Chapter 13

And terrible death itself cannot do it. Death does not separate me from Jesus; death is the Lord's minister to lead me into deeper privilege and ripe experiences of grace and love. Therefore, "I will lay me down in peace, and take my rest."

AUGUST The Twenty-sixth

_MISSING THE LORD_

"_Thou knowest not the time of thy visitation._" --LUKE xix. 37-44.

Yes, that has been my sad experience. I have wasted some of my wealthiest seasons. I have treated the hour as common and worthless, and the priceless opportunity has passed.

There have been times when my Lord has come to me, and I have turned Him away from my door. He so often journeys "incognito," and if I am thoughtless I dismiss Him, and so lose the privilege of heavenly communion and benediction. He knocks at my door as a Carpenter, and the humble attire deceives me, and I treat Him with scant courtesy, and sometimes with contempt. I know not the time of my visitation.

He comes to me in the guise of needy people--as sick, or hungry, or a stranger, and I cannot be troubled with His presence. I dismissed Him as a pauper, little knowing that I was turning away a millionaire! I knew not the time of my visitation! "I was an hungered, and ye gave Me no meat," and so we missed the bread of life.

And so there is nothing for it, but to be always "on the watch." I must treat everybody as though everybody was the Christ. And I must treat every commonplace moment as though it were the home of the eternal.

AUGUST The Twenty-seventh

_WHAT ABOUT TO-MORROW?_

JOSHUA xxiv. 1-15.

It is not mine to worry about the coming day, but to fill the immediate moment with radiant duty. My Lord is the Pioneer, the great Maker of roads, and He will see to the appointments and provisions of the way. He has His scouts, His advance guard, His miners and sappers opening the highway across the waste! "I will send mine angel before thee!" "I will send hornets before you!" Yes, the Lord will look after the road. What, then, am I called to do? Let me find the answer in the 14th verse.

"_Fear the Lord!_" The Lord must be the sovereign thought in my life. All true and well-proportioned living must begin in well-proportioned thought. God must be my biggest thought, and from that thought all others must take their colour and their range.

"_Put away the gods._" My supreme homage must not be shared among many, it must be given to One. When the Lord is enthroned as King all usurpers must be banished. When He comes to His own the others go into exile.

"_Serve ye the Lord._" My strength must be enlisted with my loyalty. I must not merely shout; I must work. I must not merely clap my hands when the King goes by, I must consecrate those hands in sacrificial service.

AUGUST The Twenty-eighth

_WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING_

"_The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom._" --JOB xxviii. 12-28.

Mere learning will not make me wise. The path to wisdom is not necessarily through the schools. The brilliant scholar may be an arrant fool. True wisdom is found, not in mental acquisitions, but in a certain spiritual relation. The wise man is known by the pose of his soul. He is "_inclined toward the Lord_!" He has returned unto his rest, and he finds light and vision in the fellowship of his Lord.

"_To depart from evil is understanding._" Yes, I need the lens of purity if I am to see the secrets of things. A dirty lens is the explanation of much ignorance and obscurity. I do not think I can ever see a flower if my lens is defiled. Much less can I see "the things of others." And still less again can I enjoy "the secret of the Lord." What we want is not so much a theological training as a right spirit, not so much to go to school as to "_depart from evil_." When I leave an evil habit worlds unseen begin to show their glory. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

AUGUST The Twenty-ninth

_THE RICHES OF SPIRITUALITY_

PROVERBS iv. 1-13.

Let me review some of these riches which are conferred upon the man who has made his soul the guest-room of spiritual religion.

"_Love her, and she shall keep thee._" Spirituality is to be my true defence. All other ramparts are vulnerable. They are the happy hunting-ground of the ravages of time; they fail in the crisis; they are the sure victims of moth and rust. But spirituality keeps me from childhood to age, and its shields are invincible, even in the hour of death. "There shall no evil befall thee."

"_Exalt her, and she shall promote thee._" She will lead me in the paths of progress. Every day she will lead me to new conquests, and in constantly enriching character I shall move towards life's appointed goal. Holiness is the only success worth having. Other successes are like lamps whose trembling flames are blown out in the first gusty, stormy night. "But the path of the just is as a shining light that shineth more and more even unto perfect day."

"_She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace._" Yes, and her adornments are always beautiful. No beauty ever steals into the human face comparable with the delicate presence of spirituality. It makes plain features lovely, and transfigures them with "the glory of the Lord."

AUGUST The Thirtieth

_HOW TO DELIGHT IN THE WORD_

PSALM cxix. 97-104.

A man may measure his growth in grace by his growing delight in the speech of the Lord. When His words are unwelcome in my ears, when they are an intrusion which mars my pleasures, it is clear I am still in the far country of revolt. But if His words make "music in my ears," if the Lord's conversation is the very marrow of the feast, then I have entered into the circle of His intimate friends. When His words taste sweet, even with a bare board, I am "in heavenly places with Christ."

And how can I attain unto this spiritual delight? Well, first of all I must make "_His testimonies my meditations._" Our doctors tell us that the only way to taste the real savour of food is to masticate it well. Bolted food never unlocks its essences. And meditation is just mental mastication. To "turn the word over" in my mind will help to disburden its treasure.

And then I must diligently put the word into practice. "_I have not departed from Thy judgments._" There is nothing like obedience for setting free a spiritual essence. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him."

AUGUST The Thirty-first

_THE REAL GAINS AND LOSSES_

"_Godliness with contentment is great gain._" --1 TIMOTHY vi. 6-16.

And so I must go into my heart if I would make a true estimate of my gains and losses. The calculation is not to be made in my bank-books, or as I stride over my broad acres, or inspect my well-filled barns. These are the mere outsides of things, and do not enter into the real balance-sheet of my life. We can no more estimate the success of a life by methods like these than we can adjudge an oil-painting by the sense of smell.

What is my stock of godliness? That is one of the test questions. What are my treasures of contentment? What about peace and joy, and hallowed and blessed carelessness? How much pure laughter rings in my life? How much bird-music is heard in the chambers of my heart? Is the note of praise to be found in the streets of my soul? Am I rich in these things or pathetically poor? "By these things men live," and therefore of these things will I make my balance-sheet and reckon up my gains.

SEPTEMBER The First

_THE VIRTUE OF PROPORTION_

MATTHEW vi. 25-34.

I must put first things first. The radical fault in much of my living is want of proportion. I think more of pretty window curtains than of fresh air, more of "nice" wallpaper than of the moving pageant of the skies. I magnify the immediate desire and minimize the ultimate goal. And so "things do not come right!" How can they when the apportionment is so perverse, when everything is topsy-turvy? If I want things to be firm and durable I must revere the Divine order, and must put first things first. "_Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness._"

And, therefore, I must seek holiness before success. I am to esteem holiness with apparent failure as infinitely better than success with stain and shame.

I must seek character before reputation. The applause of the world must be as nothing compared with the approbation of God. The favouring "voice from heaven" must be sweeter to my ears than the noisy cheers of the crowd.

And I must seek righteousness before quietness. The way of disturbance is sometimes the way to peace. I must not be so concerned for a quiet life as for a life that is "right with God."

SEPTEMBER The Second

_PRAYER AND REVOLUTION_

JOHN iv. 43-54.

This miracle began in a prayer. The nobleman went unto Jesus "_and besought Him_." In such apparently fragile things can mighty revolutions be born! "Prayer," said Tennyson, "opens the sluice-gates between us and the Infinite." It brings the frail wire into contact with the battery. It links together man and God.

Prayer was corroborated by belief. "_The man believed the word that Jesus spake unto him._" By our faith we cut the channels along which the healing energy will flow. Faith "prepares the way of the Lord." Our faith is purposed to be a fellow-laborer with grace, and, if faith be absent, grace "can do no mighty works."

The healing begins with the faith. "_It was at the same hour in which ... he himself believed._" These "coincidences" are inevitable happenings in the realm of the Spirit. When we offer the believing prayer, God's mighty energies begin to besiege the life for which the prayer is made. Mr. Cornaby, the Methodist missionary, declares how conscious he is in far-away China when someone is interceding for him in the home-land! The power possesses him in vitalizing flood! Hudson Taylor's mother shuts herself in a little room to pray, and eighty miles away her son is converted.

SEPTEMBER The Third

_MY SHARE IN THE MIRACLE_

JOHN ii. 1-11.

Our Lord always demands our best. He will not work with our second-best. His gracious "extra" is given when our own resources are exhausted. We must do our best before our Master will do His miracle. We must "fill the water-pots with water"! We must bring "the five loaves and two fishes"! We must "let down the net"! We must be willing "to be made whole," and we must make the effort to rise! Yes, the Lord will have my best.

Our Lord transforms our best into His better. He changes water into wine. He turns the handful of seed into a harvest. Our aspirations become inspirations. Our willings become magnetic with the mystic power of grace. Our bread becomes sacramental, and He Himself is revealed to us at the feast. Our ordinary converse becomes a Divine fellowship, and "our hearts burn within us" as He talks to us by the way.

And our Lord ever keeps His best wine until the last. "Greater things than these shall ye do!" "I will see you again," and there shall be grander transformations still! "The best is yet to be." "Dreams cannot picture a world so fair." "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him."

SEPTEMBER The Fourth

_A PORTRAIT OF A GREAT SUPPLIANT_

MATTHEW viii. 5-13.

Here we have _the grace of sympathy_; one man troubled about the sickness of another. We are drawing very near to the Lord when our soul vibrates responsively to another man's need. We can measure our likeness to the Lord by the range of our sensitiveness to the world's sorrow and pain. Our God is the "Father of _pities_"; He is sensitive in every direction, no side is numb, and we are putting on His likeness in proportion as we attain an all-round responsiveness to the cries of human need.

And here we have _the grace of humility_. "I am not worthy!" Our pride always blocks "the way of the Lord." Our humility makes us porous to the Divine. The "poor in spirit" are already in the kingdom, and the gracious powers of the kingdom are commanded to attend their bidding.

And here we have _the grace of faith_. "Only say the word!" The centurion conceives the Lord's words as soldiers attending on the Lord's will. Let one be spoken, and at once the mission is executed. And so it is. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." His words are vehicles of power, and when they are spoken, miracles are always wrought. "The entrance of Thy word giveth light."

SEPTEMBER The Fifth

_FAITH AND RIDICULE_

MATTHEW ix. 18-26.

And, so one man's faith is more than a match for many people's scorn. The steady trust of the ruler was not shaken by the rude flippancy of the artificial mourners, and his daughter was brought from the dead. "This is the victory that overcometh, even our faith." Everything bows, like fragile reeds, before the march of a victorious faith. Scorn, and hatred, and all manner of devilry, and death itself, all lose their power in the presence of a belief which remains steady and steadfast. "Said I not unto thee that, if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?"

And what an infinite reservoir of power is waiting to be tapped by the hand of faith! A ruler believes and his daughter is vitalized. A poor woman, bent and broken, reaches out her thin, frail hand, and lo! she is erect and graceful as the pine! And "my sufficiency is of God!" All that I may need is in the same wonderful reservoir of grace. That healing flood is like the ocean fulness, and it will fill every bay, and cove, and creek in the wide-stretching shore of human need.

"The healing of His seamless dress Is by our beds of pain, We touch Him in life's throng and press, And we are whole again."

SEPTEMBER The Sixth

_CONTEMPTUOUS WORDS_

MATTHEW xv. 21-28.

I wonder if this word "dogs" was my Saviour's word, or had He picked it up from the disciples that He might cast it away again for ever? Did He use it that He might reveal its ugliness, and so banish it from human speech? As Jesus and His disciples came along the road the Master walked before them. "And behold, a Canaanitish woman came out from those borders!" And the disciples whispered to one another, "Here comes one of the dogs!" And the Master overheard it, and His tender spirit grieved. And there and then He resolved to help the woman and at the same time cleanse the men.

Is there not therefore something half-ironical in our Saviour's use of the word? When He spake of the woman as a "dog," and of the disciples as "the children," would there not be something significant in His very looks and tones? These cold, unfeeling men "the children," and this tender yearning woman the "dog"!

When the Lord used the disciples' word they began to be ashamed, and in the fire of their shame their self-conceit was consumed. He turned with impatient longing to the woman, "O, woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt."

SEPTEMBER The Seventh

_EXPERIMENT AND EXPERIENCE_

HEBREWS xi. 1-6.

I like the marginal rendering of the introductory sentence of this great chapter. "_Faith is the giving substance to things hoped for._" Faith converts cloudy castles into substantial homes. Faith substantiates the unseen. Faith sucks the energy out of splendid ideals, and incorporates it in present and immediate life. Faith unfolds the eternal in the moment, the infinite in the trifle, the divine in the commonplace. Faith incorporates God and man. Yes, faith gives substance to "things hoped for," it brings them out of the air, and gives them reality and movement in the hard and common ways of earth and time.

And faith is also "_the test of things not seen_." By a test faith gains a conquest. By an experiment faith acquires an experience. By a great speculation faith makes a great discovery. "Try me now herewith, and prove Me!" It is an invitation to humble and sincere assumption. Try if it works! Make a hallowed experiment with the powers of grace.

Lord, incline me to make the gracious test! Let me stake my all upon the venture! Let me dare all in order that I may gain all! Let me sow bountifully, and so reap a bountiful harvest.

SEPTEMBER The Eighth

_THE BRACING AIR OF PUBLICITY_

ROMANS x. 1-13.

There is a belief which never registers itself in confession. It never exercises itself in the strong, bracing air of publicity. It is a cloistered belief, and suffers from want of ventilation. Such Christians are always anæmic; indeed, they are always puny, and never get beyond the stage of spiritual babyhood. "Ye are yet babes!" Belief which is never oxygenated by open confession can never nourish the soul into vigorous and exhilarant health.

But there is a belief which expresses and confirms itself in confession. "_With the mouth confession is made unto salvation._" Such confession is a means of moral and spiritual health. And confession in the early days meant risk, venture which exposed the life to the shedding of blood. It meant a frank defiance of the world, and an eager challenge of the devil. And it is on such fields of open encounter for the Lord that muscle is made, and the soul goes "from strength to strength," and "from glory to glory."

My soul, art thou secretly ashamed of thy Lord? Art thou afraid to "lift high His royal banner"? Then thou wilt always be as a feather-bed soldier, and the trophies of the honourable war are not for thee. Stand out in the open, and boldly testify, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!"

SEPTEMBER The Ninth

_DEALING WITH SIN_

PSALM xxxii.

Here is the burden of unconfessed sin. "_When I kept silence my bones waxed old._" There is nothing brings on premature age like secret sin. It keeps the mind in perpetual unrest, and a troubled mind soon makes the body old. The real nourisher of the body is a quiet and radiant soul. But let the soul be in chaos, and the body will soon be a ruin.

And here, too, is the healthy act of confession. "_I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid._" He retained no single germ of the whole unclean brood. He brought them out into the light one by one, as though he were emptying a noisome kennel. He brought them out, and named them, in the awful Presence of the Lord.

And here is the ministry of forgiveness, and therefore the miracle of restored health. Let me mark the rich variety of the descriptive words. "_Forgiven!_" "_Covered!_" "_Imputed not!_" It is all removed and obliterated, and the place of defilement and profanity becomes the holy temple of the Lord.

SEPTEMBER The Tenth

_CRITICISM AND PIETY_

"_Thinkest thou, that judgest them that do such things, that thou shalt escape?_" --ROMANS ii. 1-11.

That is always my peril, to assume that by being severe with others I exculpate myself. I go on to the bench, and deliver sentence upon my brother, when my proper place is in the dock. And this is the subtlety of the snare, that I regard my criticisms and condemnations of other people as signs of my own innocence. This is the last refinement in temptation, and multitudes fall before its power.

The way to moral and spiritual health is to direct my criticisms upon myself. I must stand in the dock, and hear the grave indictment of my own soul. Unless I pass through the second chapter of Romans I can never enter the fifth and sixth, and still less the glorious forgiveness of the eighth. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." I pass into that warm, cheery light through the cold road of acknowledged guilt and sin.

"If we confess our sins He is just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

SEPTEMBER The Eleventh

_A FATAL DIVORCE_

"_They feared the Lord, and served their own gods._" --2 KINGS xvii. 24-34.

And that is an old-world record, but it is quite a modern experience. The kinsmen of these ancient people are found in our own time. Men still fear one God and serve another.

But something is vitally wrong when men can divorce their fear from their obedience. And the beginning of the wrong is in the fear itself. "Fear," as used in this passage, is a counterfeit coin, which does not ring true to the truth. It means only the payment of outward respect, a formal recognition, a passing nod which we give on the way to something better. It is a mere skin courtesy behind which there is no beating heart; a hollow convention in which there is no deep and sacred awe.

But the real "fear of God" is a spiritual mood in which virtue thrives, an atmosphere in which holy living is quite inevitable. "The fear of the Lord is _clean_." It is not lip-worship, but heart-homage, a reverence in which the soul is always found upon its knees. And so "the fear of the Lord is to hate evil"; it is an indignant repulsion from all that is hateful to God. It is the sharing of the Spirit of the Lord. There cannot be any true fear where the soul does not worship "in spirit and in truth."

SEPTEMBER The Twelfth

_THE GARMENTS OF THE SOUL_

JOEL ii. 12-19.

I am so apt to think that the rending of an outer garment is a token of true penitence and amendment of life. But it is the inner garments I must deal with, the raiments and habits of the soul. Some of these robes--such as vanity and pride--are as gay and showy as a peacock; others are dirty and leprous, and we should not dare to bring them to the door, and display them in the light. But all need severe treatment; they must be torn, fibre from fibre, and reduced to rags.

But "rending" must be accompanied by "turning." "_Turn unto the Lord your God._" For the Lord our God is gracious, and His love will not only provide a new wardrobe, but a swift furnace in which to burn the remnants of the old. Yes, His "great kindness" will burn away the filth of my alienation, and will "bring forth the best robe" and put it on me. The good Lord will give me new habits. He will "cover me with the robe of righteousness, and the garment of salvation."

SEPTEMBER The Thirteenth

_THE CLEAN HEART_

PSALM li.

What will the Lord do with my sin, if in true humility I come into His Presence? Let me hear the music of the evangel.

He will "_blot out my transgression_." He will so erase it that even His own holy eyes can see no stain or shame. He will blot it out, as I have seen a gloomy cloudlet blotted out, and there has been nothing left but radiant sky.

And He will "_wash me throughly from mine iniquity_." Yes, and that not like the washing of the hands, but like the washing of clothes, not like the washing of a surface, but the removal of uncleanness from a fabric, the ousting of every germ lurking in the innermost cells of the stuff. When the Lord washes a soul it is "throughly" done, and every strand is white in holiness.

So will He give me "_a clean heart_"; so will He "_renew a right spirit within me_." The very atmosphere of my life shall be as the air after deluges of cleansing rain. It shall be sweet, and clean, and clear! I shall walk in a new inspiration, and I shall "behold the land that is very far off."

SEPTEMBER The Fourteenth

_THE SENSE OF WANT_

"_This man went down to his house justified rather than the other._" --LUKE xviii. 9-14.

The Master sets the Pharisee and publican in contrast, and His judgment goes against the man who has made some progress in moral attainments, and favours the man who has no victories to show, but only a hunger for victory. The dissatisfied sinner is preferred to the self-satisfied saint. The Pharisee had gained an inch, but had lost his sense of the continent. The publican had not pegged out an inch of moral claim, but he had an overwhelming sense of the untrodden universe.