Part 4

One day the Lord Jesus made His way to the lake-side, and near the water's edge He found a crowd of busy people.

Some of them were carrying heavy loads from the boats which were moored at the bottom of the steps; others were lifting down baskets of fruit or provisions, to put into the boats which were being emptied.

Everyone was busy, for those who brought goods in, or those carrying goods out across the lake, had to pay a toll or tax to the Roman Governors, and the men who collected the tax were on the look-out that no one should slip past without paying his toll; often the Publicans, as they were called, cheated the poor Jews very much.

Some Jews, who saw what a lot of money was made at this business, became tax-gatherers themselves, and they were despised and hated by their countrymen.

As Jesus neared the lake-side, and looked on the busy, eager crowd, as they thronged the place of Custom, He was looking for a man, a Jewish Publican, who was, as He knew, among that crowd.

Then the loving eyes of Jesus fell upon him as he sat writing down the money and putting it in safety in a bag.

This was the man Jesus wanted; this was the man who was to do His work, and be known as His servant, for nineteen hundred years, Matthew the Publican!

When Jesus saw him, He said unto him, "Follow Me!"

Did Matthew hesitate? Did he look at the precious bag of money by his side?

No! He left all, rose up, and followed Jesus! Matthew heard the call—and he obeyed.

And this is the decision that Jesus, our Lord, wants each one of us to make, young and old.

If we listen to His voice, if we will heed the pleading love in His eyes, an instant firmness will come to us, and, like Matthew, we shall "rise up, and follow him."

XVI. Calvary

Luke xxiii. 33.

"Where the dear Lord was Crucified, Who died to save us all."

A while ago, someone sent to me a most beautiful photograph of the Hill of Calvary, which is just outside Jerusalem on the northern side.

The photograph was so carefully done that you could plainly see why that little hill was called "The place of a skull," for when the sun shone in a certain direction the rocks had the appearance of a man's skull; and that was why it was called Calvary, which is the Latin for skull. And here they crucified the Lord of glory.

When we look at the picture of those three crosses, with Jesus, our Saviour, in the midst, our hearts seem to stand still, as we remember how He died for us.

* * * * *

Now, I am going to tell you a true story, which a nurse told me, about one of her patients.

One day she was visiting a man who had been ill for many months; and when his wife opened the door to her she exclaimed, "Oh, nurse! he is better! He has had such a wonderful dream!"

So the nurse hastened upstairs, and to her amazement the man's face was quite altered, and, instead of despair and suffering, he looked inexpressibly happy.

"Nurse!" he said. "Do you remember saying to me yesterday, 'Prepare to meet thy God'?

"But while I was thinking, ever so sorrowfully, about those words, I seemed to fall asleep; yet what I saw seemed happening before my eyes.

"I saw the Cross of our Saviour, set up in front of me, and He was nailed to that cross with cruel nails. And close to the cross, between me and it, I saw a great deep hole—and I found myself moving nearer and nearer to that dark pit.

"Then I knew that I should fall into it, because I was not prepared to meet God; and yet I could not but look on our Saviour's face, for tears rolled down it, and I did not like to see Him cry!

"So I said to someone standing by, 'Why does our Saviour cry?' and he said, 'Because you will fall into that pit. He is dying to save you, but you will not come to Him to be saved!'

"And I said, 'Oh dear Saviour, I do not want to make you cry, I will come and be saved! You shall not die in vain for me!'

"And then, when I looked for the pit, it was quite filled up!

"And then I began to wake from my dream, for my wife was shaking me by the arm, and she said, 'Smith, Smith, you are singing in your sleep!'

"So I said, 'What was I singing?'

"And she answered, 'The hymn that was in the book nurse lent you, "Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow!"'

"And so, nurse, I woke up; and I'm saying all the time, 'Wash me in the Blood of the Lamb, and I shall be whiter than snow!' For He is my Saviour now!"

XVII. The Good Shepherd, and the Sheep that was Lost

Now you must picture to yourselves an Eastern shepherd sitting among his sheep on the mountains.

He loves them! He knows every one of them; and in return they know him, and love him. They will not follow a stranger, nor come to him if he calls them.

I heard Mr. Moody say years ago that, when he was visiting at a farm in America, he asked his friend the farmer if he might go out to see his sheep.

He remembered those words in the tenth of St. John's Gospel: "And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers."

So he asked the farmer if he might stand behind a great tree where the sheep could not see him, and then he would copy the farmer's familiar call, and he would see if the sheep would come to him.

But when he gave the call, the sheep looked very frightened, and then they all turned tail, and ran away as far as they could go!

Yes—"they knew not the voice of a stranger!" But when the farmer, who was their shepherd too, and their master, gave the call, they turned back, and came up one by one to his side, expecting him to give them the food they longed for, and the love which day by day he lavished upon them.

This is a picture of the Eastern shepherd. He loves his sheep, as I told you; he calls them by name; he leads them out to green pastures.

If enemies come, he is ready to give his life to protect them!

If, in his absence, a hired man has to take care of them, the hireling runs away if he hears the roar of the wild beast, or sees a sudden storm coming up!

But the shepherd thinks first of his sheep. He leads them into a place of safety to escape the storm; he defends them against the wild beast with his own hand, and his own life!

Jesus is the Good Shepherd—all these good things of which I have told you belong to Him in fullness.

He calls His own sheep by name! He says to each one of you, however young you may be, your own, own name!

He calls you in loving, tender tones. He says, "Come to Me, and I will give you rest." He says to every one who will have Him as his Saviour, "I have called thee by thy name, thou art Mine."

In the old days, when there was a High Priest, he had a breastplate on which was engraved the names of the twelve tribes of the Children of Israel, and we are told in the fifteenth of Exodus that "they shall be upon Aaron's heart when he goeth in before the Lord."

This is such a sweet thought: that our names, if we love Him, are on the heart of Jesus, in the glory!

But there is another story that Jesus tells us about the sheep.

We have been thinking about the happy flock who are with the shepherd, feeding in green pastures, lying down by still waters, preserved from enemies, taken to the safe fold at night.

But our Lord tells us this story of one, out of the hundred sheep that the Eastern shepherd has, who had wandered away!

Perhaps he had thought there were fairer pastures than those which the shepherd had brought him to? Perhaps he thought that the waters in another field were more sparkling than those still ones where the shepherd had so gently led them?

Whatever was the reason, one of these sheep wandered away. At first, perhaps, only a little way off just behind a rock, or round the other side of a wood. But the farther off he went, the easier it became to wander away!

At length came the dark night, and as the shepherd counted his hundred sheep into the fold, he found one was lost!

Lost? The shepherd would not lose his sheep for anything!

He left his ninety-nine in the fold, and hurried away into the wilderness to find the one which was lost.

Through the darkness of night; through the tangles and the briars; through the deep waters of the rushing stream, on he passed; and as he went, he repeated to himself words which seemed to dwell in his very heart—"until I find it"!

On he went, weary and worn, till at last in the silence of the deep night he heard a faint cry!

Then the shepherd called, and stood listening for the answer. And again came that faint cry, and the shepherd knew that somewhere near him, in the darkness, his lost sheep was lonely, helpless, and hopeless.

Then the shepherd's arms were stretched out to reach him, caught in the briars at the edge of an awful precipice. He leaned down over the abyss and stretched out his hands, and, regardless of the tearing thorns, he grasped his sheep, he disentangled the briars, and lifted it into safety.

But the sheep was so weary and faint that he could not walk, so the tender shepherd put him on to his shoulders, and brought him home rejoicing!

And then the shepherd called his friends together, saying:

"Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!"

And Jesus, our Good Shepherd, says: "I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth!"

XVIII. The Door of the Sheep

The Lord Jesus calls Himself by many wonderful and tender names in the New Testament. These are some of them.

He says, "I am the Bread of Life."

He says, "I am the Light of the World."

He says, "I am the Good Shepherd."

He says, "I am the Door of the Sheep."

Perhaps this last name of Jesus is a little difficult for you to understand; but I am told that those who have visited Palestine have seen the shepherd acting as the real door of the sheep!

When night comes on, the Eastern shepherd gathers his sheep from the mountains where they have been feeding, and he leads them to a safe place, called the fold, where perhaps, shut in by rocks, or by walls, or by the sides of some steep hill with the broken rocks around as a protection, he brings them to a spot where they may rest without fear.

Then, having counted them in, and having found that all are there, he places himself across the doorway, and bids his dear flock lie down, because while he is there as their door, no harm can come to them.

This is a little picture of how it is Jesus, the Good Shepherd, can call Himself the Door of the Sheep.

I think He wanted His people—His sheep and His lambs—to understand that if He is the Door, that is their safety.

If they have entered by Him; if they have come to Him to be saved, and washed and made His own sheep, then they have entered by the door into the sheepfold, and are safe within it!

Jesus says, no man shall pluck them out of His hands.

Satan may try to get in and snatch the sheep or the lambs, but if Jesus is their own Shepherd and Saviour, if they are truly His sheep and lambs, then they need fear no evil, for He says, "Because I live, ye shall live also."

THE DOOR OF THE SHEEP

Jesus is our Shepherd, Wiping every tear; Folded in His bosom, What have we to fear? Only let us follow Whither He doth lead, To the thirsty desert, Or the dewy mead.

Jesus is our Shepherd: For the sheep He bled; Every lamb is sprinkled With the blood He shed; Then on each He setteth His own secret sign; "They that have My Spirit, These," saith He, "are Mine."

Jesus is our Shepherd: Guarded by His arm, Though the wolves may raven, None can do us harm; When we tread death's valley, Dark with fearful gloom, We will fear no evil, Victors o'er the tomb.

XIX. "In My Father's House are Many Mansions"

The very last evening that our dear Lord was on earth before His death, He and His twelve disciples were gathered together in that upper room to eat the Passover.

On the morrow he was to die! But though He had told the disciples very often of His death, they had failed to believe it.

Peter had said "That be far from Thee, Lord!" and had, like the other disciples, dismissed the fear from his thoughts.

It had only been a few days before this Passover night that Mary, the sister of Lazarus, had poured the sweet-smelling spikenard ointment on our Lord's Head at the supper table; and He, knowing all things that were coming to pass, said she had anointed His Body for His burial. But still, the listening disciples paid no heed.

But now the last evening had come.

The Passover supper was over, and Judas had left them and gone out into the darkness. If no one else expected the death of the Lord of Glory, Judas knew in his heart that he had sold his Lord for thirty pieces of silver, and that the Jews would surely kill Him!

But Judas was gone out; and now our Lord turned to the eleven who were left, and began to comfort them, with words of strength and hope.

He had just told His over-confident disciple, Peter, that before the cock should crow in the morning he would thrice deny Him! And all the disciples were full of dismay at such a possibility.

So our Lord's first words, in His talk with His own, we read in the 14th of St. John's Gospel; and they come as a wonderful comfort to all sorrowing and fainting ones, from that holy hour down to this time which seems so hard to us! He said these words to His eleven disciples and to all who love Him: "Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in Me."

And then, because of the coming trials which He knew His disciples would have soon to pass through, He gives them the wonderful promise, which has comforted thousands and thousands of weary hearts since then: "In My Father's House are many Mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you."

He seems in these words to say something like this: "My Father's House" is safely Above, where no storms can touch its security. It is an Everlasting abode—one that will not pass away with the ravages of time, or the thunders of war. It is an Everlasting Home; and I go to get it ready for each one of you.

And then He points them on to another great thought—

He says: "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also!"

So He bids us to look forward in the trials and sorrows which will come to all of us, as we pass through life to the Father's Everlasting Home—to His being there to get ready that Home for all who love Him—and then He promises to come back and fetch His people, and take them to be for ever with Himself!

John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who had sat close to his Lord, and had leant on His breast, heard all these heart-cheering words, as Jesus uttered them. But little did he know, then, that he would be chosen to write all these lovely words down in his Gospel; nor that by and by he should be a prisoner for years in the rocky Isle of Patmos, and see glorious visions of "the Father's House, and the many Mansions."

There, in the loneliness and solitude, the glorified Saviour came to His loved disciple and said to him these wonderful words:

"I am the First, and the Last, and behold I am alive for Evermore."

He told John that many sorrows and difficulties would beset His followers, but that those who overcome shall sit down with Him on His Throne, even as He had overcome and is seated with His Father on His Throne.

By and by, near the end of these wonderful Revelations, John was allowed to have a glimpse into Heaven itself, and he saw a vision of the many mansions which Jesus is preparing for us!

Here are the words—

"And I John saw the Holy City . . . and I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

"And He that sat upon the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.' And He said unto me, 'Write: for these words are true and faithful.'"

More than six hundred years before these visions to John in Patmos, the Prophet Isaiah wrote—

"For since the beginning of the world, men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him."

And our Lord Jesus, in the Revelation, says to every one who reads these words—

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear My Voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me."

The entrance to that Everlasting Home is in listening to this loving Voice of Jesus Christ now, and by opening the door of our hearts, to let Him in!

Jesus says: "I am the Door; by ME if any man enter in, he shall be saved."

XX. The Parable of the Two Builders

The Lord Jesus taught the people numbers of lessons about Himself, or His Heavenly Father, or about the Kingdom of Heaven, by drawing word-pictures: and we can learn the deepest truths that concern ourselves by reading them and thinking about them.

One of these that I am very fond of is a picture of two builders, and what became of the results of their building.

The first man was a wise man. He looked about him to find a sure and suitable foundation, and he built his house on a firm rock.

By and by bad weather came, and the rain poured down and the floods came and beat upon the house, but it stood firm, for it was founded upon a rock.

Our Lord Himself not only gives us the picture, but He gives us the explanation of this story first of all.

He says: "Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

"And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."

Here were two men: they had heard that it was a wise thing to have a house to live in, and they both decided that they would begin at once to build.

The wise man thought it all over, and considered what ground would be suitable, what foundation would outlive the storms, and he decided it must be upon a rock, which stood high above the rivers, and was strong and enduring.

But the other man was careless. There was, perhaps, a pleasant spot nearer to him. The materials with which to build were easily carried to that spot, the sunshine flooded the landscape, and all looked fair and beautiful. So he hastened to build upon the sandy foundation, and soon his house was finished and he took possession.

But in that country there were frequently sudden violent storms; and one day such a storm overtook the two houses. The rain came in torrents, the winds blew, and they beat upon those two houses.

And because the foundation was unstable the house upon the sand began to slip and shake, and by and by cracked open, and fell to pieces, and lay in a ruin beneath the rushing flood.

And the house on the rock? Calm amidst the storm it stood firm. The rain came, and the wind blew and the floods rose, but it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock!

Do you want to know how this story affects our lives?

Do you want to answer that question which perhaps rises up in the depths of your own heart: What am I building up out of my life? And what foundation am I building upon?

There is a verse which tells us very distinctly the answer to that question, if we are asking it in our hearts—

"Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

If we come to Him, ask Him to take us just as we are—weak, sinful, unworthy—He will stretch forth His hand and grasp us, and "set our feet upon a Rock and establish our goings."

When once we have come to Christ for pardon, our feet are on the Rock: and then we can begin to build.

You ask what is building?

To do each day what will please Jesus. As He says when He begins this story of the Two Builders: "To hear these sayings of His and to do them," is the sure way of having a building that will last when the storms of life overtake us.

If you watch the people who bear trouble the best, who are patient in trial, hopeful in adversity, brave in difficulty, triumphant in death, you will find that it is they who have built on the Rock Jesus Christ, and have found that there is security and peace there.

And then about the house on the sand?

Oh, what desolation to find that what you thought was all pleasant and bright will not last, but the insecure foundation melts away, and the hopes founded upon it fall to pieces.

If you have even a misgiving that you are not on the true Foundation, give up your earthly plans and make a fresh start.

The Arms of love and mercy are ready to embrace you, and one of those wonderful sayings of Jesus is: "Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out."

"The Foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal: The Lord knoweth them that are His."

XXI. The Labourers in the Harvest

In the Bible we have many vivid pictures in which God would teach us, by earthly things, concerning His heavenly things.

This Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard is one of these pictures. We have the account of it in the 20th chapter of Matthew.

There was an Eastern householder. He had great estates, and fields and vineyards, stretching far up on the hillsides, and kept with great care by his vine-dressers. By and by the grapes were ready for picking and the householder went out early in the morning to hire the labourers for his vineyard.

In those days there was a certain coin which was considered fair pay for a day's wages.

Some of you who read the story in the Bible may say, "A penny for a day's work!" But this is only because the money then was of such a different value from what it is now; and a Roman penny was worth nearly eight times what our penny is now, and was at that time the usual hire for a day's work.

So the lord of the vineyard went out early to engage the men to get in his harvest; and when he had agreed with them for a certain sum, he sent them into his vineyard.

By and by, about nine o'clock in the morning, he went out again; and seeing others standing idle in the market-place, he said to them: "Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you."

So they went their way, and entered the vineyard.

Then came twelve o'clock, and then three o'clock; and still the householder wanted more men to labour in his vineyard. As our Lord had said in another place, "The Harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few."

At length, at the last hour before sundown, the householder went out once more, and found others standing idle, and he said to them: "Why are you standing here idle all the day?"

And they answered him: "Because no one has hired us."

So the householder said to them: "Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right, that ye shall receive."

And soon the short Eastern twilight came, and then, as a poet says: "The sun sinks, the stars rush out," and the day was over!

Then the lord of the vineyard said to his steward: "Call the labourers and give them their hire, beginning from the last ones even to the first."

So the last men came, who had worked only one hour, and they were each given the Roman penny.