Chapter 15
The world is full of sorrow, and they that have known its bitterness and healing are God’s ministers of consolation to a weeping world.
O, the tears that flow around us, Let us wipe them while we may; Bring the broken hearts to Jesus, He will wipe their tears away.
OCTOBER 23.
“How long halt ye between two opinions?” (I. Kings xviii. 21).
It is strange that people will not get over the idea that a consecrated life is a difficult one. A simple illustration will answer this foolish impression. Suppose a street car driver were to say, “It is much easier to run with one wheel on the track and the other off,” his line would soon be dropped by the public, and they would prefer to walk. Of course, it is ever so much easier to run with both wheels on the track, and always on the track, and it is much easier to follow Christ fully than to follow with a half heart and halting step. The prophet was right in his pungent question, “How long halt ye between two opinions?” The undecided man is a halting man. The halting man is a lame man and a miserable man, and the out-and-out Christian is the admiration of men and angels, and a continual joy to himself.
Say, is it all for Jesus, As you so often sing; Is He your Royal Master, Is He your heart’s true King?
OCTOBER 24.
“First gave their ownselves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God” (II. Cor. viii. 5).
It is essential, in order to be successful in Christian work, that you shall be loyal not only to God, but to the work with which you are associated. The more deeply one knows the Lord the easier it is to get along with Him.
Superficial Christians are apt to be crotchetty. Mature Christians are so near the Lord that they are not afraid of missing His guidance, and not always trying to assert their loyalty to Him and independence of others.
The Corinthians, who had given themselves first to the Lord, had no difficulty in giving themselves to His Apostle by the will of God. It is delightful to work with true hearts on whom we can utterly depend.
God give us the spirit of a sound mind and the heart to “help along.”
You can help by holy prayer, Helpful love and joyful song; O, the burdens you may bear; O, the sorrows you may share; O, the crowns you may yet may wear, If you help along.
OCTOBER 25.
“Now it is high time to awake out of sleep. Let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light” (Rom. xiii. 11, 12).
Let us wake out of sleep; let us be alert; let us be alive to the great necessities that really concern us.
Let us put off the garments of the night and the indulgences of the night; the loose robes of pleasure and flowing garments of repose; the festal pleasures of the hours of darkness are not for the children of the day. Let us cast off the works of darkness.
Let us arm ourselves for the day. Before we put on our clothes, let us put on our weapons, for we are stepping out into a land of enemies and a world of dangers; let us put on the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of faith and love, and the shield of faith, and stand armed and vigilant as the dangers of the last days gather around us.
Let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is our robe of day. Not our own works or righteousness, but the person and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave us His very life, and becomes to us our All-Sufficiency.
OCTOBER 26.
“Go out into the highways and compel them to come in” (Luke xiv. 23).
In the great parable in the fourteenth chapter of Luke, giving an account of the great supper an ancient lord prepared for his friends and neighbors, and to which, when they asked to be excused, he invited the halt and the lame from the city slums and the lepers from outside the gate, there is a significant picture and object lesson of the program of Christianity in this age.
In the first place, it is obvious to every thoughtful mind that the Master is beginning to excuse the Gospel-hardened people of Christian countries. It is getting constantly more difficult to interest the unsaved of our own land, especially those that have been accustomed to hear the Gospel and the things of Christ. They have asked to be excused from the Gospel feast, and the Lord is excusing them.
At the same time, two remarkable movements indicated in the parable are becoming more and more manifest in our time. One is the Gospel for the slums and the neglected classes at home; the other is the Gospel for the heathen or the neglected classes abroad.
OCTOBER 27.
“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is there anything too hard for Me?” (Jer. xxxii. 27.)
Cyrus, the King, was compelled to fulfil the vision of Jeremiah, by making a decree, the instant the prophecy had foretold, declaring that Jehovah had bidden him rebuild Jerusalem and invite her captives to return to their native home. So Jeremiah’s faith was vindicated and Jehovah’s prophecy gloriously fulfilled, as faith ever will be honored. Oh, for the faith, that in the dark present and the darker future, shall dare to subscribe the evidences and seal up the documents if need be, for the time of waiting, and then begin to testify to the certainty of its hope like the prophet of Anathoth!
The word Anathoth has a beautiful meaning, “echoes.” So faith is the “echo” of God and God always gives the “echo” to faith, as He answers it back in glorious fulfilment. Oh, let our faith echo also the brave claim of the ancient prophet and take our full inheritance, with his glorious shout, “Oh, Lord, Thou art the God of all flesh, is there anything too hard for the Lord?” and back like an echo will come the heavenly answer to our heart, “I am the God of all flesh, is there anything too hard for Me?”
OCTOBER 28.
“Thou good servant, because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities” (Luke xix. 17).
It is not our success in service that counts, but our fidelity. Caleb and Joshua were faithful and God remembered it when the day of visitation came. It was a very difficult and unpopular position, and all of us are called in the crisis of our lives to stand alone and in this very matter of trusting God for victory over sin and our full inheritance in Christ we have all to be tested as they.
Our brethren even in the church of God, while admitting in the abstract the loveliness and advantages of such an ideal life, tell us as they told Israel that it is impracticable and impossible, and many of us have to stand alone for years witnessing to the power of Christ to save His people to the uttermost and like Caleb following Him wholly, if alone. But this is the real victory of faith and the proof of our uncompromising fidelity.
Let us not therefore complain when we suffer reproach for our testimony or stand alone for God, but thank Him that He so honors us, and so stand the test that He can afterwards use us when the multitudes are glad to follow.
OCTOBER 29.
“Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you” (John xvi. 23).
Two men go to the bank cashier, both holding in their hands a piece of paper. One is dressed in expensive style, and presents a gloved and jeweled hand; the other is a rough, unwashed workman. The first is rejected with a polite sentence, and the second receives a thousand dollars over the counter. What is the difference? The one presented a worthless name; the other handed in a note endorsed by the president of the bank. And so the most virtuous moralist will be turned away from the gates of mercy, and the vilest sinner welcomed in if he presents the name of Jesus.
What shall we give to infinite purity and righteousness? Jesus! No other gift is worthy for God to receive. And He has given Him to us for this very end, to give back as our substitute and satisfaction. And He has “testified” of this gift what He has of no other, namely, that in Him He is well pleased and all who receive Him “are accepted in the Beloved.” Shall we accept the testimony that God is satisfied with His Son? Shall we be satisfied with Him?
OCTOBER 30.
“Dwell deep” (Jer. xlix. 8).
God’s presence blends with every other thought and consciousness, flowing sweetly and evenly through our business plans, our social converse our heart’s affections, our manual toil, our entire life, blending with all, consecrating all, and conscious through all, like the fragrance of a flower, or the presence of a friend consciously near, and yet not hindering in the least the most intense and constant preoccupation of the hands and brain. How beautiful the established habit of this unceasing communion and dependence, amid and above all thoughts and occupations! How lovely to see a dear old saint folding away his books at night and humbly saying, “Lord Jesus, things are still just the same between us,” and the falling asleep in His keeping.
So let us be stayed upon Him. Let us grow into Him with all the root and fibers of our being. He will not get tired of our friendship. He will not want to put us off sometimes. Beautiful the words of the suffering saint: “He never says good-bye.” He stays. So let us be stayed on Him.
OCTOBER 31.
“My grace is sufficient for thee; for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (II. Cor. xii. 9).
God allowed the crisis to close around Jacob on the night when he bowed at Peniel in supplication to bring him to the place where he could take hold of God as he never would have done; and from that narrow pass of peril Jacob came enlarged in his faith and knowledge of God, and in the power of a new and victorious life. He had to compel David, by a long and painful discipline of years, to learn the almighty power and faithfulness of his God, and to grow up into the established principles of faith and godliness, which were indispensable for his subsequent and glorious career as the king of Israel.
Nothing but the extremities in which Paul was constantly placed could ever have taught him, and taught the church through him, the full meaning of the great promise he so learned to claim, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” And nothing but our trials and perils would ever have led some of us to know Him as we do, to trust Him as we have, and to draw from Him the measures of grace which our very extremities made indispensable.
NOVEMBER 1.
“We will come unto him and make our abode with him” (John xiv. 23).
This idea of trying to get a holiness of your own, and then have Christ reward you for it, is not His teaching. Oh, no; Christ is the holiness; He will bring the holiness, and come and dwell in the heart forever.
When one of our millionaires purchases a lot, with an old shanty on it, he does not fix up the old shanty, but he gets a second-hand man, if he will have it, to tear it down, and he puts a mansion in its place. It is not fixing up the house that you need, but to give Christ the vacant lot, and He will excavate below our old life and build a house where He will live forever.
Now that is what we mean when we say that Christ will be the preparation for the blessing, and make way for His own approach. It is as when a great Assyrian king used to set out on a march. He did not command the people to make a road, but he sent on his own men, and they cut down the trees and filled the broken places, and levelled the mountains. So He will, if we will let Him, be the Coming King, the Author and Finisher of our faith.
NOVEMBER 2.
“Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (II. Cor. x. 5).
If we would abide in Christ we must have no confidence in self. Self-repression must be ever the prime necessity of divine fulness and efficiency. Now you know how quickly you spring to the front when any emergency arises. When something in which you are interested comes up, you say what you think under some sudden impulse, and then perhaps you have weeks of taking back your thought and taking the Lord’s instead. It is only when we get out of the way of the Lord that He can use us. So, be out of self, always suspending your will about everything until you have looked at it and said: “Lord, what is your will? What is your thought about it?”
Those who thus abide in Christ have the habit of reserve and quiet; they are not rattling and reckless talkers, they will not always have an opinion about everything, and they will not always know what they are going to do. There will be a deferential holding back of judgment, and walking softly with God. It is our headlong, impulsive spirit that keeps us so constantly from hearing and following the Lord.
NOVEMBER 3.
“This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend” (Song of Solomon v. 16).
He is our Friend. “Which of you shall have a friend at night?” This has deep significance through the experience of each one of us. Who has not had a friend, and more of a friend in some respects than even a father?
There are some intimacies not born of human blood that are the most intense and lasting bonds of earthly love. One by one let us count them over and recall each act and bond of love, and think of all that we may trust them for and all in which they stood by us, and then as we concentrate the whole weight of recollection and affection, let us put God in that place of confidence and think He is all that and infinitely more.
Our Friend! The one who is personally interested in us; who has set His heart upon us; who has come near to us in the tender and delicate intimacy of unspeakable fellowship; who gave us such invaluable pledges and promises; who has done so much for us, and who is ever ready to take any trouble or go to any expense to aid us—to Him we are coming in prayer, our Heavenly Friend.
NOVEMBER 4.
“Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings as in obeying the voice of the Lord?” (I. Sam. xv. 22).
Many a soul prays for sanctification, but fails to enter into the blessing because he does not intelligently understand and believingly accept God’s appointed means by Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit. Many a prayer for the salvation of others is hindered because the very friend takes the wrong course to bring about the answer, and resorts to means which are wholly fitted to defeat his worthy object.
We know many a wife who is pleading for her husband’s soul, and hoping to win him by avoiding anything that may offend him, and yielding to all his worldly tastes in the vain hope of attracting him to Christ. Far more effective would be an attitude of fidelity to God and fearless testimony to Him, such as God could bless.
Many a congregation wonders why it is so poor and struggling. It may be found that its financial methods are wholly unscriptural and often unworthy of ordinary self-respect.
When we ask God for any blessing, we must allow Him to direct the steps which are to bring the answer.
NOVEMBER 5.
“I in them, and Thou in Me” (John xvii. 23).
If we would be enlarged to the full measure of God’s purpose, let us endeavor to realize something of our own capacities for His filling.
We little know the size of a human soul and spirit. Never, until He renews, cleanses and enters the heart can we have any adequate conception of the possibilities of the being whom God made in His very image, and whom He now renews after the pattern of the Lord Jesus Himself.
We know, however, that God has made the human soul to be His temple and abode, and that He knows how to make the house that can hold His infinite fulness. We know something of this as all our nature quickens into spring tide life at the coming of the Holy Spirit, and as from time to time new baptisms awaken the dormant powers and susceptibilities that we did not know we possessed.
Oh, let us give Him the right to make the best of us, and, with wonder filled, we shall some day behold the glorious temple which He has reared, and shall say, “Lord, what is man that Thou hast set Thine heart upon Him?”
NOVEMBER 6.
“Bless the Lord, O, my soul” (Ps. ciii. 1).
Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me be stirred up to magnify His holy name. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Who so well can sing this thanksgiving song as we, rejoicing as most of us do, we trust, in this full salvation, and praising God for the glorious health of a risen Lord and a continual youth?
This psalm and its opening verses is in the very center of the Scriptures by an exact count of letters and verses. So let it stand in our lives, as we look backward and forward and upward in grateful thanksgiving as we sing in its closing strains, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.” Lord, center my heart in Thee and in the spirit of love and praise.
NOVEMBER 7.
“I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee” (Isa. xli. 10).
God has three ways of helping us: First, He says, “I will strengthen thee”; that is, I will make you a little stronger yourself. And secondly, “I will help thee”; that is, I will add My strength to your strength, but you shall lead and I will help you. But thirdly, when you are ready, “I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness”; that is, I will lift you up bodily and carry you altogether, and it will neither be your strength or My help, but My complete upholding. Hence it must be quite true, that when we come to the end of our strength, we come to the beginning of His, and that in Him the weakest are the strongest, and the most helpless the most helped. “He giveth power to the faint,” but to “them that have no might” at all “He gives more strength,” and His word forever is, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” The answer is a paradox of contradictions, and yet the most practical truths, “Most gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me; for when I am weak, then am I strong.”
NOVEMBER 8.
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free” (Rom. viii. 2).
There is a natural law of sin and sickness, and if we just let ourselves go and sink into the trend of circumstances we shall go down and sink under the power of the tempter. But there is another law of spiritual life and of physical life in Christ Jesus to which we can rise and through which we can counterpoise and overcome the other law that bears us down. But to do this requires real spiritual energy and fixed purpose and a settled posture and habit of faith. It is just the same when we bind the power in our factory. We must turn the belt on and keep it on. The power is there, but we must keep the connection and while we do so the law of this higher power will work and all the machinery will be in operation. There is a spiritual law of choosing, believing, abiding and holding steady in our walk with God which is essential to the working of the Holy Ghost either in our sanctification or healing.
There is a word that saves the soul, “I will trust”; It makes the sick and suffering whole. “I will trust.”
NOVEMBER 9.
“Because I live ye shall live also” (John xiv. 19).
After having become adjusted to our Living Head and the source of our life, now our business is to abide, absorb and grow, leaning on His strength, drinking in His life, feeding on Him as the Living Bread, and drawing all of our resources from Him in continual dependence and communion. The Holy Spirit will be the great Teacher and Minister in this blessed process. He will take of the things of Christ and show them unto us, and He will impart them through all the channels and functions of our spiritual organism. As we yield ourselves to Him He will breathe His own prayer of communion, drawing out our hearts in longings and hungerings, which are the pledge of their own fulfilment, calling us apart in silent and wordless prayer and opening every pore, organ, sense and sensibility of our spiritual being to take in His life. As the lungs absorb the oxygen of the atmosphere, as the senses breathe in the sweet odors of the garden, so the heart instinctively receives and rejoices in the affection and fellowship of the beloved One by our side. Thus we become like a tree planted by the rivers of waters.
NOVEMBER 10.
“But prayer was made without ceasing, of the church unto God for him” (Acts xii. 5).
But prayer is the link that connects us with God. This is the bridge that spans every gulf and bears us over every abyss of danger or of need. How significant the picture of the apostolic church: Peter in prison, the Jews triumphant, Herod supreme, the arena of martyrdom awaiting the dawning of the morning to drink up the apostle’s blood,—everything else against it. “But prayer was made unto God without ceasing.” And what the sequel? The prison open,—the apostle free,—the Jews baffled,—the wicked king eaten of worms, a spectacle of hideous retribution, and the Word of God rolling on in greater victory.
Do we know the power of our supernatural weapon? Do we dare to use it with the authority of a faith that commands as well as asks? God baptize us with holy audacity and Divine confidence. He is not wanting great men, but He is wanting men that will dare to prove the greatness of their God.
But God! But prayer!
NOVEMBER 11.
“Reckon yourselves dead, indeed” (Rom. vi. 11).
Our life from the dead is to be followed up by the habit and attitude henceforth which is the logical outcome of all this. “Reckon yourselves _dead indeed_, unto sin, but _alive unto God_ through Jesus Christ, and yield yourselves unto God,” not to die over again every day, “_but, as those who are alive from the dead_, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”
Further His resurrection life is given to fit us for “the fellowship of His sufferings and to be made conformable unto His death.”
It is intended to enable us to toil and suffer with rejoicing and victory. We “mount up with wings as eagles,” that we may come back to “run and not be weary, to walk and not faint.”
But let us not mistake the sufferings. They do not mean _our_ sufferings, but His. They are not our struggles after holiness, our sicknesses and pains, but those higher sufferings which, with Him, we bear for others, and for a suffering church and a dying world. May God help us, henceforth, never to have another sorrow for ourselves, and put us at leisure, in the power of His resurrection, to bear His burdens and drink His cup.
NOVEMBER 12.
“The earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (II. Cor. i. 22).
Life in earnest. What a rare, what a glorious spectacle! We see it in the Son of God, we see it in His apostle, we see it in every noble, consecrated and truly successful life. Without it there may be a thousand good things, but they lack the golden thread that binds them all into a chain of power and permanence. They are like a lot of costly and beautiful beads on a broken string, that fall into confusion, and are lost in the end for want of the bond that alone could bind them into a life of consistent and lasting power. O for the baptism of fire! O for “THE EARNEST, THE SPIRIT!” O for lives that have but one thing to do or care for! O for the depth and everlasting strength of the heart of Christ within our breast, to love, to sacrifice, to realize, to persevere, to live and die like Him!
We are going forth with a trust so sacred, And a truth so divine and deep, With a message clear and a work so glorious, And a charge—such a charge—to keep. Let it be your greatest joy, my brother, That the Lord can count on you; And if all besides should fail and falter, To your trust be always true.
NOVEMBER 13.
“Delight thyself in the Lord” (Ps. xxxvii. 4).