life, for how else can you help others? It would have been impossible to communicate life if Elisha had been a corpse himself. It is futile for that little group of dead souls to congregate around you. A lifeless, frostbitten mother cannot love her child. What warmth, what comfort does an empty grate bring? And such are you. May you have a work of grace in your own soul first, and then may the blessed and Eternal Spirit, who alone can quicken souls, make you to be the means of quickening many to the glory of His grace!

Accept my fraternal greetings and know that my sincere prayers are with you to be blessed and made a blessing.

This article is an edited version of the article “How to Raise the Dead” from Charles Spurgeon’s book “The Soul Winner”. Check out our related posts for more information on this topic, or get a copy of the book from Amazon.

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