II.
1. We are taught in symbol in the parable of the fowls that the providence of God in kind and thoughtful care has reference to the least as well as to the greatest of His creatures. It extends to the most uninteresting, and insignificant, and unattractive of all His works. They are not overlooked, although of so little value. We are told that two sparrows are sold for a farthing, which is the smallest Jewish coin. You could not buy one sparrow; there was no piece of money small enough to purchase it. Luke tells us that five sparrows were sold for two farthings. Our Lord knew the price of them well.
I dare say it was all He had for dinner the preceding day, or his disciples may have just reminded Him of what they had paid for them a short time ago. He and His followers, we know, were very poor, and these birds were very cheap. In Germany a string of them are sold for a few pence. There is not much meat upon them. Our Lord begins with these common things, and then rises to a climax. ‘Ye are much better than they.’ If God cares so tenderly for them, He will care much more for His redeemed child.
2. These sparrows are not only cheap, but they are very ugly; there is no beauty in them. They have no brilliant coloring in their wings, and no burnished gloss upon their plumage. They are not a tropical bird. They are common brown things, so near the color of the mud that they could easily hide away from the gun of the hunter. They are little, insignificant things, so common that one would not be missed anywhere. They stand for very much in our spiritual lives. God’s great world is made up of myriads of these little things, and yet there is not one of them that would not be missed by the Father if it were gone. If one of these sparrows should leave your door tomorrow morning, you would not know about it. Your children would not miss it in their play; but He knew it; He marked it when it fell from its perch; He saw where it fell.
Years ago, when I was a boy, I remember killing a sparrow as it sat upon a little twig of a tree. I gave it one sharp stroke, and its little neck was broken. I took the soft little thing up in my hand, and, as its head fell over, I burst out crying. It seemed to me that all heaven was condemning the child that did this act. I felt that God knew all about it. Not one of them could fall to the ground without our Father. I have never killed one since. I could not bear to make anything suffer that was the object of such care from God. They stand for the common things in life; the small things that can be numbered by millions; so small that they would not be missed if we should lose them. And yet not so small but that He sees them. The small, insignificant troubles, the petty trials that come up at every minute in our lives, that seem like little pivots or pins in the machinery of life, are typified by them.
We would not dare to pull out a pivot. We do not know what might happen if we did. It holds much together. And so with the little, common things of life. We are not able to count them often, and we do not value them because of their smallness, and ugliness and plainness. They are around us in great multitudes. Thousands of them will come into our lives tomorrow. No matter how many there are of them, God’s providence is in every one. He is in every nail that is driven, in every step that is taken, in every look that is expressive of character, in every word that is spoken, in every syllable of every word, and in the very tones in which we speak. These are all links in God’s chain of providence.
The hairs upon our heads are not as important as the sparrows, and yet they are all numbered. I do not understand it, but I am sure that it is so. In His great book of life, the names of all His children are written, and under each is a record of his life so small that it would need all the lenses in heaven to enable us to see it, and yet God knows each of its items. The telescope reveals to us the mighty worlds that are rolling on in all the immensity of space. The microscope takes each tiny leaf, and reveals to us the most minute part of its mechanism. It discloses the tiniest animalcul’ which float in a drop of water.
These things are as true in the spirit world as in the world of matter. There is page after page there of the minutest drawing of our lives. If Jesus had not said it, we could not believe it. The records number many millions, and they are kept definitely and inclusively for those who are worthy of the death of His dear Son. His marvelous care extends to all His rational creatures with far more tender regard than it does to the brute or inanimate creation.
3. We not only learn that little and common things are a part of God’s plan, but we see that it includes richer and more luxuriant ones. As we turn from the sparrows to the garden beds, and note the coloring that crowns the lilies and developes in the other flowers into tints of beauty, we see this lesson plainly. ‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’ The sparrows lead us down to the little, ugly, mean, miserable things, that seem of no consequence in our lives.
If we saw only these we should think that God has no taste for what might be called the higher things of life. But as we turn to the lilies, we see an exquisite taste displayed in their coloring, and in their creation into forms of glory and beauty, which all the looms of earth, and all the brushes of art could never imitate. I saw some French flowers in a store not long ago, and I thought they were real at first, but, as I saw my error, I thought how sad a thing it would be to have to live in such a garden as this always. Man cannot imitate God, even in his ill commonest works, with all his ingenuity and skill. How exquisite is His taste. If we have any taste at all, let us remember that it came from Him. We would rather look upon a person who was dressed neatly, than upon one in slovenly attire; we would rather look upon a pretty face than upon a deformed one; upon a garden than upon a neglected wilderness.
The time will come when we shall dress as no milliner robe us. We love to look upon the cloud banks in the evenings, and watch how the colors change upon them, as the light strikes them from the molten, glowing, burning bosom of the sun; turning them into strange forms of glory and beauty. God is able to create such robes for every one of us, changing us in a moment from our garments of sin, and causing us to shine like the sun. We shall not need any loom to weave our garments, nor any dye to color them. God will speak, and we shall be robed like the sunset; robed for the feast or for the royal throne. We shall not need to bother then about our clothes. But that time has not yet come. It is the time for waiting now, not for the bridal.
We are waiting for the bridegroom. When He appears we shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needle work; our clothing shall be of wrought gold. God does not always want His children to be poor, commonplace creatures; He would not have them always living in tenement houses, but He would bring us where there are beautiful trees and exquisite fields, and fair gardens. These are typified now by the lilies of the field, which express more than the sparrows do. They teach us that we are to rejoice in the abundance of His grace, and in the splendid provision that He has made for us. We see, too, a type and a picture in this, of His power in higher places, and His glorious provision for us there also. God’s providences extend to this also.
If He wants you to be rich and cultured; if He has been giving you a sweet, fair face; let His glory shine through them all. If you have talents and intellect, He can use them, and make them, perhaps, like the gifts which He has given to the seraphs in glory. He might have given them to some one else instead to you. Take the things that He has given, but do not think that you have got to manage them. Trust God in the common things in life, but trust Him in the higher ones also. Do not think that you can be a Christian in home-spun, but that you cannot be one now in fine clothes, or riding in a carriage. You must be His, whether you are walking or riding. He is to be all in all, or you will fall into idolatry, and bring yourself under a curse.
4. Notice that our Lord says: ‘Your Heavenly Father feedeth them.’ He is not their Heavenly Father; He never redeemed them; never gave them a spark of His life. You are His child; you are a part of His very nature. He is your Heavenly Father, not theirs. Then, how much more will He do for you than for them? Do you believe it, beloved? I wonder if you do. Has He done greater things for you than for the lilies of the field? Do you expect Him to supply all the needs in your life, as the clouds expect to get their tints from the sun? You expect Him to take care of them somehow, but you do not expect the same in your own life. Take the lesson that this brings. Stop long enough to learn it.
Is God as wondrously providing for your life as He is for the birds? It is stupendous how He is caring for them. We almost never find that a bird has fallen from its perch through starvation. There are plains that man has never reached which are full of God’s beautiful flowers. Often in the tropical jungle they are far more beautiful than under man’s care. If God so wondrously cares for them, how much greater is the care that He gives to us, and how it should lead us to great humility as we think of it. Most of us are in a place of great dependence, and there is room for nothing else, but confidence and trust in Him.
II.
God is teaching us in these beautiful symbols the lesson also of trust. If He cares for the minute things of His Kingdom, but cares much more for His children, shall we not trust Him, and take in all the length and breadth of the thought? He has told us to ‘take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or wherewithal shall we be clothed? for after all these things do the Gentiles seek. For your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.’ And again: ‘Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.’ To take thought for the life then, is to serve Mammon, and to be free from the love of the world is to serve God.
Fear is the other side of love. What is it to trust? Christ gives us an infallible test. If we are fretting, and careworn, and anxious, we are not trusting. Care and confidence cannot go together. The apostle tells us, ‘Be careful of nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication, thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.’ That is trusting. ‘Casting all your care’ upon God is trusting Him. The things you are fretting about this morning are not committed to God. The things you have committed are out of your hands, like the letter which you deposit in yonder box, and which you commit so wholly to the care of the postman. Have you done this about the things you have committed to God? Before you can be confident that He will keep that which you have committed, you must be sure that you have placed it in His hands.
Christ makes no less of our trust for temporal things than He does for spiritual things. He places a good deal of emphasis upon it. Why? Simply because it is harder to trust God for them. In spiritual matters we can fool ourselves, and think that we are trusting when we are not; but we cannot do so about rent, and food, and the needs of our body. They must come, or our faith fails. It is easy to say we trust Him in things that are a long way off, but there can be no trifling about it in things where the faith must bring practical answers. It is easy to have faith for our needs, and to trust Him when the sun is shining. But let some things arise which irritate, and rasp, and fret us, and we soon find whether we have real trust or not. And so the things of everyday life are tests of our real faith in God, and He often puts us where we have to trust for tangible matters; for money, and rent, and food and clothes.
If you are not trusting here wholly, when you are placed in such tests you will break down. Are you trusting God for everything through the six ordinary days of the week? Are you believing God’s hand is on everything, that there is not one of these commonplace things, these multitudes of little cares which come like flocks of sparrows, but that God has it all arranged for, and can overrule it for you this morning, so that you shall be free from all care about it? It is a practical lesson. There are multitudes of people who have claimed that they have received full salvation, but who yet are not saved from care, and fret, and worry, which will appear in their speech and trouble every one with whom they come in contact.
But God teaches us also trust for spiritual growth. ‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.’ I love to think that the Lord was speaking here of spiritual growth. ‘He shall grow as the lily, his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon.’ This is the planting and developing of spiritual life in the beauty of Christ Jesus. It is not dressing up a corpse; it is not putting beauty and grace on the outside, while the soul is festering within. No, the Lord wants the life to be dwelling in the heart, and then He will make a glorious dress for the outside.
He would have this life grow up like the lily which is planted in the soil, and then swells, and enlarges and develops, rising into the fullness of beauty in stems and leaves, and flower-cups, and sweeps fragrance as well as color. It is not growth He is speaking of here so much as trust for spiritual growth. How people wear out head and heart, and break down in trying to become good. The work is as hard as that which any seamstress does in making dresses for her customers. So, some Christians are working with all their might to get their spiritual garments ready.
Jesus has all that is needed for spiritual robing; all the peace, and the holiness, and the love, and the faith; and all we need is to trust Him for these things as much as for temporal need. We are not only to take Him for salvation, but to trust Him for all His riches. ‘We are to put on Christ Jesus. We are to enter into rest. We are to work out what He works in. We are not to go to work ourselves to obtain it. God says: ‘It is He that worketh in you.’ Then, give Him a chance to develop His life there. Walk in the good works that He has prepared for you. Trust Him to keep you sweet. Commit this to Him, and you will find that He is able to keep you, and He will, as you trust Him for it.
One of the loveliest Christian friends I know became victorious over an irritable temper in this way. I well remember when she was entirely delivered in a short time after many years of weary struggling against it herself. Beloved, if today you reach down the spiritual roots deep into the soil of life, and stretch out the branches on either side, and cover them with leaves, and blossoms, and fruit, the growth must be through no effort of yours. The lily is not making efforts to grow, it is growing restfully and spontaneously. So, if we would grow up into Him in all things, we must keep our hands off ourselves, and trust our growth wholly to God; then we shall be arrayed as Solomon was in all his glory.
So, many of God’s children want to take hold of what is wrong in themselves and straighten it out. We must learn to let these things alone, and to leave them wholly to God. This must be so, if we are made sweet and gentle. Dear friends, will you have your own way in this, or will you take His way, and let Him perfect His life in you? When we go to work ourselves we make lots of trouble, and do not get right in the end. God says to us: ‘My child, let these things alone, and get full of Me; then you will not mind them.’ If you cannot keep this restful spirit, I am afraid you have got more theory than trust in your spiritual life.
III.
God teaches us here, also, something that is more important even than trust, and that is the secret of trust; single-hearted devotion to Him. ‘No man can serve two masters;’ ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.’ There is the secret of failure, and unrest, and distrust in Christian life. The heart is too much fixed on the things of this world. There is not a single-hearted purpose to do His will. We want two things: To be a Christian, and to please God, is one desire. But there is another want with us also; the desire for earthly things. If we were really yielded to the will of God, there is a strong intense life within us, without entire loyalty to God. We have not yet the single heart intent on pleasing Him.
There is not an earnest seeking after the Kingdom of God more than after earthly things. God would teach us not to seek these things at all; we are to let Him add them unto us. We are to be entirely separated from all earthly care; first, by His care for us, so that we shall not be thinking whether we are making or losing more by living thus in union with Him. Then we are to be separated by the thought held out to us here of His second coming; a though of transcendent importance. The whole lesson ends in a picture of His coming. The glories of this world are all to pass away, and the Christian is not to be occupied with what He shall eat, or drink or wear; He is not to be feasting, but looking out upon things which shall leave lasting impressions on His heart and life.
He is to show to the world that He is living, not here where the hearts of men are, but yonder where His beloved Lord is, and everything is to point to that place, like the needle to the pole. Paul gives two pictures of worldly people; those who live only for the world, sand those that live partly for the word. He says: ‘They that will be rich, fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.’ But He says in the next verse that ‘the love of money is the root of all evil; which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.’
These who have coveted after riches are not drowned in destruction and perdition with the world, but they are pierced through with chastenings which God sends to them to take earthly desire out of us. James, in encouraging Christians to pray for their needs, advises them to ask in faith, nothing wavering, and then he adds this verse: ‘A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways,’ which indicates that a man may have two minds. It should be his purpose to choose God for his whole life; to have God in all of it; to glorify God through it all, and then leave Him to provide for all the things of this life.
This singlesness of purpose is in its turn also dependent upon our confidence in God. If we really believed that God is doing what is best for us, we should be able to put ourselves eternally in His hands; then we should live as though we were sent from heaven to represent Him here on earth. He has gone there to represent us. He is looking after our interests there, and He expects us to do the same here. He has said to us: ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest,’ but He adds also: ‘Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me.’ We are not only to rest in Him, but we are to serve Him also, and when we are free from our own care, He will trust us with His cares.
14. The Heavenly Race
"Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God." Hebrews 12:1, 2
I.
THIS is a description of the heavenly race, which is to be run ‘looking off unto Jesus.’ This season has been especially full of races. There have been many competitions by sea and by land, some of them creditable, many of them disreputable. They have had a strange fascination for all classes and they have been entered into with all the zest and enthusiasm that human nature is capable of. So much so, that it is almost a question whether our great universities have been more bent on educating the heads or the heels of their students.
Baseball seems to be one of the greatest arts taught in some of them. Every evil thing, however, has been the outgrowth and perversion of something that was good. God has planted in human nature, for wise purposes, a desire to aim at the highest excellence and to get the greatest reward. Two principles underlie these things, to be and to get the best. Rivalry in certain directions is a good thing. This is what the figure in the text means. Without this endeavor for higher and better things, our spirits become dwarfed, and stunted and morbid, and we are liable to degenerate toward weakness and death.
We should turn toward things that are worth possessing, and press forward after them, never satisfied until we obtain the highest good, which will be the greatest purity and power in heart and life. Be the highest, whether you win a prize or not. To be judged a winner is as great as to get a reward. To be judged worthy of the highest place is something to struggle and aspire after. The old astronomer, Kepler, cared little if he was misjudged by the people of his times. It made little difference to him how much they ridiculed and laughed at him. He knew he was right.
He had discovered the great secret of the stars, and honest posterity would judge him rightly. He had gained the highest place, although he had not won the prize. God would have us press forward and reach out, not only after excellence, but after the highest excellence. He would have us be the best that His grace can make us. This is a right aspiration for human ambition and should be the one great aim of the human race.
II.
God has recompenses for the winners in this race. There is something for us beyond being simply excellent and true. This is precious, but God has more for us. There are diadems of beauty to be given as rewards. There will be plaudits of victory to be sounded throughout all eternity. ‘Well done, thou good servant, because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.’ There are rewards for us as well as attainments. There are marks of honor to be given out, which shall be as valuable as the character they are to adorn. And it is a great defect in our lives to fail to understand this. Salvation is a free gift as we are plainly taught, but, in addition, God teaches us that there are recompenses for faith, and self-denial, and spiritual strength, and for every consecration to God.
We ought to desire the prizes as much as God desires to give them. He offers them freely, and He does not want His children to slight them, or not care about them. If we say: ‘These things make no difference to us so long as we are saved,’ it shows that we do not understand the Father’s heart. In proportion to the spiritual struggles which we put forth the efforts we make to do and be the best, the singleness of our aim to please Him, the patience in overcoming evil, will be the reward the loving Father gives us. The prizes are given out to those who suffer; to those who endure temptation; to those who give the cup of cold water to the fainting ones, and to those who do any service, however small, for the love of God or His disciples. The rubies and jewels of rare value in these rewards may be crystalized drops of martyr blood.
The hard places of your lives may be turned into the sweetest memorials of the Redeemer’s love. The rewards that God shall give are infinitely greater than any that could be won in the arenas of earth. Strive after these prizes, beloved. Do not be content with salvation only, but press on, and gain from His hand, at last, laurels that shall never fade, and crowns that shall be incorruptible. Pause a moment, dear friends, and ask yourselves how much the power of these things is affecting your individual lives. Are you pressing forward, determined to be satisfied with nothing less than excellence; determined to have, as your reward at last, nothing less than you are able to win and God is able to give?
III.
The apostle tells us of the qualifications that the competitors need in running this great race. They are to lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us. A trainer takes great pains in preparing the runners for the races. If they win the prize it will be the reward of much self-denial, and a good deal of hard work. This is true of all competition, whether in a rowing match or in brain work, or in the spiritual race. Something is to be sacrificed; something must be laid aside if the race is to be won; this must to be done for a time at least. A soul that is bent on indulging the natural inclination of the mind cannot run in the heavenly race without laying this aside. The garments that are tainted with self or sin must be laid aside before the race begins.
The apostle is very clear and definite about this. It is the sin which doth so easily beset us. There is no such thing as saying ‘we will lay aside most of the evil in our lives, but we cannot help clinging to some besetting sin.’ Some think that the habit of sinning cannot be overcome in all things, and that the Christians who believe it can are straining matters a little. They look at sin as a general principle, but do not believe that in all small matters it can be put away. Too many will not come down to particulars in this thing as they should. They will not look at the little things that concentrate their power for evil in our lives, but think of sin too much in general as a great tap-root which is to be cut. The many little sins which waste our lives so much, which fasten themselves upon us and feed on our very being are often overcome by combined attacks upon them in one great battle-field.
The great wars are not won by battling all over the land, but are usually determined by one great victory. Russia, thirty years ago, was a country of sixty millions of people. The allied forces did not attempt to penetrate the interior; they assailed Sebastapol on the uttermost coast of the empire. But the Czar was obliged to mass the forces of his dominions in its defense, and when Sebastapol fell, all was lost. Sin does not fight us all over the battle ground. It attacks us in one place where we are weak, and which the devil understands better than we. It encamps before us there, and, if that Sebastapol falls, it is as great a defeat for us as if we had been conquered at every point.
The apostle James says in reference to the tongue: ‘If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.’ If we are able to be victorious there the devil lets us alone at that point. He tries us always at the weakest place. If we fail him, it is by taking the grace of God to overcome him. He finds a salient point against us in the very weaknesses that we cling to so tenderly. We may be sure that these are the places where the battle is to be decided. If we have strength to resist him there, we shall go through our entire life, and triumph until the end.
God’s love will show to us the lines in which we must be victorious, and the places where it will be hardest for us to stand. If we stumble over every little thing which comes in our way, God only can show us the cause of this, and where the camp of the enemy is who is pitted against us. It may be in some little matter, like the loss of patience or of self-control, and He is saying to us: ‘Meet that honestly, and conquer it forever. Then you will be able to go on in strength and victory to the very end.’
It is not enough, however, to lay aside the sin which so easily besets us. There is something much less than sin which must be put away also, and that is the weight that hampers us. These are not wicked things, but infirmities, which cling to our mind as weights. They are not apparent, perhaps, to others, but they are to ourselves, and they may not trouble us at all times. Still, they are to be laid aside. We may think that there is no harm in them, but if they hinder us at all in running the race they must be laid aside. If the robe is not right it must be altered. It may be too loose or flow too luxuriously. A robe for the chamber is not a fit dress running a race. It may do for the rocking-chair in the evening, but it is not a robe to run in. It is a weight, not a sin, but it must be laid aside.
The question is not if it is really wrong, but if it makes it harder for you to take a difficult place; if it is gradually causing you to become effeminate in nature, or self-indulgent and timid. If it has any of these effects it is hindering you in the race, and it must be laid aside. It may be rich and beautiful, but it is stopping your feet from running as they should, and is hindering your onward course. It may be relaxation that you are indulging in unwillingly; it may be some beautiful taste which is not wrong, but which is hindering a little in the path of duty. It may be some duty neglected; some failure to visit a sick friend; some letter that should be written and which you have postponed; some little thing said, which, at the time, you thought had no harm in it. Ah, these are all weights, and it is impossible to tell how greatly they may hinder us in the race.
If it should require the stroke of strong self-denial to lay them aside, do not be afraid to give it. We must keep in vigorous training, with strong muscles and firm flesh if the prize is to be won. You have seen people, no doubt, running in a sack race, and have watched them tumble heels over head, to the amusement of all spectators. Many Christians are running the heavenly race in sacks, and they wonder why it is that they stumble and fall so often. The difficulty is that their robes are not right. They impede their progress and hinder them from running rapidly.
The way to settle whether anything is good or evil in our life is to ascertain how it effects the higher nature; what influence it has upon our relations to God, and our duty to our fellow-men; whether it has a tendency to strengthen or to weaken us for daily life; whether it increases our faith and strengthens our zeal to be used in God’s service, and to be sacrificed for Him. If it has a tendency to keep us down, to increase our struggles to rise toward God, let others say what they will, it is a weight that hinders us in the heavenly race. In ten thousands of cases, Christian lives are made weak and ineffectual towards God by failing to lay these things aside, and the crowns which should be won are lost or gained by others.
Dear friends, lay aside every weight that nothing shall hinder you in running this heavenly race. A story is told of two Irish chieftains who both claimed a beautiful mountain lake, and, in order to settle the question of its ownership, one of the chieftains challenged his rival to a competition. They were both to row across the lake, and the one who first touched the opposite shore was to be the winner. The boat of one fell behind in the race, and seeing his antagonist about to land, he cut off his right hand and flung it to the shore, exclaiming: ‘I have touched the shore first, I have won the prize.’ His adversary was baffled, but, in great admiration for the courage of the other, yielded his claim to victory in the race.
So, if, in running the heavenly race, we find it necessary to lay aside anything, even if it be cutting off the right hand, let it go. God will show us what it is necessary to thus dispense with. Do not get in bondage about it. Whatever is elevating or strengthening to the soul, God forbid that you should fetter your conscience about. But whatever has an opposite tendency and should be laid aside, no matter whether it is great or small, may He give you the grace to put away, however great the cost.
IV.
There is a little word in connection with this race, which I wish you would notice especially. It is the word patience. It is not a fight so much of manliness, and agility, and strength, as of patience. The question in it is not so much what we can do as how much we can bear; how still, and trusting, and patient we can be in the midst of trouble. If we would win the highest prize in the race we must be possessed of passive virtues as well as of active ones, and so the apostle points us to our great example, the Lord Jesus Christ, who endured the cross, despising the shame, and the great lesson to us is to hold on in the struggle. It is not a strong effort made now and then, but it is a row across the Atlantic. It is a long pull, and we have need of patience if we expect to win the race.
V.
The next thought is one of encouragement. It looks at the race from the divine side instead of the human; it calls our attention to the myriads of people who have gone before us, and who with palms in their hands, are looking down upon us, as a great cloud of witnesses. Yonder are great throngs of men and women, who, awhile ago, were struggling where you and I are toiling today. They are living and real to us this morning. They are looking down upon us, not as examples merely for us to follow, but as spectators also of the race that we are running. The serried ranks of witnesses are watching us throughout the struggle.
From the open heavens are looking down upon us the eyes of father or mother or pastor or teacher, who, perhaps led you in early youth to enter into this heavenly race. They sat by your side, and spoke to you from the depths of consecrated hearts, and they are waiting now to see the effect upon your life. Napoleon said to his troops in Egypt: ‘Men of France, from yonder pyramids forty centuries are looking down upon you, to see you do your duty.’ How grandly would we bear ourselves in the race if we did but realize that our Master was saying to us: ‘From yonder battlements more than forty centuries are looking down upon you, and watching your efforts in the race.’
It is no harder in New York today than it was in Antioch eighteen hundred years ago. Are the easy lives and grand dresses of today harder to bear than the garb in which the Christians walked to the Colosseum then? The men who lived on earth hundreds of years ago had no greater encouragement in their lives than we have in ours. Jacob had as hard a time to overcome the evil in his nature, to grow saint-like in his spirit, and loving and gentle in heart, as have any of us today. Joseph knew what it was to bear oppression and wrong, and yet come through it, and in spite of it all be a prince and a saviour.
Joshua knew what it was to fight against the enemy without the ammunitions of war that are at our command. David was environed with hatred and surrounded with enemies. He knew what it was to be a king, and yet be obliged to wait for his crown. Every man had as hard a conflict in his time as we have in ours, and some of them a great deal harder. And their message to us today would be, seeing that we are compassed about with such examples, to fail in no respect to be worthy of our place of opportunity and honor.
VI.
The last thought which I believe God would write upon our hearts this morning is, that the greatest witness of all those who are beholding us is Jesus, ‘the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.’ Let us learn these few lessons about Him today.
1. He had, in every respect, the same trials that we have. ‘He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.’
2. He despised every hindering thing that came in His way. He paid no attention whatever to anything that would have a tendency to distract Him from the work that lay before Him.
He looked ahead beyond this life to the glory that awaited Him, and so was able to endure the contradiction of sinners and of circumstances against Himself. And so everything was made to be helpful in His onward progress. Just what His life was, ours may become. He gained by the disciplines that came into His life. So many people run to tell everybody of the difficulties they are in. Supposing, instead of that, you do just the opposite. Refuse to look upon it, just as Jesus did. Despise it, turn your back upon it. Do you suppose He ever let anybody sympathize with Him because the race was so hard? When we can learn to take our eye off from everything that would charm us by its ugliness, off the things by which Satan would turn us back, and keep the eye fixed only upon Jesus, we too shall be winners in the race. No matter how gloomy the panorama which the devil would spread out before us, refuse to look upon it, even if the effort be like going through the fire.
3. He looked ahead to the joy which was beyond. When we learn always to look away from the clouds toward the sun and keep our eye ever fixed on the glorious morning, we too shall be filled with eternal joy. If we can press on in the race in this way, it will end in blessed victory, and we shall be so glad at its close that we were not frightened at the difficulties in the way, and did not turn back from the prospect that lay ahead. When we really enter the land of beauty and gain the glorious crown, we shall be very thankful that our eye was ever kept upon the joy before us.
4. The crowning thought and the best thought of all, is that Jesus is not only our example as He walked before us in His earthly life, but He is still walking with us in the race. He comes back to us, not only as a living example, but as the author, and the leader, and the finisher of our faith. He comes by our side, as our helper; nay, more, He comes to dwell within us; to be the life in our blood, the fire in our thought, the faith within us, both in inception and consumation. Thus He becomes not only the recompense of the victor, but the resources of the victory. He is the captain and the overcomer in our lives.
If we have caught any help that has relieved us of a troubled morning, it has been of Him. He lifts our eyes unto Himself, and delivers us from apathy, from discontent and from fears. He is always the helper in this heavenly competition, and will be the great reward in all the ages to come. If our life is hidden with Him we shall have to go through the same trials that He went through, but we shall not find them too hard. If once we take Him fully as the strength of our life and our all in all, we shall be able to lay aside all the hindering things that press upon us day by day.
We shall be able to draw new patience and courage from Him until we shall not behold the cloud of witnesses around us, but shall have taken our place among them as one of the victors, and shall be able to sing from the depths of grateful hearts, ‘Hallelujah! He hath given us the victory.’ May God help you to find this true in your experience, dear friends. No matter how hard the trouble you are in, it has been just as hard for some one else, and Jesus has triumphed in that very place. Take it then and lay it at His feet, and gain from Him the victor’s crown.
15. Munitions Of Rocks
"He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gains of oppression, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil; He shall dwell on high; his place of defense shall be the munition of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off. Thine heart shall meditate terror. Where is the scribe? Where is the receiver? Where is he that counted the towers! Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue that thou canst not understand. Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down. Not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us. Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not well strengthen their mast; they could not spread the sail; then is the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame take the prey. And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick; the people that walk therein shall be forgiven their iniquity." Isaiah 33:15’24
WE WILL not look at this passage this morning as an abstract chain of thought, but as a series of spiritual pictures.
I.
We see here the character of the child of God.
1. We are told of his ways. He walketh righteously. This has respect chiefly to his relations to this world. It is the horizon of life as a circle which takes in only human relationships. But we are next told of his relations to God. He speaketh uprightly. The words ‘the righteous walk’ describe him as he comes in contact with his fellow men; as he touches humanity upon the right and left. The word ‘uprightly’ describes him as he touches God. The circle of his influence towards men is not a vertical circle, but the other circle sweeps the heavens. Which of these should be the measure of life? Both of them. Our lives should sweep out in a flat circle towards all with whom we come in contact, and they should also touch the heavens with the same full sweep.
2. Next, we are told of his words. Life is very largely made up of words. They are not so emphatic, perhaps, as deeds. Deeds are more deliberate expressions of thought. One of the most remarkable authors of the New Testament has said; ‘If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.’ It is very often a test of victory in Christian life. Our triumph in this often depends on what we say, or what we do not say. It is said by James of tongue that ‘it is set on fire of hell.’ The true Christian, therefore, is righteous in his ways and upright in his words. His deeds appeal to men; but in speech he is looking up, for God is listening.
His words are sent upward and recorded for the judgment. I believe that this is an actual fact, and I can almost fancy that the skies above, which seem so transparent, the beautiful blue ether over our heads, is like a waxen tablet with a finely sensitive surface, and receives an impression of every word we speak, and that then these tablets are hardened and preserved for the eternal judgment. So we should speak, dear friends, with our eyes ever upward, never forgetting that we shall some day meet the words that we have spoken.
3. We are told again of the hands of the Christian. They too are right, as well as his lips. ‘He shaketh his hands from holding of bribes.’ He not only will not take them, but, lest the dust should adhere, he shakes off every particle of it. He is clean from suspicion of injustice in business matters. His hands are free from avarice and from all sordid self-seeking. He is honest in all these matters. He is clear from all business corruption. He is clean from any stain of social, secular or moral evil. Not only his words but his hands are free from them.
4. Again we are told about his ears. They are closed to anything that could be unkind, or injurious, or hurtful in any way to another. He listens not to anything of the kind. God hates this, and His true child hates it also. He has shut His ears against it. Even if we do not believe the evil we hear; even if we do not give much thought to it afterward, still, we cannot listen to it without being contaminated by it. It is like ugly water thrown over us, which cannot but defile. If we would walk in the white light of heaven, we must listen to nothing which would injure another, and therefore, in a sense, destroy his life. We should shut our ears from the hearing of blood. It is walking in the mire of evil, as truly as if we were speaking it instead of hearing it.
5. ‘He shuteth his eyes from seeing evil.’ He may move in the midst of it, but he will pass it by and not see it. He refuses to look upon it. His eyes are fixed on something higher. He has an inner vision which keeps him from beholding the evil. We can all have this, dear friends, by making up our minds to have it. We can all have the single eye fixed only upon Jesus. The devil will try to throw in many side lights, to draw our eyes from this steady look at Christ. They will come darting in from every side, like forked lightning. Perhaps in the form of annoyance, or of some irritating thought or evil desire, which has no consent in the soul.
The pictures in the windows, and the spectacles that are passed in the street may often act in this way, and it needs much prayer to defend us from them. There must be a constant looking unto Jesus, or, as the German Bible gives it, an off-looking upon Jesus; that is, looking off from the evil, refusing to see it, not letting the mind dwell upon it for a second. We should have mental eyelashes as well as physical ones, which can be used like shields, and let no evil thing in; or like a stockade camp in the woods, which repel the first assault of the enemy. This is the use of the fringes to our eyes, and so it should be with the soul. Many do not seem to know that they have spiritual eyes. They go through the world as if somebody had cut off their eyelashes, and they stare away on the good and evil alike.
The devil comes along with his evil pictures and bids them look. We cannot look upon evil without being defiled. Sometimes, in going down the street, the sight of some of the pictures on the way will cast their filth upon the soul so that we shall feel the need of being bathed in Jesus’ blood for hours, for cleansing. There has been no consent unto sin, but the sight of it has defiled. There is no help for it but in the resolute, steady, inner view of Christ. A question may arise, what shall we do when such and such things come to annoy us? Do not let them come. Shut the door upon them at once. Say to them: ‘I am engaged with my Master, and I cannot see you.’ Put a lock upon the front door. Let nothing enter there but that to which God says: ‘Come in.’
If other things are allowed to enter, the house will soon be dismantled; the locks will be off the doors, and it will be open to every beast of prey who chooses to enter, and to every foul bird of the air who pleases to come roost and within. This is the most practical word that I can say to you this morning. Beloved, keep your ears, and your eyes, and your thoughts from contact with anything that is evil. Refuse to see, hear or to think of it. Keep the eye so steadily fixed on Christ that everything else will be shut out. And so the life will be full of rest. So often a thread is broken in our lives by carelessness in these little things and we have to get it mended. And when that is mended, another is broken, and another and another. May God give us steadiness of purpose in looking unto Jesus in all these things.
6. We are told also of his thoughts. He despiseth evil. He has such a scorn of it that it cannot get access to his spiritual nature. He cannot be tempted lightly. He can only look with holy scorn upon the devil, and the devil cannot stand being insulted. He can get along if he is treated fairly, and decently, and with respect; but he cannot stand being scorned. We should be able to have a holy and lofty scorn of evil. It must have no power to spatter the soul. There should be a loftiness and a sublimity in the poise of our altitude, which will give us the victory before the fight begins.
II.
We will now look at the blessing of God’s child.
1. ‘He shall dwell on high.’ There are two races of men upon the earth; one, like the devil, goes crawling about upon the ground as the serpents do; the other dwells on high, in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. The true child of God sits in heavenly places, and looks upon everything as it comes from God’s standpoint. He can look down at the poor children of earth who are dwelling in the midst of thunderstorms, but he is up in the mountain above their power, dwelling in glory, and bathed in the light the sun. He looks below, and everything is black, because the sun has hidden his presence; but he is dwelling in the light. The Lord wants us always to be full of light, as though we were living there.
2. He dwells also in the munition of rocks. He has not only a glorious home, but a glorious defense. He does not have to fight battles, because his enemy cannot get at him. He is secure in Christ, but only secure while he is in Him. If he gets out of that place a second he is not safe. He is not secure because he is a strong man, but because he is in a strong position. ‘Where are we staying, dear friends? ‘The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks.’ They can be easily caught by the eagles, and they know it, and so they keep inside the rocks. We are not strong, beloved. There are devil forces in us that would carry us off at any time, but we have the promise that there shall no evil come nigh our dwelling. If we get out of the house we may be struck, and so we had better stay there. It is our privilege to dwell on high, in the munitions of rocks. If we stay there we are safe. If we go out we may be game for the hunter at any moment.
3. ‘His bread shall be given him.’ His bread is not earned merely, but it is given. The Lord wants to give it to us. He has taught us to pray, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ Some people think that they have to fight for their bread. The Lord said: ‘All these things shall be added unto you.’ It is one thing to say, ‘I have got to get bread for my wife and children anyhow.’ God says, ‘You have got to do right.’ Then He has promised to give the bread. People so often think that they must secure themselves against evil days. God wants us only to be true to Him, and He will feed us. He wants to give us our daily bread, and how sweet it comes to us from Him.
I would rather have a crust that was given me from the hand of the Lord than to sit down at a table loaded with luxuries. There is no encouragement in this for idleness. The difference is, you are not toiling for bread, you are toiling for Jesus, and He is giving the bread. The difference is great. ‘His waters also shall be sure.’ Water is for comfort and refreshing. He is to have the spring of consolation. Water is also for washing, and for drinking, and for medicinal use. There is every sort of spring, but all of them are sure. God has always some comfort for His weary children. They need never be desolate. ‘Their souls shall be as a watered garden,’ and they shall not sorrow any more at all. ‘Their waters are sure.’
III.
1. We are told also of his vision. God does not talk about him any more; he has got so high that the pronoun changes. ‘Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty.’ He has come so near to God that they can talk together. God calls him now ‘my child,’ and reveals to him the whole land of promise. They talk together as if they were both in it. ‘Thine eyes shall see,’’what? Ah, the first thing they behold is not the glory or the riches of the land, but it is Jesus, the King, in His beauty. He is grander than any robe He wears, and we can see Him today in His beauty. We need not wait till we have passed through this vale of tears. We can see Him here, and when we gather together there we shall only see the King, who has already been revealed to us.
He sees also the land that is very far off. That expression is not used to convey the meaning that heaven is very far off. The transaction is very beautiful in the margin: ‘He shall see the land of far distances.’ The land reaches very far off, but we can get up so high, and into such clear light, that we can see afar off. We can see not only the promises for today, but we can look ahead into the future, and see there, not trouble and sorrow only, but glory and blessing. Not only our light affliction, which is but for a moment, but the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
All this is shown to us in the vision of the things that are very far off. Seeing Christ will more than make up for the things that are unpleasant. I see a brother from Pittsburgh here today, and it reminds me that they called us, when we were there, the ‘far away people.’ If they meant that we were able to look a long way off, I think we should have taken it as a great compliment. God can become, for His people, not only a possession for today, but a promise of rest and comfort in the far distances ahead.
Glory to God for all the grace
We have not tasted yet.
Glory to Him for all the things laid up for us in the days to come. Glory to Him for all the visions of service in the future; the opportunities of doing good that are far away as well as close at hand. Our Saviour was able to despise the cross for the joy that was before Him. Let us look up to Him, and rise up to Him till we get on high and are able to look out from the mount of vision over all the land of far distances. There shall not a single thing come to us in all the future in which we may not be able to see the King in His beauty. Let us be very sure that we do not see anything else. Our pupils will become impressed as they look at this vision, so that they will not be able to reflect anything else.
My little child came to me the other day and said: ‘Papa, look at that golden sign across the street a good while; now look at that brick wall, and tell me what you see.’ ‘Why, I see the golden sign on the brick wall.’ And he laughed merrily over it. So, if we look a long time upon Jesus, we cannot look at anything else without seeing a reflection of Him. Everything which we behold will become a part of Him. May He give us this vision of Himself today, and cause us to sit before Him as David did in adoring wonder, as we cry: ‘Who am I, O Lord God? and what is my house, that Thou has brought me hitherto? And this was yet a small thing in Thy sight, O Lord God; but thou hast spoken also of Thy servant’s house for a great while to come.’ Hath He spoken to you, dear friends, also for a great while to come.
2. He shall not be afraid of anything. His heart shall mediate terror. He shall be able to think of the most terrible things, and yet not be afraid. The time has come when Jesus has become greater to him than anything the devil can possibly bring against us; greater than sorrow, greater than difficulty, greater uncongenial people, indeed, Jesus has become all in all.
3. The glorious Lord has there become to him a place of broad rivers and streams, in which no war ship shall pass. It is a safe land; a secure dwelling place. There is no way out from that fullness of God. The glorious Lord is its crown of blessing. The inhabitants are not bound up there in narrow channels in which they have to row and paddle along without wind, but they are out on the broad rivers where they do not need the oars. They are carried swiftly along by the sails. There is no hard toiling and struggling with our own efforts. God’s winds bear us gently and steadily onward. There is no enemy in that land. No war ship can come near it. There is no trouble there.
There are no rocks in those broad rivers, for the winds to drive our vessels upon. None of these things can be found in the glorious Lord. We do not even need to go in galleys with oars, for we shall do no fighting there. I remember the story I used to read of Themistocles, the great Grecian general, who went out to fight the Persians with their mighty armament of millions of soldiers. He waited until the wind was on his side, so that his enemy had to row against it, but his fleet could put down their oars and did not need to touch a paddle. Every man was sent to his arrow, or his javelin, or his spear. Every man became a soldier.
While the Persian army was struggling in rowing to keep its position, the Greeks bore down upon them with all the force of the strong wind that was blowing and won a glorious victory. God wants us to be on the right side of things, so that we shall not need to use oar or paddle to struggle against them. Many people come to church on the Sabbath after a week of defeat, and yet wonderfully helped and blessed, and think ‘It is all right now, I have got back to where I was before.’ But ere the week is over they begin to drift again, and have to row and row with all their strength, to keep their own position. Dear friends, the devil is not a bit afraid of such people. He does not need to spend a soldier on them. They can fight away all day and no harm is done to him. This is not what God wants. No; He would have us on the windward side, which is the place of blessing.
Let us get up today, into His place of vision. Let us enter upon these rivers, where there is fullness of victory, and let us use all these blessings for His glory, and to His dear name be all the praise.
16. The Transformed Desert
"When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry ground springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree. I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together: That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it. Produce your cause, saith the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob." Isaiah 41:17-21
AS I HAVE gone up and down the coast of New Jersey recently, I have seen city after city of beauty, and culture, and wealth and progress, on those desert shores where a few years ago were nothing but sand heaps and salt marshes. It has seemed so beautiful, and it has brought a whole train of thought as I have noticed this desert barrenness springing into beauty, to refresh the tired population of the cities, who go out to these desert places for rest and quiet. There can be found there beautiful green shade, and all the variety and adornment of landscape gardening, combined with all the architectural beauty of home life.
It has brought many sweet passages of Scripture to my mind, showing how God is constantly putting surprises in human life. It is not where circumstances would seem to favor their growth, but in the midst of surrounding barrenness, that the prophet sees the myrtle, and the box, and the cedar and the palm tree planted, making the wilderness and solitary place to be glad for them, and the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose. It is in the most unlikely places, and where we should least expect to find them that His Divine grace and eternal glories are seen. Why He done this? ‘That they may see, and know, and consider and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this.’ It is to make plainly apparent the truth, that this is not man’s work at all.
I.
Let us look more particularly at the teaching of the text. We see man’s hopelessness and misery described under the figure of helplessness and need. It is when the poor and needy seek water that it is found. There is not only need, but there is inability to meet that need. The one thing is set over against the other. There is a wearisome search, not a cry. There is an attempt to find, and a failure, and then the exhaustion that follows, as though there were One up in heaven whom we could not reach, and to whom we were crying. But God hears the cry, however low it may be. ‘I the Lord, will hear them.’ God hears the cry that has never got beyond the lips; that is not louder than a groan, that is only formed in the inner recess of the heart, from the deep sense of need. God is listening for the groan; He is nigh, and is watching to save us from our distresses.
Paul tells us in the Epistle to the Romans: ‘He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.’ ‘He that searcheth the heart.’ That is what God is doing. He is not sitting coldly up in heaven, and coming to us when we call upon Him. He is searching the heart; He is looking through and through the spirit to see if there is any desire for Him there. We may not be conscious of its presence, but He knows it. ‘I the Lord will hear them.’
When the soul has reached the point of extreme distress, and disappointment, and need, and depression, where it is in the midst of every sort of desolation or of toil, and seems drifting utterly away from God; when the life is one great wilderness in which there is no shrub nor tree growing, nor any springs of water’that is the place where God comes to make it glad with rivers of refreshment. When you are in the midst of great need, and almost feel that everything must be given up, when you feel as if you could not even pray, and are so tired that you can only fold your hands and entreat in a voiceless kind of way’that language He will understand; that prayer God hears and answers.
Too tired, too worn to pray,
I can but fold my hands.
Ah, I think that is prayer of the highest kind. Are you in deep trouble? Are you at the end of all your resources? Have you sought water and found none, and is your tongue feeling for thirst? That moment of supreme, single-hearted earnestness is the time when God draws near. I have never seen a soul so sad, so worn, so depressed, that it was willing to let all go, but it was quickly saved, and brought into glorious victory. And the weary, depressed, and hopeless face has been set like a flint, and the soul has overcome, and God has given it His rich blessing. ‘Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart.’
II.
We see next the divine provision that God makes for those who do thus seek Him. He opens rivers in high places. You would naturally expect to find them in the low places. He opens fountains in the midst of the valleys. The place of fountains is on high, but God puts the rivers on the mountain tops, and the fountains way down in the depths. He always works contrary to the natural things you expect to find. The provision for your spiritual help He has placed out of the ordinary line. His principle of redeeming, and saving, and delivering men is by grace. The principle of all God’s working with his children is contrary to our expectation. He makes the valley of Achor, which was the place of troubling, a door of hope. He caused the prison to become a throne to Joseph.
The lions’ den, where Daniel was thrown, became a cage in which not only the lions were subdued, but Darius and the whole of Babylon also. The cross was a place, not only of suffering, but of salvation for the whole world. In the Philippian jail, God not only opened the prison and released the poor prisoners from their bonds, but it was the place of salvation for the jailer also. He takes things which seem to be against all help, and turns them into places of blessing. The natural things, which seem to us most perverse and crooked now, may become transformed into the most beautiful things of our lives. The attractive ornaments that people wear, are made from the wrecks of former convulsions.
The precious jewels are many of them the results of the upheaval of great forces in the crust of the earth. The science of geology shows us what has been done in this way in the ages of the past by these upheavals and convulsions, which have cast these priceless gems into the bosoms of the rocks, from which they have been gathered and polished by the hands of man into exquisite jewels. So grace sends down help in unlooked-for places, and comes in sweet benedictions upon the trials of life. If we look for it below we may not find it. We must look for the river on the mountains, and for the springs in the depths of the valleys.
III.
We see next the fruit of God’s deliverance in the garden which He plants. We find it in the wilderness, in the out of the way places. Sahara, which is a place of sand banks, shall be covered with verdure, in which there shall be sparkling fountains, flowers and trees. As we look at it, we find it covered with every variety of the productions of nature. So God’s garden has every possible variety of beauty and refreshment, and it becomes an evidence of His blessing and all-sufficient grace. There is a great variety of imagery in this wonderful picture. The various kinds of trees have each a meaning, which is fulfilled in spiritual life and character. The first tree mentioned in the garden of Eden is the tree of life; the next is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
When God wished to choose a type of His purified people, He chose the burning bush, a tree on fire. When the Lord wanted Daniel to give a type of the nations He chose a tree which grew and was strong, and then was cut down to the roots, which will yet be fulfilled in the history of the Gentile races. When Jesus Christ would give a picture of the growth of Christianity He too chose a tree; the mustard tree, which became so large that the birds of the air could lodge in the branches. Ezekiel gives a picture of the freshness and power of the Gospel, under the figure of a river, and he speaks of all manner of trees growing upon the banks, ‘whose fruit shall be for meat and the leaves for medicine.’ It was a tree that brought man’s curse, and it was a tree that took it away. ‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.’
The tree of Calvary became the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The imagery of the Bible is full of trees, both shade trees and fruit trees, and the picture that Isaiah gives shows how prodigal nature plants them luxuriantly in the wilderness, and they are all types of different phases of spiritual life. Our parks are filled with their beautiful shade. It is marvelous how freely these types of fullness and gladness are planted. Their exquisite, graceful drapery shows us the freedom and the lovliness of nature. Their root running down into the ground, and their branches reaching up into the air, are beautiful types, to us, of the way in which our spiritual life is to be fed. It is the image that God wants us to see, is planted in the midst of the wilderness.
The leaf is given for the healing of disease, as well as for the joy and gladness of the Christian heart. There is a marvelous similarity in the structure of the tree to our physical as well as to our spiritual life. The leaf is the counterpart of the human frame. The stalk and ribs have a wonderful correspondence to be back-bone and ribs of our own body, and the pulpy part has its analogy in the flesh. The pores in the skin are exceedingly sensitive to the air around which has a correspondence also in our physical life. The whole tree is a microcosm of man. The roots are sent down into the soil; so, our spiritual life is to be deeply rooted in Christ. Its tender leaves draw in nourishment from the air around.
So we are to be living ever in an atmosphere of spiritual life, from which we too shall derive strength. The tree is developed from a seed, which expands into perfect life, but the principle was all there in the beginning, in the germ. So Christ plants spiritual life in our hearts, and the fullness of its development is there at first in the germ. But it has to expand and grow into the perfect likeness of Christ.
Then, too, trees have a marvelous system of circulation. The sap starts from the roots and ascends through the whole structure, going to the very extremities of the smallest leaves, and sending the life of the tree through every part. So, too, the human soul has a wonderful system of circulation. The secret of spiritual life is to have the life of your Lord going through all the being. The sap of the tree is always flowing, even when it is dead to all appearance on the outside. In the winter the tree seems to be dead and cold. But if you could go down into it you would find the flowing spring of life there, long before the spring has come to the outer world. It is rising up into all the branches, and waiting only for the real spring time to make its power seen.
Before the winter began, the tiny leaflets folded themselves about the bud which was to take the place of the fruit of the summer. This was to become the leafage and fruitage of the next year, and lay safely housed from the cold during all the wintry days. Thus is a sweet teaching in all this for our spiritual life, which may be living and strong within us when all appears to be still and dead. It may not be manifest even to our own feeling, and there may be no evidence to others that we are quickened by the life of God. But his nature has been planted within us, and the forces of faith and love are working there, although unseen. It is life from within, and it cannot be judged by outward evidence.
We can look at the tree and learn a lesson also from the manner of its growth. It is not like a building which is erected brick by brick. This is very different. One grows by the outside additions of brick and mortar, and by all the appliances of man’s mechanism. Yonder tree is growing by no touch at all of man; no fibre in it has been the result of his work; it is growing from within; it is working out the irrepressible fullness of its inner life, which forms fibre after fibre, and expands into forms of beauty and strength, but it is all the result of materials which were laid up in the heart of the tree. A very little time will reduce the house to ashes, but the tree will look down upon scores of generations.
Pass an age or two away, I shall moulder and decay;
But the years that crumble me shall invigorate the tree.
As we look on these grand monarchs of the forest, and see how they rear their noble heads high in air, spread their branches around, we cannot but feel how much more superb they are than any of the works of man. I was looking yesterday at many different kinds of trees; some of them massive oaks and pines which have lasted a thousand years, and which money could not buy. Vanderbilt, with all his wealth, would not be able to plant one of them in New York. Long Branch could not put out a tree which is older than fifteen or twenty years. They are all God’s work, and they are marvelous types of spiritual life. The tree has a system of roots and of circulation of its sap, of growth from the seed, of increase from within, of the unfolding and development of its life from vital forces, rather than from the working of outward mechanism, and of porous leaves which are open channels to receive fresh vigor from the influence of the air around.
In all these things, we behold the picture of divine life which God has planted in the heart as a living seed, and which there develops into wondrous beauty, sending its roots down deep into Christ, circulating His life through all its being, developing itself from within and not from without through the living forces that are working there, and yet drawing in from all surrounding influences whatever will advance its spiritual development, and so lifting up the whole being into a glorious symmetry, and a beautiful likeness to the person of the Lord.
The principle of grafting is a marvelous approximation to the root idea of Christian life - that is, resurrection life. If we wish to be perfect in Him, and fruitful in His life, we must have a new nature planted within us, or else we shall produce but wild berries or sour crabs. God does not slay the old physical life, but He changes its nature. He puts upon the old root a branch or a stem, with life in it that came from another. It is a glorious thing to wake up and find something divine within us. It sends a thrill through all the being, and it makes things become easy to us which have always been desperately hard to our natures before.
The reason is that there is a new altitude of heart and spirit, and things are now no longer hard because they are so natural. Put a little touch of divinity within us, and we are different beings. We spring instinctively into joy and praise, and trust and love. There is something within the heart which did not use to be there, and it is easy to be happy, and fresh, and sweet. It is easy to be true to Christ, and no longer be obliged to say: ‘Oh, that I knew where I could find Him!’ It is easy now to find Him, naturally and readily. The old root is good enough. It does not need to kill us bodily and literally, but only to put within us His own life which will spontaneously develop and put on His own spiritual nature.
IV.
There is a lesson to be learned also from the variety of trees. The Bible uses them as types of the diversity of Christian life.
1. We can learn perhaps more lessons from the palm than from any other tree. It is the queen of trees. We do not know it here, excepting by the little shoots, which are sent more to disappoint us than for anything else. The palm is the richest production of the prodigality of nature. It grows straight up to the sky, and holds its fruit there in the very blaze of the glorious sun. It is a type of the lofty aspiration of Christian life. The long roots of the great tree absorb moisture from the sandy soil, even in the face of the hottest sun that ever shone out of the hottest sky. You cannot make it too hot for a palm, nor can you for some people either, if they too know how to absorb the sweet influences of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the most trying circumstances.
The palm has a marvelous usefulness. It is refreshing both in cool and in hot weather. Its fibres are made into cordage, and its trunk into beautiful wood-work. It gives sugar and, wine, and a great variety of food. We get sago, and cocoanuts, and dates from it. It is a type of the uprightness and loftiness of Christian life, and of its practical utility also.
2. The cedar is a type of another side of this subject. It is a picture of the rooted Christian, who gets his supplies of strength and vigor from deeper sources of divine supplies. The cedar sends down its deep tap-roots which can take hold even upon the rocks of Lebanon and defy the tempests of the Mediterranean. No storm can possibly shake it from out this fortress of its strength. It is a type of endurance, and of stability also. Its wood lasts longer than almost any other. So the Christian that is deeply rooted in Christ is a stable Christian. He is able to stand the heaviest storms without being shaken. We find its wood was used in the temple, and we see from this that God would use in erecting His spiritual temple within our hearts these same qualities of strength and vitality.
3. The olive tree is useful principally for its oil. It teaches us that Christian faces are to shine with the beauty of the Holy Spirit. His glory is to be manifest in all their being; they are the anointed ones, and receive from this anointing the gifts of beauty and of power.
4. The various fruit trees also bring us useful lessons. The pomegranate shows the value of having precious seed to scatter, and in many ways these trees teach us the lesson of fruit bearing.
5. From the shade trees God teaches us that He would have us be as shades, to keep the sun off from other people, and to be a shelter to them from the wind and the storm.
6. There are precious lessons also to be learned from the spice trees, which are mentioned in numerous cases in the Bible. God wants spiritual spice trees in His garden. As one approaches Singapore, or other parts of the Malaysian regions, he is swept by breaths of sweetness from the spice groves on the shore, which are filling the air with fragrance. God uses these as the types of the spiritual sweetness and fragrance which should ever be surrounding His children.
7. The fig tree, which was cursed by our Saviour, is a type of the showiness of Christian life without fruit. ‘Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.’ That is, the tree that abides not in Christ for fruitage as well as for life is to be cast into the fire and burned. Which of these trees are we, dear friends? God wants fruit trees; trees that are more productive even than those that are in nature. He does not expect one harvest from us once in a year, but many times. The trees that John saw yielded their fruit every month. He is expecting new fruit from us all the time, and that not the same kind.
If we are in the same spiritual state all the while, we become tiresome to Him, and to ourselves, and to others. We are to get new thought out of the Bible; new calls for service. We are to be going further and rising higher all the way. There is fruit for you, young people; for you, middle-aged ones, and for you old ones, too. There is fruit for the shop, and for the sewing room, and for the editor’s office; for the salesman at the counter and the broker at his desk. As we go on constantly in the divine life, how constantly should new life be borne. As I was on last night, a young lady took a seat beside me, and I soon saw that she recognized me, and so I entered into conversation with her, in which ventured timidly to tell me that she had wanted for a long time to speak to me about her soul.
I believe she entered into rest and peace before we parted. It was fruit by the way, but it might not have been gathered. At the next station a young man sat down by me whom I shall not soon forget. He was a reckless blasphemer, but I was able, kindly and gently, to gain his attention, and talk to him of his soul, and I believe he will yet be saved. It is possible for us, dear friends, to have fruit all the way along. At a child’s funeral, not long ago, out in Chicago, a young man leaned over the coffin and burst into such bitter tears that many present thought that he must be a near relative of the deceased. When questioned quietly about it he said: ‘Ah, no, he was not a relative, but he was more toy me than all the friends in the world. A year ago I was up in the top of a building, and he was watching me, and saw me in peril; and when I came down he said: ‘Were you not frightened to be up so high?
No, you were not, because you had said your prayers in the morning.’ I had not said my prayers that morning, nor many mornings before, but I said them that night, and I have been saying them ever since.’ This was the fruit of a child. It was borne in the first month, but you can have it then as well as in the last. Young men, you can have fruit for Christ in your season, as well as the more mature Christian in his. Two men met once beside a well in their journey. One was a Christian; the other had no thought about religion. As they parted they looked a moment in each other’s face, and the Christian asked the other a question about his soul, and added a little word about the Saviour, and then they parted, never to meet again. But the conversation was not forgotten.
Years afterward the unconverted man was laboring as a missionary in Africa, wondering all the time who it was who had brought him to the Lord. He struggled there to glorify Christ, and was blessed in his work. One day he received a package of books from England to start a library in his mission station, and as he opened one of them, he saw the picture of James Brainerd Taylor, and exclaimed: ‘That is the man who spoke to me at the well.’ Oh, what fruit it was, and what a joy it will be to that servant of God to trace its results throughout all eternity. I feel like encouraging you this morning to labor earnestly in this service, and yet to work simply and naturally in it. The work is only hindered by those who do it rashly or in an unbecoming manner. Let us have fruit on our spiritual trees every month.
Let there be blossoms on one, and young fruit on another, and ripe fruit on another, that the people who are looking upon the work, and we ourselves also ‘may see, and know, and consider, and understand together that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.’ How grateful it is to God’s weary ones to find a tree in some hot place that brings to the tired soul rest, and blessing, and food, and refreshment. You can be a tree like that, beloved; you can be a shade from the heat, and a resting place for the weary. You can have fruit which shall be meat for the hungry, and leaves which shall heal the bruised and save the sick. Ezekiel saw such trees.
Oh, that God would plant them in the desert of your life, and cause it to become the beautiful garden in our text. It is in just such desert places that He wants them to grow. If you are in any dreary, unromantic, unpromising situation, take this text for your own today, and say: ‘I need the rivers in the high places, and the fountains in the midst of the valleys; I need to have the desert of my life turned into a garden of the Lord.’ And then, let Him plant in it the trees for shade, and for fruitage, for sweetness, and for strength and for everlasting life, ‘that they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.’
So may He turn all that is useless in your life to become a blessing to others, and may He send home the question to all our hearts this morning: ‘Is my life a blessing to others? Am I used by the Lord as a shade tree or as a fruit tree?’
17. The Harvest Of The Earth
"And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice unto him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire: and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine-press of the wrath of God. And the wine-press was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the wine-press, even unto the horse-bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs." Revelation 14:14-20
WE have here a harvest picture, with special reference to the harvest of the ages, but containing also lessons for the harvest of individual life. Our thoughts turn to its lessons naturally at this season of the year, as all over the land men have been gathering in the fruit of the field. The grain harvest is already past, and soon the last fruit of the year will be gathered into the garner of autumn. There are lessons also in it of the Christian year, such as Keble has beautifully put into poetry.
I.
Perhaps the first lesson which presents itself is the identity of the harvest with the seed sown. It is of the same kind. ‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ There are no results in time that are not identical with the seed sown, the effort put forth, the truth given, or the faith exercised. There will be no results in eternity except from something that has been done here to begin the results. The harvest in heaven will be of the same kind as the seed sown on the earth. There will be nothing there which has not had its beginning down here. The reverse is also true.
The seed of evil will produce results of the same kind as the seed sown. He that plants a seed of evil may watch it go through many evolutions, but in the end he must himself reap that which he has planted. There is one exception to this. Jesus Christ reaps for us the results of sin. We do not do it because He did it for us. Some one must reap the results of the seed sown. It is an inexorable law. If the sinner does not turn back to reap the harvest of sin, it is because some one has become his substitute and reaped it for him.
In Christian life also it is true that we sow as we reap. He that sows to his selfish nature, and gratifies lust, or avarice, or strife, will inevitably reap as he sows. The harvest will represent the source from which it came. The only thing to be done is to die to the evil nature. Let Christ reap the result of it. Let there be something good sown in the garden and not evil. If there are two harvests side by side every farmer knows that the evil will get ahead. The Canada thistle will always grow faster than the grain. The seed of evil is a winged seed. The thistle will go farther than the wheat. It has downy wings and plants itself rapidly. The whole of New Zealand was planted in three years by the Scotch thistle. Some one went out there and was lonesome without his native plant, and sent home for a seed of it. If was sent to him in a letter - just one seed - and in three years time it had spread over the whole island. The seeds blew everywhere. Not so with the wheat; it does not go in that way. Let us, then, be careful that the seed planted in the soul is one of life and truth, and then the harvest reaped will be life eternal.
We learn also the certainty of the result. We are not always preparing the soil and sowing the seed. We are not always going forth and weeping, bearing precious seed; but we are doubtless to come again with rejoicing, bringing our sheaves with us. The husbandman is not always waiting with long patience for the precious fruits of the earth. He is not permitted to toil always in vain. At last he does perceive the ear and the full corn in the ear. At last the wagons return laden to the garner. We shall reap if we faint not. The apostle is careful to say this. He tells us: ‘Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap;’ but he adds, ‘Be not weary in weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.’ I believe the toils and prayers of twenty years ago are not lost.
We may not yet see the result of the labor and sacrifice, but in due time they will be found in beauty and glory. I am sure the love you have given, the forgiveness you have shown, the patience, and tenderness, and forbearance, and prayer will surely bear a rich harvest. The friend you long to bring to Christ may refuse to be reconciled to Him. He may place his own self-justification in the way. The heart may seem very hard and cold and the whole work very forbidding. Never mind. From a mummy’s hand grains of Egyptian wheat have been taken after they have lain there two thousand years, and have been planted, and thus have yielded a rich harvest. After twenty centuries, that which seemed dead in Egypt has grown luxuriantly in an English garden. The cup of cold water may seem to be lost, but it is not. Your prayers and efforts may seem to be lost, but they are not.
Afterwards they will come back to you a hundredfold’perhaps after you have forgotten them. I prayed for a man once for years, and when at last I felt almost like giving up, one day he came to my office to be prayed with. We do not know how the work is going on. Be of good cheer. If you were to plant an orchard of trees in Florida, year after year would go by and there would seem to be only a harvest of leaves; but the harvest would come nevertheless. Give God, time. The results are working themselves out, and by and by we shall see them. Time is needed for the development of every good result. There must be the seed-time and the summer before the harvest. If you try to force the harvest you will injure it. The things you pray for and believe for will surely come, but there may be stages in their development. Trust Him for them. The husbandman has long patience: ‘Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.’
II.
The harvest is a time of ripeness. Then the fruit and grain are fully developed, both in size and weight. Time has tempered the acid of the green fruit. It has been mellowed and softened by the rains and the heat of the summer. The sun has tinted it into rich colors, and at last it is ripe and ready to fall into the hand. So Christian life ought to be. There are many things in life that need to be mellowed and ripened. Many Christians have orchards full of fruit, but they are all green, and sharp to the taste. There is much there, but it is not ripe. There is a great deal in them that is good, but it is incomplete, and sharp, and sour. Do you know what it is to have some one come up to you and make you feel from the contact with their spirit that you have been eating sour apples?
Perhaps something goes wrong in your domestic life, and you get flurried, and cross, and lose your confidence in God, and then, of course, your Christian joy. These things produce regret and all kinds of misery. There are many things day after day you are sorry for. You are not like sweet luscious apples and ripe peaches. It ought to be strawberries and cream all the way along. You know you are not ripe and mellow, and you cannot become so by trying. You cannot bring the sweetness in; it must be wrought out from within.
We are to present to others not only the things that are honest and of good report, but also those things that are lovely and sweet. How does God do this in nature? He sends the hot sun and the rain upon the fruit. They are constantly in the summer heat. They may not like the sun, and try to hide away from it, but that is what ripens them. Did you ever pick some berries off a rock, where they have been lying in the hot sun until they were sweet as honey? Then have you noticed some Christians whose life seemed to be constantly in the summer heat, and have you noticed how these trying experiences are making them sweet and gentle?
What would they be worth without the sun and the rain. It is these things that are ripening Christian life. It is ripening, too, in stages. Not all the harvest is ready on the first of June, or of July, or August, or September. In October the late harvest of apples is gathered in. So all the summer long the harvest lasts. Thus, it should be also in Christian life. The ripe fruit will not all appear at once. Some of it appears after long years of discipline and trial. It ripens in stages as does the natural fruit. May God give us patience in waiting for the maturity of some of it.
But there should be something ripe every year. We should not be bearing green apples all the time, to make people sick of cholera in November. If the sun has been shining down deep into your heart, it should produce mellowness there. There should be something ripe in you all the time, although the richest fruits will appear at the end of the year. In Palestine at the feast of Tabernacles, all the fruits were gathered in. The fullness of the year’s harvest was in the garner, and then with songs and rejoicing the people went up to Jerusalem to keep the feast.
The day will come, beloved, when we, too, shall be clothed in white robes, and, with palms in our hands, we shall meet in the Heavenly Jerusalem to keep the feast of Tabernacles. At that time it shall be said of His redeemed and glorified saints: ‘They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.’ Are you getting ready for this glorious harvest day? Are you getting ripe, and tender, and patient, and victorious? Are you getting something settled, anyhow, in your Christian character? Are you getting established and fixed stage by stage? It is what God expects of you. From yonder cloud Jesus, Himself, will appear some day to gather in the harvest of the Church. It is not green apples, surely, you expect Him to put in His garner. Are you waiting for His appearing, determined to let the sun and the storms have their intended effect in sweetening and ripening you and making you ready for that blessed day?
III.
This time of reaping is to be a time of separation also. The chaff is to be driven away from the wheat. The refuse is to be thrown away. This picture tells us of excision as well as ingathering. There are two harvests shown us here with a very clear difference between them. The last are to be gathered as well as the saints of the Lord. The first picture is of the harvest of the earth, and this is gathered by the Son of Man, who goes forth with His sickle and gathers in the ripe harvest. The second one is the vintage of the earth which is gathered not by the Lord Jesus, but by the angel of judgment. The Son of Man is not sent to do this work; it is only an angel who does it. What is done with the vintage? It is not taken up with the great company of white-robed saints, but it is thrown into the great wine-press of the wrath of God, and the bridles of the horses are spattered with the blood for the space of 1600 furlongs. This is the harvest of judgment’the ingathering of evil which the angels are to take out from the world.
All who love not the truth, but delight in iniquity will find their place in that company. The vintage expresses the idea of that deep, full, strong life of evil, which the world is so full of today. At first glance it may seem strange that wine and grapes should be taken to express this thought, but evil is often rich, and strong, and sweet in this life, and no better figure, could be found to express this than the clusters of the vine. They are typical of man’s grosser nature, and the carnal and sinful indulgence of that nature. The work of alcohol is to set on fire the passions of men, and it is perhaps the best figure that can be selected, of that fire which is never quenched.
The natural heart of man contains much that seems promising, that is full of vital energy and attractiveness, that is sweet as the grape, that is almost bursting with rich overflowing life like this picture; but when the Son of Man comes, it is all passed by. All the natural strength of man, all his earthly love, all the fashion and ambition and pomp of life are ripening only for judgment. There are many things which seem as rich to us as the vine on yonder trellis, but which God takes no account of and which are passed by when He is gathering in His harvest. The things He selects are bare, dry grain. They do not seem to be juicy and ripe like the grapes, but these have only the sweetness of human love within them without the love of God. They are only the wine of earth. They are clusters of grapes that are ripe, too, but they are only ripe for judgment.
These are the two harvests, dear friends; which are you ripening for? I look at men sometimes’sleek, splendid-looking fellows, grand specimens of perfect physical strength everything about them telling of ease and comfort, their banks banks full of money and their social relations enticing, and I could just weep over them. Splendid animals they are. Then I look at the fine horses they drive, and think, ‘What splendid animals, men and horses both!’ They are just clusters of grapes. They are not wicked men, but earthly men’animal men, and they are ripening for the wine-press. God does not ask you, beloved, how much wickedness there is in you, but are you planted from above, are you ripening for the harvest, or are you getting ready for the down-treading of the wine-press?
I might speak also of the reaping of the harvest as a lesson for the Christian in his personal work for souls. Are you gathering souls into the great harvest? I do not mean, are you sowing seed that will ripen some time; but, are you gathering them in today? God expects you, dear Christian friend, to be occupying always positions of influence in this regard. He expects you to be always laboring for, and always winning souls. How much have you done in this work this summer? Have you been at work in this way wherever you were, in season and out of season? And have you not only been laboring for them, but have you really been gathering them in? Have you been letting Him ripen you for this, so that you shall not go at it blunderingly and make lots of mistakes, but shall have the art of the skilled Husbandman to do it?
The harvest is ripening all around you. Have you got consecrated hands that, having let everything else go, are dedicated to this work? There is not a minute to be wasted. Oh! that God would impress upon you the urgency of the opportunity that He is giving. The work cannot be done tomorrow. Have you got through with this summer’s work? It is a very solemn thought that God is thus giving to our hearts. This is only one year of our lives. There is something to be done in it that never can be done at any other time. The days are going by, and God is watching the progress of the work. It must be done now, or never. That is what each successive harvest means. Have you not got a work to do that God is waiting for on the judgment-seat? What if the opportunities should pass forever and the work should not be done? 0 beloved, let us enter upon it with renewed diligence, so that when the great harvest day comes, we may be able to send up the glad cry of rejoicing which broke from our dear Saviour’s lips: ‘I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.’
IV.
The harvest of the world, however, is the great lesson of this passage. The time is coming fast when the harvest will be ripe. As we look around us, we cannot help seeing that the age is getting ready for it. On one side we see the great development of man’s mind, the mighty operations of his intellect. It is one of the marked characteristics of the present day. We feel the world cannot go much farther than it is going. On the other hand, God is ripening Christian character. It is becoming ripe in loveliness and purity. It is becoming ripe also in service. Christians are pressing mission work today as they never before have done.
There never was such a tendency to reach the unoccupied fields of the world as now. Christian work of all kinds is increasing in variety, and in depth of power. But while the world is ripening in this direction, the evil is ripening also. Never before has there been such development of the power of Satan upon earth, as there is today? Selfish men are getting more selfish, and pride and wickedness everywhere are gaining in strength and liberty. Very soon, it seems to me, the sign of His coming must appear in the sky, and we be caught up to be with Him forever, if we are ready.
Beloved, it is a beautiful thought that no one is allowed to gather in the harvest of the world but the Son of Man. Angels gather in the wicked and abominable things of earth and cast them in the wine-press of God’s wrath; but the tender hands of Jesus pick up all that is good throughout the world for the heavenly gamer. Every little work we do for Christ, no matter how small, will be picked up by His own blessed hands and gathered through His care. God is jealously carefu1 that no work any of His children have done shall be rewarded by any one else but Jesus Christ. What have we done, beloved, that He can take up? What work have we done this summer that Jesus can gather into the golden sheaves? What soul have we hat He can put into our diadem, saying; ‘I saw this labor of love for Me, and this is My reward.’
Let me leave a parting word of warning before I close. There is time yet to have some part in that glorious harvest, but we may lose it all. Some day, over the fields we might have labored in, there will be nothing but dry stubble and the smell of fire from the burning chaff and straw. A sign-board is waving there in the cold autumn winds. There it is; read it: ‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.’ Our work is not done. Our summer is gone, and our soul is not saved, perhaps. The Indian Summer is not yet gone, and there is still time for a second harvest. Hasten into it before there is nothing to be gathered but dry leaves from out the burning stubble.
Ah! who shall thus the Master meet,
And bring but withered leaves?
Ah! who shall at the Saviour’s feet,
Before the awful judgment-seat,
Lay down for golden sheaves,
Nothing but leaves! Nothing but leaves!
18. The Secrets Of The Lord
"The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will show them His covenant." Psalms 25:14
NATURE is full of secrets. She is a treasure-house of mysteries, of which man knows but little. Science is discovering more every day, but they are the ordinary ones that can be picked up like shells upon the sea-shore. Most of the precious things in the natural world are hidden away; they are not upon the surface, but must be patiently sought for and slowly found. The treasures of the mines are hidden down deep under the surface of earth, and the rocks must be struck, and blasted, and crushed to atoms, yes, even burned with fire before their precious treasures can be discovered, and brought to the surface.
If these hidden metals are found, they must be extracted with great care and patience from the rocky ore that contains them. They are not found loose upon the soil, to be the sport of every idler that passes. The diamond is found at great depths; and the pearl is taken out of fathoms of water, where it lies hidden within the rough oyster shell. Then, too, their beauty is brought out polishing. Some of the most valuable pearls are covered by a film, and it takes the skill of experts to discover their value and remove the film. The beauty of the diamond can only be brought out by cutting and shaping its sides, and polishing its many facets. Their beauty is nearly always hidden. So, too, in the vegetable world.
The delicate kernel of nuts lie hidden within rough shells which have to be broken; and with bitter rinds which must be removed. The more precious they are, the more they are hidden away, that they may not be despoiled by the plunderer’s hand, and that the most deserving may win the prize. So, there are secrets of science, and of art, of industry, and invention in these days. The world is full of these things which have only been found out recently. The most important things in practical life today are of recent discovery. The electric light in our streets, the gas with which our houses are warmed and lighted, the currents which carry our telegraphic messages, all these are secrets which men toiled to discover.
And there are yet secrets to reward the seeker, as great as that which sent Archimedes out naked into the streets, forgetting to dress in the joy of his discovery, and shouting, ‘I have found it!’ The great art of painting on pottery Pallissey toiled half a century to discover, and thought no toil or hardship too great in his search, bearing patiently his wife’s curses upon his folly. At last he won the crown. So, also, the patience of Watt has given us the steam-engine, and the toil of Stevenson the railroad. We owe the telegraph to Morse, the telephone to Edison. And so these discoveries will go on in finer and more delicate forms until God rolls up the scroll, or, probably, takes it in His own hand, and brings these things to greater perfection in the millennial age, showing us then what we have never thought of in the physical as well as the spiritual world.
These are all types of the spiritual life; they are wheels within wheels; and they teach us that, though the spiritual is higher than the natural, yet it corresponds to it in all respects. They are types of the higher life of the soul in its relation to God, and so, in his Word we read of secrets. There are secrets of faith, and secrets of love, and secrets of experience, and secrets of the Holy Ghost. It is, the work of the sorrows, and trials, and discipline of life, to bring these to light, and bless them to the individual soul. Besides God’s great secrets, there are also little ones; secrets of friendship, and confidence, and trust, which are bonds between God and the heart that is devoted to Him. They are pledges of intimacy with the Lord.
The superstition of medi’val times taught the peop1e to believe that there was great virtue in talismans, which gave peculiar power to some word or some relic of departed one. It was all imagination, and strong superstition, but it gathered about it all the power of faith; it influenced the hearts of people, and they believed that it could remove difficulties, and open and shut gates. These talismans were thought to carry people through perplexities and difficulties. God, too, has his secrets in this direction, which are not imaginary but real. They give his servants power to open gates, to level mountains, and to secure victory and blessing.
The force of this text is greatly increased by the connection in which it is placed’’The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will show them His covenant.’ The verse is like a precious gem hidden away in a costly cabinet. The psalm is a Hebrew acrostic. The first paragraph begins with first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and it continues through the whole alphabet. The text itself is a jewel in the midst of jewels, sparkling with beauty.
We will dwell, for our comfort this morning, on some of God’s secrets with His dear children.
I.
We will look first at His secrets of knowledge. This term would be familiar to an oriental mind. Knowledge was not as ordinary a thing in the east as it is with us today. It was the possession of the sages. Common education was a very uncommon thing. The few dwelt apart, as the favorites of wisdom. It was a gift to enter into the arcana of philosophy-to go into the veiled chambers inside the curtains, and join the inner circle of the wise. There was an outer and an inner circle in oriental philosophy which divided the learned from the common people. The mysteries of knowledge belonged only to the few, and they blended together false religion and philosophy. It was the wisdom that Paul speaks of in his epistle to the Corinthians; the sophia which was their glory he called foolishness. The true wisdom God only could reveal. It was only known as it was made known by Him.
The secret of the Lord, even as far as knowledge goes, is with them that fear Him. ‘Can’st thou by searching find out God?’ ‘Where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?’ How helplessly men grope after it. It has often touched me to see their flounderings, and out-reachings, and probings into their poor hearts, and their gropings in the darkness to find out God by intellectual reasonings and philosophical tests. They cannot do it. The Lord makes Himself known. ‘No man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him.’ ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ God has ordained that in Christ should dwell all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We cannot know God without having Him revealed by Jesus Christ, and, as long as we proudly resist him we must be in darkness without the knowledge of God.
The first step toward this is divine revelation. I have talked with many men of brilliant minds, with men who have been accustomed to reason about law, and the deepest regions of human knowledge, but who when I talked and pleaded with them about Christ and the plan of salvation, could not understand it. They could not get it into their hearts. They needed vision as well as light. The blind man had light around him, but needed the word, ‘Receive thy sight.’ Light and sight both must be given. It was not enough for Christ to say, ‘I am the light of the world,’ He had to touch the blind man’s eyes before he could see. The men and women who are trying to get Christianity before they come to Christ can only flounder and blunder along until they are willing to fall at His feet and let Him teach them.
Jesus Christ will show us not only ourselves, but the Father also. And, standing in that central place, every thing is clear. There is no other point of vision in the Bible or in the human heart, but the cross of Jesus Christ. It is like the one place in the Vatican from which alone we can see the wonderful frescoes of Rel on the ceiling. When I was there, I tried for hours to make anything out of them, and at last I let the guide lead me to the place from which only the correct view could be obtained, and he said to me, ‘Why did you not come to me before? I would have taken you there hours ago.’ So we often try to look at things in our own self-confidence, and fail, but when we once come to God and to the Holy Spirit, and to the Divine Word, and to Jesus Christ, everything is clear and plain and simple, and we can only wonder why we did not come there before. ‘I am the light of the world. Whosoever followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.’
Jesus will give the secret of God’s great Gospel to those only who take Him as their Saviour. Then they are admitted into all these secrets of knowledge, not as His servants but as His friends. He says that He will not keep back anything from us. We shall know as much as He does some day, and we shall learn as fast as we come to Him. ‘I have many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now.’ ‘He shall glorify me, for He shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you.’ All things that the Father hath are mine; therefore said I , that He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.’ We read in that wonderful book, the first epistle to the Corinthians, that book so full of human knowledge and the beauty of true wisdom, something also of the beauty of the Divine mind.
Paul says to them that they are yet babes, and so he has to stick to the alphabet, but he will talk to them of the deeper mysteries as they become mature and are able to bear it. ‘We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory.’ ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.’ They are shown to those who are entirely abandoned to Him. Their eyes are opened to a world of light, and they are able to see and to feel, and to touch, the things of God. They know God now, more really than the natural things around them.
You remember the dear Lord used to preach in parables, and He explained the reason why this was, because He would not spread the secrets of profound wisdom before the foolish or the profane. It is the principle of God’s kingdom to hide things. His treasures we not put upon the surface; they are found by searching. This is the cause of the failure of so many Christians, and the success of others. ‘Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive.’ It is the same thing that we were speaking of in the natural world a moment ago. The kernel of the walnut is enclosed in a hard case, and the exquisite milk of the cocoa-nut is hidden within an ugly rind and a hard shell. So, the teaching of our Lord is put in parables. It is encrusted within a hard case, so that the careless shall not get them, but the earnest hearted shall.
The others would only abuse them and add to their sin. The sincere ones use them to His glory, and will have their diligence stimulated by the search that would disappoint the frivolous. These treasures are not to be got by lying upon the back, or by floating on the river of chance, drifting, and hoping that they will come to us. They must be obtained as they are in the natural world. We shall find them only by yielding, and letting God with His strong hand of love break the hard shell. They are the reward of earnest striving. The prize is won by the diligent in the things of grace, as well as everywhere else.
The deep things of the heart of Christ are obtained by those who let everything else go; who sell all that they have, and who seek for this one treasure. They shall not seek in vain; they shall find the secret which has been hidden from the ages. If, with the hunger of fainting hearts, and all the earnestness of their being they sit waiting at His gates, watching at the posts of His doors, they shall find the deeper knowledge of Jesus Christ. But, even then, they have only reached the antechamber; they have only passed through the gates into the citadel of knowledge; there are deeper teachings beyond; there are greater secrets inside.
But the doors will open to the earnest disciple as he goes on; he can advance within yonder mysterious curtain into the holy of holies. He need not remain in the court of the Tabernacle, he may enter the innermost shrine, whither Jesus has gone. His dear ones may go in there also, and not carry with them the light of the outer world, nor that which is given by the golden candlestick of the holy place; but they may have a better light than either in the person of Christ. There is something better than knowing the Gospel, or even than knowing the deep things of God as they are revealed by the Holy Ghost.
It was Paul’s great desire, ‘That I may know Him,’ not about Him; not the mysteries of the wonderful world, of the deeper and higher teachings of God, but to enter into the holy of holies where Christ is, where the Shekinah is shining and making the place glorious with the holiness of God, and then to enter into the secret of the Lord Himself. It was what Jacob strove for at Peniel when he pleaded with God, ‘Tell me Thy name.’ He has told us His name, giving us ‘The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’ That is the secret. It is the Lord Himself, and nothing else; it is acquaintance with God; it is knowing Jesus Christ as we know no one else; it is being able to say; not only ‘I believe Him,’ but, ‘‘I know Him;’ not about Him, but I know Him. That is the secret above all others that God wants us to have; it is His provision for glory and power, and it is given freely to the single hearted seeker.
II.
God has not only secrets of knowledge, but secrets of faith also. There are things which God lets us believe, which others know nothing about, nor could they perceive them. Such was the secret which was buried deep in the heart of Abraham of old, who lived with it for a quarter of a century, while the people around thought him a fool. Such a secret God whispered in the heart of Hannah, and it enabled her to bear cheerfully the taunts of her sad home. Such a secret brightened the heart of David, and enabled him not to fear the javelin of Saul, who hunted him like a partridge upon the mountains. This whisper of God lay hidden in his heart during the long years of exile and suffering, and found its fulfillment in the years of royal prosperity, when he sat on Israel’s throne.
So God is whispering secrets of faith which enable His children today to bear up against much that seems to be against them, and to overcome great difficulties that are in their way, even though they seem like carrying the mountains into the midst of the seas. Reason may say ‘This cannot be done,’ but the matter has been committed to God, and faith says, ‘I have heard the secret that He has whispered, and it must be true.’ Paul understood this secret, when, as he lay in the dungeon, the Lord said to him, ‘Thou must see Rome.’ He knew that word would be fulfilled, although men banded themselves together not to eat until they had slain him; although he was cast into a prison in Caesarea; although, when he was upon the vessel, the fierce storm of the Adriatic, the Euroclydon, tried to destroy him; and later the viper tried to sting him to death.
He never lost confidence for one moment in the secret of faith which God had spoken to him. There stood by him that night, in the midst of the storm, the angel of God, saying, ‘Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar.’ It is this which has made weak women like lions in courage, and which has sent martyrs rejoicing to the stake. These secrets are whispered to the consecrated heart that is willing to live only for Him, and that, with an irrevocable grasp, will hold whatever He gives. If God gives His secret of faith to you, He does not expect you to throw it away; He will not trust you with it, unless He knows that you will hold it to the death, saying with His servant Job, ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.’ If this is the attitude of your heart before Him, you may be sure that He will give you the secret of the Lord.
III.
There are also secrets of providence which God’s dear children may learn. His dealing with them often seems, to the outward eye, dark and terrible. Faith looks deeper, and says: ‘This is God’s secret. You look only on the outside; I can look deeper and see the hidden meaning.’ Sometimes diamonds are done up in rough packages, so that their value cannot be seen. When the tabernacle was built in the wilderness there was nothing rich in its outside appearance. The costly things were all within, and its outward covering of rough badger skin gave no hint of the valuable things which it contained. God may send you, dear friends, some costly packages. Do not worry if they are done up in rough wrappings.
You may be sure there are treasures of love, and kindness, and wisdom hidden within. Do not be so foolish as to throw away a nugget of gold because there is some quartz in it. He has brought to you and me many things which we have shrunk from. They have not been what we thought a loving Father would send, but they have proved in the end to be sweeter than honey to the taste; and if we take what He sends, and trust Him for the goodness in it, even in the dark, we shall learn the meaning of the secrets of His providence.
IV.
God is whispering also to His dear children secrets of love and confidence, which are tokens of His love to His favorites. They are like the white stone which is given, with a name written in it that others do not know, and which, perhaps, if they did, they could not understand. God would have His dear children like John upon the Redeemer’s breast, partaking of His confidence and love; or like Mary, breaking a costly vase of ointment for which, perhaps, she had sold everything that she might pour it upon His feet. Then she was taken to His heart and made to understand Him as few others did. So we can partake of the secrets of Christ’s personal love, and receive the tokens of His most precious favor and blessing.
V.
There are also secrets of power which we may learn. In the common world man has power over nature and is able to make it serve him, as we can see from the steam-engine and the telegraph. God, too, has His secrets of real power. Men often struggle on in their pride and wisdom, year after year, and accomplish nothing; but, by coming in simple obedience to God, more has been accomplished than in all their life before. I have seen them in their strength and loftiness go down discouraged in the struggle. Then I have seen them back at it again gaining glorious victories, because they have learned the secret of the Lord, which was worth a lifetime of their own struggling.
Before that time, temptations overcame them, sin met and baffled them, and difficulties conquered them. But when they were brought down at His feet, there were glorious results in their lives. That is the secret that He is wanting to give us today - the secret of Christ within us. ‘This is the secret which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints; to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.’ It is the very secret of Christian life to have Jesus Christ dwelling within the heart and conquering things that we could never overcome. It is the only secret of power in your life and mine, beloved.
Men cannot understand it, nor will the world believe it; but it is true, that God will come to dwell within us, and be the power, and the purity, and the victory, and the joy of our life. It is no longer now, ‘What is the best that I can do?’ but the question is: ‘What is the best that Christ can do?’ It enables us to say with Paul, in that beautiful passage in Philippians, ‘I know both how to be abased, and I know to abound; everywhere, and in all things, I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.’
With this knowledge I go forth to meet my own heart, and the secret stands me there. It keeps me pure and sweet, as I could never keep myself. Christ has met the adversary and defeated him for me. It is the secret that Paul learned when, after bitter conflict, he cried out, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ The next verse gives the story of his victory: ‘I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ So, too, in Christian work, He accomplishes that which I could never do. The secret is good in the midst of adversity and trials; it is as good in the darkness as in the day; on the mountaintops as in the valleys. It will bring joy and gladness to the dying hour.
It is good for all things: whether depths, or heights, or lengths, or breadths; whether encountering trials or entering into the eternal world. It is enough for each and all of Christ’s followers. It is Jesus in me, Jesus for me, Jesus with me, one with me forever. It is the only secret of power’not my power, but God’s power. It is Omnipotence residing in me and working through me. Dear friends, if you want power today, take His power. When we came over from England a few years ago, our vessel struck upon a sandbar in the harbor. I was a little anxious about it, for I wanted to reach the city that night; but it was of no use.
All the struggles of the engine would only result in tearing the ship to pieces. I will tell you what we did: we waited five hours, and then God’s power came. The moon touched the waves and lifted them up, and soon there were ten feet more of water over the sandbar, and our vessel could easily cross. It was the secret of the Lord in nature. So, beloved, I have often imagined that this is true in Christian life. We often find ourselves inadequate for the things which come against us. Our difficulties are too great for us to meet. But God has got a secret which will be enough for them. Let Him have command of the vessel.
Hand it entirely over to God, and He will lift it above the trouble. He will put such power in the life as never was there before. He will carry us through all difficulties, and we shall give Him all the glory. May God whisper to us and teach us His secrets of knowledge, and of faith, of providence, of love, and of power! I am sure He will if we will only trust Him; but He will only give His secrets to those who do trust Him. But we should not only ask, ‘Can we trust Him’? but the question that is resting most deeply on my heart is, ‘Can He trust me today’? If He gives me these secrets, will I run off the track, or will I keep upon the rails? Ah! it is better to let Him guide, as well as well as to ride in the train.
If we can honestly say to Him that we desire to know these secrets, that we desire to have Him thus dwelling within us, and being almighty there, it shall be so. He will come in and will control us entirely. Let the language of our heart be, this morning, ‘Lord, take me, and make me Thine for evermore.’
19. God’s Jewels
"And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my Jewels; and 1 will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him." Malachi 3:17
IN oriental countries and in ancient times, jewelry was much worn, and was more valuable, than at the present day.
It was the child-age of the world, and children always value trinkets. As they get wiser, they come to dispense with everything that is not valuable, and retain only that which is of real worth. Treasures of all kinds are mentioned in the Scriptures, but people in those days were wont to invest their money in precious stones more than in anything else. There were many reasons for this. Although they brought no rental for their money, yet they were easy to keep, they were portable, they could be easily hidden in time of danger, and even swallowed, if necessary, to prevent their being stolen. They were convenient also, for the money which they represented was in a small space. Their great value was typical of corresponding prices in other things. Particularly, are they expressive of the value which God places upon His children. He calls us His jewels or special treasures.
I.
The first lesson, which we may learn from these jewels, is their value, of which we have already spoken. They teach us that we are very dear to God. We are highly prized by Him, far above our intrinsic worth. We are bits of glass, but we are more valuable to Him than common glass. You have heard the story, no doubt, of the traveller over the desert who was fainting for water. He hurried on, as he came in sight of the debris of a camping party before him, hoping that they had left some water there. He found a parcel on the ground, and picked it up.
But a bitter cry came from him when he found that they were only pearls. What is the real value of precious gems? How much are they worth in themselves? No more than so much sand or coal. And yet men and women prize them very highly, and will sell all that is dear to them to possess them. Kings and queens prize them far above their intrinsic worth, altogether. God values you and me far above our real worth. The slave mother values her child, not by how much it will bring in the market, but by how much it is worth to her in love and blessing. God counts us his treasures, not because we are worth anything; and yet He values us highly and seeks for us as a merchant man seeketh goodly pearls, which we buy to wear upon our breast or upon our foreheads. God wants to decorate Himself with His people.
He wears His dear ones on His breast and on His arm. You are His peculiar treasure. You are dear to God. You are not a worthless thing. You are not a poor broken-down woman, or an obscure girl, or a homeless wanderer. You are eternally loved, and dear to God. So dear, that He could give His only Son to shed the last drop of His life-blood for you; as dear to Him as Jesus Himself. Let it make it easy to love Him back; to be true to Him. When the land was divided among the tribes, there was no parcel given to God. The only possession He had was you and I. His portion was His people; ‘Jacob was the lot of His inheritance.’ He sold all that He had, and invested all His treasure in us. Do not let Him be disappointed.
One of the most valuable jewels in the world is the Sancy diamond, which is a brilliant worth half a million dollars. It is possessed by a Russian nobleman, who paid that sum for it. It was once owned by a French nobleman who sent his servant on an important embassy, which required him to carry this jewel as a hostage. He would not be received unless it was with him. On his journey he was attacked by robbers, and soon saw he must lose this jewel or lose his life. True to the trust that was given him, he chose the latter alternative, and swallowed the diamond.
As he expected, the robbers slew him and searched for the brilliant which, they knew, was in his possession. Not being able to find it, they went away, leaving his bleeding body upon the sand. When his master heard the sad story, he was certain that his faithful servant had not lost the jewel, even if he had lost his life. He went to the spot where the body lay, and had it opened, and found his jewel. This makes us think, dear friends, of the treasure that Jesus Christ was entrusted with once.
He had the keeping of you and me, and, when He found He could not keep His treasure without losing His life, He lost His life; and when He was dead His treasure was found in His bosom. He had saved it. That is the value which God sets on you and me. That is what it means to be one of His jewels. Let the figure and the outward encompassing of the thought pass from our minds, dear friends, and let us remember only this about it: ‘I am dear to God, so dear to Him, that He has given His precious life for me. I am the disciple whom Jesus loves, and He will keep His treasure.
He has done so much for me already that He will not let me fall now. I shall be saved gloriously. I need not fear that I shall be rejected, nor even that I shall not be true to Him to whom I am so precious.’ ‘All things are yours - and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’ ‘Ye are Christ’s,’ not, ‘Christ is yours.’ If He were yours, you might lose Him, but ye are Christ’s, and He cannot lose you. He will take care of His property, which is, indeed, to Him a peculiar treasure. We may think that we are a very worthless treasure, but so is a diamond worthless, and so is a baby worthless. ‘What are you good for?’ a father once asked of his baby. ‘I don’t know, the little thing answered, ‘unless it is to love you, papa.’
II.