'• ■'IUIJM!!!'HIMt'MMiri|U..lHm
UGl
IIIN 22 1918
NOT LAWFUL TO UTTER
DAN CRAWFORD, F.R.G.S.
O'' ^'<?
MIN
NOT LAWFUL
.-.TO UTTER.-.
AND OTHER BIBLE READINGS
£1<«ICAL
BY
DAN CRAWFORD, F.R.G.S.
AUTHO& OF * 'thinking BLACK.**
HODDER & STOUGHTON
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
22 1918
Copyright, 1914,
By Geoboe H. Doean Compaxy
CONTENTS
BOOK I. APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
PAGE
I *'NoT Lawful To Utter'' 3
II '*A Hundredfold . . . With Persecutions" 11
III The Parable of the Storm 21
33
43
53
63
73
IV ''Think It Not Strange" . . .
V ''Remember . . . Thou Art Fallen'
VI Paul Not Ashamed — and Why
VII A Royally Revised Verse .
VIII "The Times of the Gentiles" .
BOOK II. LORD'S SUPPER REVERIES
I Thirsting After God 81
II The Psalm of Psalms 89
III A Resurrection Reverie 101
IV "Be Still and Know" Ill
V "Privately" 119
VI Certitude 127
BOOK III. MISSION STUDIES
I "So They Took the Money" .... 137
II "The Law OF Faith'' 145
III "The Certainties op Faith" .... 157
IV All AT It! .167
NOT LAWFUL TO UTTER
BOOK I
APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
I
"NOT LAWFUL TO UTTEE"
^^What was PauVs secret? Why is i]
have been saying 'Paul! Paul!' all down the
centuries? Why, indeed, if not that the Apostle
of the Gentiles was a happy little man who always
had a better time with God than he ever had with
man.''
''not lawful to utteh''
2 Cor, xii, 4
Note well the modest manner of tlie phrase.
Paul had apostleship, had unction, and had utter-
ance. Nay, more ; by night and by day, and some-
times all night and all day, he was God's pioneer
witness on virgin soil. Indeed, the whole vision
of Paul's life — right on to the premature old age,
when he waves back to the East his last adieux
from Rome — ^is that of sheer irrepressibility and
spiritual freshness. This, we say, is the man
whom God claims as His witness, the man who
had that old snatch of desert song humming in his
soul —
''Spring up, 0 well!''
That the well did spring up, and that too unto
the everlasting life of many, is indeed a first-cen-
tury certainty. There is no dryness here, though
all around is arid desert. For God's river was
3
4 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY
full, and of that fulness did he, Paul, receive ; yea,
inflowing grace for outflowing grace.
We say this man is a joy unto the household of
God, because of his sheer irrepressibility and
evergreenness. He has always a word of com-
fort and cheer, uttered often out of his deep in-
firmities and sore straits.
I
What, then, we would hasten to enquire, is the
avowed source of all this spiritual outflow and
Divine unction in every burning word of Paul's?
Why, of course, the specific source of his power
lies in the above word, which declares that the
man has a secret. Paul can preach for hours and
at all hours ; can preach a Eutychus asleep, as he
had preached a hundred such men awake for ever-
more. He has much to say, but also — note the
word — ^much more that he cannot say.
His life's secret was in the * 'unspeakable
words'' that fed with endless supply all his other
streaming messages. There were words **not
lawful to utter," and yet how endless was the
utterance they led to! Note it then, God's
preacher, whose it is to be watered ere thou wa-
terest others.
Called to publicity, to be a byword, to preach
*'NOT LAWFUL TO UTTER" 5
in season and out of season, Paul hath yet his
sacred retreat in life, where, in the covert of
God's pavilion, he doth hide himself. God hath
had heavenly transaction with the man, hath whis-
pered those ** unspeakable words'' into his ears,
and for ever sealed His servant's lips. Loud
and long will that poor voice of his ("speech con-
temptible!") be raised for God with the throat
dry, yet the soul never. Nay, never dry is the
preacher's soul who has such secret *^ unspeakable
words" to royally retire back upon.
Having fed others, here is ever ready for him
the timely table of God's good things, spread by
God's own hands. Why is it "not lawful" for
others to feast hereat, ah, why indeed? Christ's
own answer is ready to hand. There is an old
tryst, an old promise, in the words: "I will sup
with him and he with Me!" We do not get "our
message," but we "sup" and get that which may
never be uttered to soul of man. How often the
divine Host is grieved to see us secreting for
others at His banquet what He would we secreted
in ourselves!
n
Here, then, in these sequestered back-paths of
the soul, the costliest treasure of God's preacher
6 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
is acquired. We mean that old mystery-word —
unction. It is not utterance, nor fluency, nor elo-
quence; but the unutterable thing of the Chris-
tian life, when speech as a method of communica-
tion is dethroned and cast in the dust, albeit
Christ shows His smiling face and **our hearts
bum within us" by the way. God would thus
reveal to us how inexorably He claims in our
lives just such holy garden-land as He found in
Paul's ; in which the Lord God would walk in the
cool of the day, communing with us. Here, far
from the ken of brother-saint or brother-man, He
may behold something man's eye never saw —
'Hhe Father, which seeth in secret.''
Oh, blasting publicity! Oh, soul-withering
cleverness! Oh, itching ears of man! Ye are
the Church's Amalekites, her thorns in the side.
Thus, then, we learn a somewhat startling fact
in Paul's life. Glorious apostle though he was,
they never got his best, nor yet saw him at Ms
best, Paul kept the best for God, even as God
had kept His best for Paul ! Living by grace and
preaching that grace he lived by, yet was he under
law in one matter: ^'It is not lawful to utter"
the secret of my God!
Now surely just here, amid deep mystery, there
^'NOT LAWFUL TO UTTER'' 7
are worlds of simplicity. Surely there are many
so-called words that are really deeds. And even
as a strong, far-reaching deed mounts up to the
ears of God with a clear, ringing trumpet-voice,
so in Paul's life those ^^unutterable words" were
daily coming out in iron deeds — ^^not lawful to
utter," yet fanning the flame of life, and energis-
ing him to living action.
in
Then, beloved, if perchance some such ** words"
are ours, let us breathe them not to mortal man.
Keep them as life's capital, life's foundation —
treasure in the earthen vessel. Paul will not
glory in Paul the preacher, nor yet in Paul the
martyr, even ; but ah, ''of such a one will I glory,"
saith he. Even of Paul the man with a secret, the
nameless ''man in Christ" of "fourteen years
ago," who heard "unutterable words." Of such
a one would he glory, of Paul the exalted chief
of sinners; Paul the cleansed leper, who was
charged, like the other leper of Galilee: "/See
thou say nothing to any man/^
Beholding the glory of God, not as in a glass,
but in heaven's third heaven, Paul was changed:
See then, Paul, that you say nothing of this to
8 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
any man, but go down life's way and divinely,
diffidently show thyself.
So unlawful was it before all high heaven to
speak of this secret transaction, that the human
participant in it is in PauPs mouth, a third person,
a vague old friend of fourteen years ago !
Note, we say, this quaint manner of his, in
shutting up all possible bypaths that might lead
to his keep, his fastness, the Lord's garden-land
in his life. Herein, then, behold Paul the puzzle
and Paul the power. He was better than all his
preaching; for he had a better time with God
than he ever had with man. He was a true star
in God's firmament in the sanely scriptural sense.
Stars do not speak; they shine; and yet, forsooth,
what saith the Scripture? *^ There is no speech
nor language where their voice is not heard ; their
line is gone out through all the earth, and their
words to the end of the world."
Eloquence, indeed! What so eloquent as such
silence — shining silence. **See thou say nothing!
to any man, but go thy way and show thyself."
Offer the ^'living sacrifice" (Rom. xii. 1). **0f
such a one will I glory."
n
*'A HUNDREDFOLD . . . WITH PERSECU-
TIONS"
The First Century Saints used to gloriously
greet each other: Cheer up, brother, the worst
has yet to come!
* * »
*^The more they afflicted them the more they
grew."
* * #
'^As the sufferings abound so the conso-
lations,"
n
. WITH PEKSECUTIONS''
Mark x, 30
A FEEBLE age is the mother of feeble conceptions
of truth. The royal words of the first century
found in Gospel and Epistle, need a royal age to
interpret them. Truly this record cometh down
to us wearing a thorny crown! It is royalty in
exile ; kinghood in Adullam. And we, indeed, who
have neither thorns, nor exile, nor Adullam, in-
stead of frankly averring that we are too strait-
ened to receive a Kingly One, we, forsooth, take
Him into our mouths, but have no place for Him
in our hearts.
Because ^'persecution" was in my Bible por-
tion this morning, was it therefore in any hole or
comer of my life ? It was a hard, rugged path of
olden time along which saints fled from city to
city: am I in such a path? Ah, beloved, that
very first century so much befondled by us — how
may it not rise up in judgment against us? We
borrow glowing imagery from it, but do we glow?
11
12 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
I
Let us now note well the immediate root of this
wonderful promise as to receiving * * a hundredfold
. . . with persecutions.' ' For faith will have no
emphasis other than on the seemingly incongru-
ous word in the sentence. Now note this. Riches
is the keynote of Christ's theme and promise.
The context of this text is that the rich young
man had just gone away sorrowing, for he had
great possessions. And now Peter's breast swells
with a holy pride — for he too was (0! yes) was
rich. Fisherfolks, indeed, were his northern
kinsmen; but what, after all, are the true riches
of life, if not the old cottage and the dear, if
humble, fireside, with those who gather there?
^*Lo, we have left all!" cries Peter — a contrast
indeed to the rich young man's all, whose riches
were mere things, not beings. And Christ, who
knew what heartburnings and wrenchings were
included in Peter's actual ^*all," chideth him not
on the poor old fishing-smack, or poor old any-
thing else, but gladly gathers up every human
diamond known to man the man, and not man the
miser.
And these He sets in His own circlet of gold,
a crown above all the crowns of earth. Diamonds,
'^A HUNDEEDFOLD" 13
indeed I Yes, saith the Lord, I know what even
true earthly riches are. What so precious as a
mother, Peter? A wife, sister, or brother, Peter?
Yes, you (not that other one!) were **the rich
young man," Peter, and I, yes, I know all about
it. It was for ''My sake and the Gospel's " you
left all. Then, Peter, your debtor am I, saith
Christ ; and forthwith came the wondrous promise
of '^a hundredfold . . . with persecutions."
n
Now let us see why this saving clause as to
** persecutions" is wholly necessary to the very
existence of the things promised. Note then —
and here is the whole pivotal point — that this old
Bible word ^^ persecute," whether in Old or New
Testament, can best be Englished by the word
** pursue." And, truth to tell, words then had
more intimate connection with deeds than now.
For ''pursue" surely is the word that best tells
of those early days when cities were left under
cover of night, and entered as often under cover
of disguise. When the bishop rolled not under
the city arches in a chariot, but was perforce to
go over the wall in a basket! When, if through
the gateway he must leave the town, it is to be
14 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY
stoned through it, aye, and left for dead outside !
Ah, beloved, we who tremble to spiritualise an
Old Testament prophecy, behold how we spirit-
ualise the Book of Acts! ^^ Words regarding
deeds/' is the heading we give this Book in
Central Africa; suggestive, indeed, to us who
abound in windy words.
Persecuted in one city, they fled to another;
yes, fled for His sake and the Gospel's. And in
each city that old promise gets fresher and fairer.
Who is this sixteenth-of-Eomans beaming matron
greeting the weary one? Whose those sixteenth-
of-Eomans children who clamber to the knee?
Who, indeed, if not those of the ** hundredfold
with persecutions'"!
At this rate the promise has no existence but
in the persecutions or pursuings. Satan stones
them out, hoots them on, only to further God's
work in the making good of that grand round
number, **a hundredfold." The ** brothers" and
the ^^ sisters" are all there, weary one, lining your
path of pursuit, ahead. Yes, further yet, for the
better ** mothers" and the better ** fields" — they
are all there to succour you ! *^He shall receive a
hundredfold now in this time, houses, and
brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children^
*^A HUNDREDFOLD^' 15
and lands, with persecutions, and in the world to
come eternal life." Ah, here Peter and his
brethren get what the so-called rich young man
lost! They get the ** great possessions" plus
the eternal life. God never was in any Peter's
debt yet. But His loyal loving law is : Move on !
And if we will not move on, He in love must
shove us on. It was only when the fixed-in-one-
spot saints at Jerusalem proposed to dispense the
Gospel elixir from headquarters only that God
permitted the rod of persecution to scatter them.
Then, we read (blessed then!), the disciples went
everywhere preaching the Word.
Yes, and things got better in the precise pro-
portion that things got worse. Even when they
had chased Paul into prison, it was only that God
went one better. Things get deeper and deeper,
sweeter and sweeter. For they are not mere
plebeian friends this time: '^They of Caesar's
household!" Yes, the man on the chain got
entree into ''all the palace." *'I would ye should
understand," quoth Paul, ''that the things which
happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the
furtherance of the Gospel."
16 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
III
*'He shall receive now in this time . . . and
in the world to come." This mention of the
^^ world to come'' shows that the enemy's chase
continues right on to the frontier ! All along the
line of the pursuit, devils' hue-and-cry notwith-
standing, the saint has been the gainer, here find-
ing a fresh mother, and there a whole Bethany of
sisters and brothers. Rufus may have a mother,
yes, but Paul says she is *'his mother and mine."
One of Paul's twenty thousand mothers! Is not
this indeed the whole purport of Rom. xvi., yea,
this the precise divine reason for the long list of
friends recorded there? And this, to show how
wisely and how well Christ has kept that old
*' hundredfold" promise to His own.
And now, **in this time" is about to end, and
with it the pursuit of the saint. The frontier,
glad frontier, is reached, and all beyond that is
Christ's jurisdiction. He tells of **them that kill
the body, and after that have no more that they
can do." How definite the boundary line. How
useless their menace.
Now, even the word "hundredfold" pales; and
as the soul leaps forth over the border-line, how
many fathers and brothers, mothers and sisters, to
^'A HUNDEEDFOLD" 17
give a welcome! Ah, and the Father and the
Brother too — how sure their welcome ! Now, the
note is not one of leaving all, but of finding all for
His sake and His Gospel's.
0 Peter, what wealth so precious as a poor
man's! What money so dear as the last two
mites! The Lord knew what a wrench it had
been to leave all. He knew that, daily in the old
lake-side home, the hope was growing that Peter
would be back again. So He goes over the **all."
The *' house" left is the old home, and against that
our Lord now puts the '^many mansions." The
brethren, sister, father, mother, and children — all
these He includes in that hundredfold. How well
did Christ understand the poor man's cause! To
Christ, heaven's wealth was the Father, not the
glories of eternity. And so, instead of despising
the ties and longings of *4n this time," He makes
earth border on heaven, granting both earthly
friends and fields, and an eternity with Himself !
Ay, but whose is it all, 0 self-satisfied Saints?
** There is no man that hath left ... for My
sake and the Gospel's, but he shall receive a hun-
dredfold now in this time ..." Shall we not
seek such enrichment from our Lord?
ni
THE PAEABLE OF THE STOEM
It is not the water outside the ship that sinks it.
It is the ivater inside.
Seckbb.
* * #
And after these things I saw four angels stand-
ing on the four corners of the earth, holding the
four winds of the earth, that the winds should not
blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any
tree . . . till we have sealed the servants of our
God in their foreheads.
John.
* # *
Christ said, '*Let us go to the other side'' —
Not to the middle of the lake to be drowned !
m
THE PABABLB OP THE STORM
Mark iv, 35-41
It had been to the Lord a long day of parables
by the lake-side. Like all His days amongst men
this one was a long-drawn-out parable of love to
the end, and the nearer the close of the day the
deeper the mystery.
Our Lord's parables were ever twofold —
parables of word and parables of deed. And His
parables of word were ever backed by His lovely
parables of deed — the miracles of the Gospels.
If there is **a great multitude" it is a deed-
parable that has drawn them together. ^* Hear-
ing'' they did hear, but did not understand the
word-parable ; yet was Christ thronged because of
His royal deeds.
Meanwhile, and in sharp contrast, behold a little
inner circle of disciples. Of God, Christ is made
unto them wisdom, and they claim life 's best claim
— ^to be ** alone" with Him. Their privilege is
21
22 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
that Christ the Preacher will be made unto them
Christ the Interpreter. And He, 0! He loves
them for it; loves them because they have found
their need of Him, which is indeed the whole pur-
port of His parables. ** Without a parable spake
He not unto them" — the multitude — and why I
The same verse gives the answer — ^^When they
were alone He expounded all things to His
disciples. ' ' Let us ponder this deed-parable.
First reflection. And the same day — a day
of word-parables — *^when the even was come,''
the Lord must crown the word with the deed.
The scholars have had a long day of theory, and
now for practice. The Lord is going to test how
much they have learned. And His test, like all
His tests, is near to hand. For, lo! here is **the
ship'' as it has lain the whole day. From that
little ship the *^ doctrine" of Christ has streamed
forth on the multitude the long, happy day, and
now at even the Lord invites His disciples into
the ship, and they are going to voyage under His
captaincy across to the other side.
(Ah, how typical it all is — this voyaging vessel,
with the Lord aboard, going over to the despised
swine-herding Gardarenes. **Let us go" — Me
and you together — **over to the other side."
THE PAEABLE OF THE STORM 23
How this seems to be echoed by *^ Go ye . . . and
lo! I am with you.'')
And their Lord, who is ever girded for service,
even at the midnight hour, needs no preliminary
delays, nor can he brook them. ^'They took
Him even as He was in the ship, ' ' we read, which
surely seems to prove that He had not left it
the long day. Such indeed is the eternal basis
of all fellowship with Him. He had taken them
as they were, and **they took ffim, even as He
was.'' How auspicious a start on the overseas
voyage, and how goodly the crew indeed.
Second keflection. Ah, but heard ye not
that there is sorrow on the sea ; that it cannot be
quiet? God's ^^way is in the sea" and His **path
in the great waters." For if man goes down to
the sea in ships, and does business in the great
waters, so does God too. And God's business has
to do with man's. His business down there is as
Promise-Maker to be Promise-Keeper and when
they pass through the waters He will be with
them.
And now the storm is brewing, and while yet
it breaks not, let us with pathos survey the scene.
There is the ship chartered and piloted by
Omnipotence, and bound for the desired haven.
24 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY
There are '^the other little ships '* not bidden to
go, and therefore not bound to arrive at '^the
other side." Ah, hapless little ships with no
Christ aboard. And, of course, their pilots are
not sleeping — oh, no. Watch it out.
And now the storm breaks — God's stormy wind
fulfilling His word, and happy alone is he who is
out doing God's business in the great waters.
For God's storm can only help God's business.
Yea, is not this very shriek of wind and roar of
wave claimed by Psalm xxix. as Jehovah's own
voice? 'Tis the voice of Jehovah that is upon the
waters; yea, the God of glory thundereth. He
hath called Faith forth on this voyage, in order
that Faith may learn that He still speaks in the
throat of the whirlwind. To those ''m the other
little ships ' ' — the onlookers of life — ^it is as of old,
only God thundering. To the son in the secret
of the Father comes the voice, and that of cheer.
Thied reflection. Yet look, for angels are
weeping. What angels ? What, indeed, if not the
four angels standing on the four corners of the
earth holding the four winds of the earth? Oh,
yes, the wintry winds may blow but only after the
servants of God are sealed in their foreheads.
Talk about Marine Insurance? Was there ever
THE PARABLE OF THE STORM 25
such a bonnd-to-arrive crew as this voyaging band
who have been sealed with ^Hhe seal of the living
God?" Did not the Christ say to them, ''Let us
go to the other side'' — not to the middle of the
lake to he drowned! And is not the pledged
promise of Christ both seal enough and surety
enough? **In for a penny, in for a pound," and
Christ's fate is their fate. His assured arrival
is theirs. Therefore, I repeat it, angels are weep-
ing at this hubbub among the Apostles. They
who seemed **all of one" — He their Lord and
they His disciples — ^how far apart they have
drifted. They have fallen from grace. And
yet Grace is at their side. A near Christ and
a far-off Christian — ^what sorrow like that sor-
row. But Christ's best teaching is in His best
doing; and Faith's doing consists in its not doing.
For lo, He sleepeth. Ah, the wonder of it — sleep-
ing pillowed sleep. And if Christ's dear Cross is
the Christian's, then, too, should His soft pil-
low be theirs. Else there is mutiny on God's
high seas. It is enough for the crew that they
be as the Captain; and He had no pillow that they
had not. ''Let us go to the other side" — this was
pillow indeed for each and all. For to Faith
this trumpeting of the hurricane is God's glori-
26 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY
ons orchestra. Therein He doth set to music
the words of the prosaic lake-side proposal, **Let
us go to the other side/'
Yes, this is Faith's portion — to seize upon the
music of the whirlwind, in a sinking, water-logged
boat, with a sleeping Christ; and to hear the one
voice of certitude as to safety! Faith has to
learn the logic of the Holy Grhost, which says **He
sleeps," therefore all is well. To sum it all up;
this is the lesson they have been set to learn — All
ill is well ; all bad is good ; and the very worst is
the very best !
This is God's ideal of faith at its best. The
actual state of things of course was, as we know,
unbelief at its worst. Yes, they awoJce Him; —
awoke Him from sleep, sleep (can you dare the
thought?) which they too might have been enjoy-
ing. What unbelief thinks, even that it says ; and
this is why what is really dishonest doubt passes
nowadays as *^ honest doubt."
Yes, **He is a had Captain"; that, and not less
than that, has been lurking in their hearts. The
lake storm is the lesser, and the black storm in
their hearts is the greater. A little more, as in
the Epistle to the Hebrews, and they who mutiny
against the Captain will crucify Him ^* afresh";
THE PAEABLE OF THE STORM 27
which means that they did it before. And this
mutiny-murder of theirs was far keener to God's
heart than that former one. Then it was the out-
cast Man, with visage marred with sorrows, whom
they crucified. NoWy in Hebrews, He is the glori-
fied Christ seated on the right hand of the
Majesty on high, and whom God did glorify they
do crucify. God is ever the scourger of every son
whom He receiveth, and they, the scourged ones,
strike bach at Him,
But Mark iv. is not Hebrews vi., thank God.
For we can say of our brethren of Mark iv. (that
is of the twelve, except one) that we are persuaded
better things of them. Of the sleeping Christ too,
we are doubly persuaded that He will not try
them above that which they are able.
Final reflection. At last they call Him who
had been longing for their call. Earlier call
would have seen earlier calm. Yet call early, or
call late, *^He maketh the storm a calm, so that
the waves thereof are still.''
Yea, and what a call! A challenge, not a re-
quest; a protest, not a prayer; a thorough con-
tradiction, in fact, with its ^^ Master!" and its
*'Carest Thou not?" Yet they call; call upon
Him in their day of trouble, and He, 0! He an-
28 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
swers with God-like alacrity, and that abundantly.
For they are His, and He is Himself. And their
prayer is not mere words, oh, no !
Prayer is calling — **deep calling nnto deep."
Prayer tells of need, that is to say ; and the meas-
ure of the prompting need determines the measure
of the answer.
Therefore cometh the great calm, for their 's had
been the great storm. But it is Himself that
engrosses them now — **What manner of Man is
this?" Not, *'What manner of men are we?"
Not a word now even as to what manner of
storm it had been. Great storm and great calm
are lost in the great Lord of both. Truly the
Lord indeed had been sitting over this ^'flood^^
(P. xxix.).
The lake is calm, but not their hearts! *^They
feared exceedingly." ** Great," in fact, is the ad-
jective qualifying the whole voyage, for great is
the Lord with whom they have to do. The storm
that estranged them — see now how it brings them
nearer! He sees their *^ little faith," and
strengthens it ; and they learn more what manner
of Lord He is, and adore Him.
Blest storm ! Blest voyage ! May such a bene-
diction of peace rest upon all God's lonely ones
THE PARABLE OF THE STORM 29
far out on the high seas, battling ' ' 'gainst storm
and wind and tide/'
'*Star of Peace! when winds are mocking
All Ms toils f he flies to Thee:
Save him, on the billows rocking,
Far, far at sea!''
IV
"THINK IT NOT STRANGE"
''There is no high hill hut "beside some deep
valley.
# « *
There is 7w birth without a pang.
* * *
'^ The Evening and the morning were the first
day'' and only in such solemn sequence can you
have even one divine day. The DeviVs pro-
gramme is to open his day with a morning and
end it with an Evening — yeSj am, evening that
IV
'* THINK IT NOT STEANGE^'
1 Pet. iv. 12
The persistent news of fever-deaths in Africa
and the noble martyrdoms in China are surely
loud calls to the whole Church to arise and carry
Christ's cross. To all who wonder desolately
why the missionary ranks are so broken, the un-
erring answer of love is found in the reproving
words, *^ Think it not strange.'' True, it is only
human to groan in dejection; but God has ever
an inspiring side to a depressing reality. The
earthly moan, *^Why this waste?" is countered by
God's own reproof, ** Think it not strange."
I
And note, please, firstly, how the whole pun-
gency of this reproof lies in the blessed fact that
it is Peter who is the writer. He preaches what
he is going to practise. For this Peter it is who is
doomed to die. All his life this dear man carries
the cross, and finally on a cross must he yield up
33
34 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
his life to God as an offering of a sweet smell.
Yet is there no resenting of death with asperity
on his part. On the glorious contrary, he alone
it is — this doomed-to-die Peter — ^who writes of
ours being **a living hope'' or hope of life. In
these throbbing words we see not merely life but
life more abundant. Thus it is he invites us, as
it were, into his most sacred confidence in the
solemn concern of his own approaching decease.
He urges that his cross is really a crown. He
says, We are begotten unto a hope of life, and I,
Peter, hereby certify that it is not death to die.
Jesus Christ hath abolished death for Peter, and
much more than that. He hath brought life and im-
mortality to light, therefore ours can only be a
living hope. No wonder Peter disowns the very
word ''death." The outsiders, of course, assert
that Peter died. Peter himself, while yet in the
body, says, ''I must put off this my tabernacle."
And so, too, with these reproving words:
''Think it not strange." Here, again^ as in the
phrase, a living hope, a personal incident in
Peter's history is wholly elucidatory of his point.
For the same Peter who once connnitted that fatal
folly with the sword now calls upon them, not to
arm with a sword but with a mind. Do not arm
'^ THINK IT NOT STRANGE'' 35
yourselves, as I, Peter, once did, with a sword,
but arm yourselves with Christ's mind to suffer.
Surely, the point is that suffering is such an ad-
mittedly repellent thought to the natural mind,
that only the armour of a spiritual mind on the
subject of suffering can combat it. Besides, the
flesh wars against the Spirit, hence Peter's shrill
battle-call — Arm ! And now a very natural thing
happens. Having so armed his readers with this
mind-armour, Peter at once calls upon them to
use it. ^^ Think it not strange," says he, '* con-
cerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as
though some strange thing happened unto you."
What is the use of mind-armour if we think suf-
fering strange? The very same thing this (and
by the same Peter) as when he warns Christian
women to be so adorned in mind that, as a conse-
quence, they may not be * * afraid with any amaze-
ment. ' ' The point, then, is clear. All this being
forewarned of coming fiery trial is merely that,
literally, we might be forearmed.
II
But harder things are on the tip of Peter's pen,
for the Apostle may surely preach what he is go-
ing to practise. These hard things are such a
36 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
blow to the flesh that only this protective mind-
armour keeps us from reeling under it. God is
still the God of mercy who ** remembers that we
are dusf Hence, knowing as He does how stag-
gering is the solemn word He is about to utter,
God in very mercy calls upon us to arm before
He delivers the blow. That piercing thrust from
the *' Sword of the Lord'' is the momentous
declaration that the very ** righteous shall scarcely
be saved 'M Yes, the righteous, green trees
though they be. And if God so deal with His
own green trees, what of the dry! (Luke xxiii.
31). It is a fiery trial, and only the green trees
will get through it.
Here, then, we see God weaving our **web of
time ' ' with mercy and with judgment. The mercy
is seen in God's own concession that to our frail
and human thought it is nothing less than start-
ling to be told that judgment must begin at the
house of God ! A tender and Divine concession to
the solemn fact that we are dust. A holy admis-
sion on God's part, let us call it, that if He did not
first arm us. He would harm us. But we have
been forewarned and, therefore, forearmed. The
armour is the **mind of Christ, "and therefore it is
positive as well as negative. Not merely do we
'* THINK IT NOT STRANGE" 37
not think it strange, but we positively (do we?)
** glory in tribulation." There is the rub.
This inner glimpse, then, into the deep recesses
of Peter's heart is worth more than gold to ns.
We see the power of Christ's resurrection ener-
gising his soul with the joy of the life eternal.
His words are not the sad, gloomy forebodings of
a hopeless soul. He strikes the same note as
** beloved brother Paul" in his last farewell to the
Church of God. Paul, too, declares that the hour
of his departure is at hand. It is Paul in the
chain who shouts that **our Saviour Jesus Christ
hath abolished death!" These words would
thrill us at any point of Paul's noble life; how
much more thrilling are they on the eve of his exe-
cution! **I am now ready to be offered," but,
death of ignominy notwithstanding, it is not
death to die.
ni
The mighty martyrs of our God knew Christ's
cross too well to think their carrying of the cross
to be strange. The "strange act" of God was
when He rose up in wrath against '* His own Son"
for our redemption. And with the dying Peter
and the dying Paul the vision of love at the Cross
hushed every human murmur. The strange thing
38 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY
was that the Son of God so suffered. And now
all that remains for ns is to be partakers of His
sufferings. Not merely to ^Hhink it not strange
concerning the fiery trial,'' but to positively re-
joice inasmuch as we are partakers of it.
** Think it not strange" — for the servant is
certainly not above his Lord. '* Think it not
strange'' — for the blood of the martyrs is the seed
of the Church. All the records of first-century
Christianity have reached us soaked in blood and
tears. Down the corridors of time come wafted
the Eoman shrieks, * * The Christians to the lions ! ' '
If we think it strange, then admittedly we have
forgotten to arm. Peter could say all this, for
he was going to die upon this very truth. But
he also claims for his readers a full cup to drink.
In chapter v. 10 they are declared to be ^*in
Christ." Now, one great point of our being
members of the Body of Christ is declared to be
that if one member suffer all the members suffer
with it. Hence the Divine order is :
(1) Partakers of Christ (Heb. iii. 14) ;
(2) Partakers of Christ's sufferings (1 Pet. iv.
13);
(3) Partakers of the Glory (1 Pet. v. 1).
Thus, we are seen to be *4n Christ," God's
*^ THINK IT NOT STRANGE '' 39
green tree, both for fruit and fire, and if God so
deal with the green tree, what of the dry?
Here, then, sounds the old call to close up the
broken mission ranks of heathendom. Soul after
soul in Central Africa has witnessed in conversion
that the very thought of the loved missionaries
dying for their race and land has melted them to
repentance.
V
"EEMEMBEE . . . THOU AET FALLEN"
Christ sometimes used the faithful formula:
^^ Verily, I say unto you.'' Sometimes He
doubled the defimteness by saying, '' Verily,
VERILY, / sa^ unto you/' Even so He sent
only one Epistle to the Romans but two Epistles
(tw'o *^Verilys!") went to the Ephesians.
* * *
We speak about the First and Second Epistles
to the Thessaloniuns and the First and Second
Epistles to the Corinthians. But how little we
hear of the First and Second Epistles to the
Ephesians ?
* * *
The first Epistle to the Ephesians says they
were seated in the heavenUes. The second
Epistle to the Ephesians says they are fallen
from those heights.
''remember . . . THOU ART FALLEN '*
Rev. a, 5
It is a church that is addressed, note well. Not
'*ye" the church, but **thou." For there is no
unity like church unity, and no fall like a church
fall. And what a fall for Ephesus !
I
More than twenty years previously Paul's letter
to them had come to their doors ; and four years
before that the elders of Ephesus had all wept
him off at Miletum, falling on his neck and ar-
dently kissing him. And well indeed they might
weep, for this was the man who had given his days
and nights and his tears to Ephesus. **I ceased
not by the space of three years to warn everyone
night and day with tears."
In that Eoman emporium of Asia, with its
theatre and temple, pro-consul and town-clerk,
Paul had cast the Lord's net and drawn **of every
43
44 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY
kind/' doubtless from both temple and theatre.
For three glad years had this gone on, the burn-
ing message flowing from him and the tears
streaming down. He kept no tears for his own
misfortunes, for he had no ills in life. His tears
were for their woes. And tears begat tears, for
lo ! they weep as they see him off, adding kiss to
kiss.
Yet here was no merely soft-hearted preacher
leaving them. Paul's eye was a falcon, jealous
eye for their souls ' needs. There is no pastor like
an evangelist, and no teacher like him who is
both. And here Paul, like his Lord, realises how
solemn a thing a ** good-bye" can be. Not the
mere receding of bodies, one from the other, in
the increasing haze. But the solemnity is in the
farewell words — the good-bye gift of the treasure
of our God in hallowed, tender farewell. The next
time these are all going to meet — oh, how solemn
the thought for all! — is at the judgment-seat of
Christ. Therefore came the word, so needed
then, and still more needed now, **Take heed to
yourselves. ' '
Paul joyed that they, as ** light in the Lord,''
would be for God by night and day when he was
far away. But just here Paul the evangelist is
'^THOU ART FALLEN'' 45
lost in Paul the pastor. Nay, not of the needs of
Ephesus is he thinking now, but of theirs. These
ex-votaries of Diana, will their zeal outstrip their
love 1 Good preachers, will they be good lovers I
Time will reveal this; but at least they hang on
his words, and particularly on these concerning
the advent of apostatisers. Let them come, said
they of Ephesus ; they will find us clinging to the
truth of God. Indeed, who so leal as they, when
others were drifting away? And now tragedy !
The first of the seven Epistles, in Eev. ii., shows
them to us nearly thirty years after, with a
solemn look of stern zeal on their faces. They
who had borne and laboured so patiently for
Christ's sake, they could not bear them that were
evil. Forewarned by Paul, they are forearmed,
and Paul, who had left his mark in every Ephesian
home (^^from house to house") could not be sup-
planted.
But God will have the best; and Love en-
throned in the glory must beget love, or it will
have loved in vain. Alas! the burden and heat
of the day has dried the fountain of their tears;
they are like **a bottle in the smoke": no tears in
them now, though the smoke brings tears to the
Lord's eyes as He beholds them dry and sere.
46 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
II
They are '^fallen" in Love's eyes; yes, they,
the orthodox, who held fast the form of sound
words, and sent back a counterblast to every blast
from the Temple of Diana and the theatre — they
are fallen from the heights of Love! Love is
jealous, and sorrows that they know not her power
in the highest. Love looks on it all with a sad
heart — all their clear-cut routine and visions of
statistics !
Zeal's eyes kindle as she counts her heads and
looks up expectantly for Love's **Well done!"
But nay : Love has only the old-time answer for
Zeal. '*Even the devils," said Zeal once exult-
ingly, "are subject to us." **Nay," said Love,
'* therein rejoice not, but rather rejoice because
your names are written in Heaven."
"And now, brethren," said Paul, "I commend
you to God and to the word of His grace, that is
able to build you up, and give you an inheritance
among all them that are sanctified." Thus was
the apostle's good-bye then, and thus also the
teaching of his Epistle four years after. If they
fall, what a fall, for in that Epistle are "heights"
indeed ! They are * ^ in Christ ' ' — and where is He 1
*^THOU AET FALLEN'' 47
**Far above all heavens!" said Paul in his good-
bye. The word of God *4s able ... to give you
an inheritance among all them that are sancti-
fied." Here we behold them as those who are
raised with Christ in the heavenlies, in whom
they have obtained an inheritance. Here too they
are sanctified. Here there is not a maybe about
being *^ built up," for they **are built upon the
Foundation. ' '
Ah ! Love is writing all this about the heights
of their calling, for Love trembles at the possible
depths of their fall. Love writes: **Eemember
. . . that ... ye were without Christ . . . but
now are made nigh by the blood of Christ. " It is
the sad-eyed Love that pens the words, ** Remem-
ber . . . thou art fallen!"
Yes, Love points out the weak spot, the vulner-
able entrance for the enemy. This above all
things exercised Paul on their behalf. It brought
him literally to his knees: and he who had four
years ago on the sea-shore '^kneeled down" and
prayed with them, is still in his Epistle, not once,
but often kneeling for them. **For this cause
I bow my knees . . . that ye may . . . know the
love of Christ." Having revealed to them how
48 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY
high God had placed them, Paul prays that He
may keep them nigh and high; and he sees in
Love the only power to do this.
Love had raised them, and only their realisation
of what Love had done wonld make them in their
lives ^* raised" men and women. ^'Good works"
must not be first, but the burning fire of faith that
God — before the world began — ^had resolved that
they should be His workmanship, even His
(emphatic pronoun). And in true sequence the
* ^ workmanship ' ' of Love produced ' ' the works ' ' of
love. They were to be rooted in Love, for they
were ^Hrees of the Lord's planting." They must
be grounded in it, for other foundation can no man
lay. They were to know its height, to which they
were raised, by remembering the depth from which
Love had brought them up in the time past of
their life. Love's breadth, too, they were to know,
by the wide-open, encircling arms ; and its length
in seeking them when ^^afar off," stranger and
aliens. Yes, that they might know all this — such
was Paul's prayer.
Ill
And now more than twenty years have come
and gone, and we reach, not the 1st Epistle of
^^THOU AET FALLEN '' 49
Height, but the 2nd Epistle of Depth. Paul says
they are risen ; John says they are fallen.
Alas, and they think far otherwise. To fall
and not to know it — what falling like that. To
labour and yet after long years to do nothing,
really nothing in Love's eyes — ^what slavery like
that ! And who so lovingly records a cup of cold
water as Love? Yes, this splendidly orthodox
church has every chance in Love's hand, but Love
knows her not.
Oh, yes, it might be said, there is love in
Ephesus, and probably plenty of it, too. But it
is love in word, and not in deed. It is that which
says, *'We work, therefore we love; we speak
with angePs tongues, therefore we have love.''
''Now," saith the Lord of love, with the jealous
eyes like a flame of fire, *'I have one long debit
against you that consumes all your credit."
Poor insolvent Ephesus! All the coin of her
spiritual commerce is revealed to be spurious. It
never saw the mint of Love : Love sees not its own
image thereon.
The Lord perforce recalls them to the first love,
that would produce the first works. The Love
that raised them to the heights, is following them
to the depths. They are fallen, but Love will raise
50 APOSTOLIC CHKISTIANITY
them. But twenty long years of labour must go
overboard. The test of breaking with the past
will be in saying, not, ** Reward me for those
twenty years,'' but, **Lord, I thank Thee Thou
hast forgotten them!"
It is not *'Thou art fallen," but ** Remember
from whence thou art fallen. ' ' What a difference
this makes ! Ephesus is not asked to look down,
for she is down. '* Remember from whence," is
the Lord's word for '^Look up!" And no won-
der, for they are going up, oh, so soon!
VI
PAUL NOT ASHAMED— AND WHY
God has millions of worlds that rush to do His
bidding hut only now and then can He find a
man He can trust.
* * *
After the battle of Marengo Napoleon struck a
medal for his soldiers. On one side he put the
name of the battle; on the other he inscribed the
three proud words: i was there.
PAUL NOT ASHAMED — AND WHY
Rom. i, 16
The fact of Paul twice declaring that he is not
ashamed of his message, at once reminds us that
he is writing to the capital of the whole world.
But provincial Paul is a citizen of heaven, and
hence all his shame has been rolled away at the
cross. A citizen of glory, this Paul can literally
look down upon the metropolis of the Caesars.
Eight well he knew that those Eomans of the
capital thought themselves the cream of earth's
sons. Hence, doubtless, that black yet faithful
third chapter of Eomans. With what withering
plainness does Paul expose all their boasted prec-
edence in that famous photograph of the common
corrupting fall !
I
But again. Paul is not ashamed of his Gospel,
because looking down upon it all is God's ^* blessed
and only Potentate," into whose kingdom he has
been translated. And all this in the dialect of
63
54 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
Holy Scripture means that, of course, Paul is
above it all too! So dear, indeed, was this truth
to Paul's heart, and so vital to his joy, that he
was forced even to remind his beloved brethren at
Jerusalem of it, in almost blunt terms. There, in
the *^City of the Great King,'* his dear kinsmen
in God were deeply entrenched behind the dignity
of a solemn antiquity. Hence, doubtless, Paul's
disclaimer in Galatians. With a godly concern
for his heavenly citizenship, he declares that ^^he
went not up to Jerusalem to those that were
apostles before him. ' ' Nor have we long to wait
for his inner reason for this seemingly austere
action. Further on we read: **I went not up
to Jerusalem," because '^the Jerusalem which is
ABOVE is the mother of us all." The higher we
ascend, the broader our outlook, and Paul had a
missionary gospel for all, because he went high
enough. His headquarters were Heaven, not
Jerusalem. To Paul, Foreign Missions are a
mere matter of altitude. If we live little parish-
pump lives then our skyline is contracted. But
if on the contrary we are seated with Christ in
the Heavenlies then looking down from His view-
point the whole earth as a lost unit is in full and
fair view.
PAUL NOT ASHAMED 55
Thus it is we need, in reading Romans, to keep
ever before us the * * envelope address ' ' : * ^ To the
Romans/' For, strange as it may seem, we have
only to appeal to the ordinary schoolboy for the
dark, latent meaning lying behind Paul's boast:
*^I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for
it is the power of God unto salvation/^ This
mention of the ^* power of God" is surely in con-
trast with the brutal Roman power. As an echo
from the schoolroom, do we not recall the bloody
fact that of all the names in the Commentaries
of Ccesar not three of them died in their beds!
Power, yes, your Roman had plenty of it: but it
was unto destruction, not unto salvation. Hence
this sanguine Paul, advancing as he is upon
Rome, the world's vast charnel-house, he, 0! he is
not ashamed of the power unto salvation, A re-
cent independent witness more than endorses all
this. Summing up in three lines the record of
these Caesars, he says : **The bloody catalogue is
so complete, so nearly comprises all whose names
are mentioned (in the Commentaries), that it
strikes the reader with almost comic horror!"
And thus it is, surely, that we find Paul telling
the Romans that **the wages of sin is death/' In
that one unerring line, behold, the Divine reason
56 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY
of their blood-red history! But the very black-
ness of the metropolitan background only added
to the Pauline incentive (how like God!) to paint
the Gospel of the glory of the blessed God in
fresh, unfading colours. **I, oh, I am not
ashamed of the power unto salvation." Surely
the Divine innuendo here is that these Eomans
might well enough be ashamed of their charnel-
house power that made a desert and called it
peace.
II
Our immediate concern, however, is with Paul's
declaration that he is not ashamed of the Gospel
of God even in the roaring capital of the Caesars.
Leading up to this declaration of his, we pass
phrase after phrase all embodying the apostolic
longing to reach Eome, the real centre of the
world. For every road led to Eome. It was the
strategic point to reach all comers. You will no-
tice, too, one phrase in particular that reveals the
utter abandonment of the man to this deep de-
sire : Now, he says, if by any means I may come
to you. Note, we repeat, the utter and holy
audacity of the man ; It is not to Eome, the great
London of the Empire, he wants to go. It is not
provincial Paul wanting to see the sights of that
PAUL NOT ASHAMED 57
Babylon; oh, no. But it is, indeed, a man
enamoured of Christ's last command: ''utter-
most parts of the earth''; a true missionary who
sees that by reaching the world's centre he is
therefore in true equidistance to the whole cir-
cumference. Paul was only following God's lead.
That Gospel entrusted to the apostle in steward-
ship revealed a God equally enamoured of all the
lost sons of men. Nay, the more remote the lost
soul the more desirable to Love. Only ' ' everlast-
ing Love" could declare that the last shall be
first. And thus we see here in Paul's longing
Eomewards — Eome the centre of the world's cir-
cumference!— a pictorial representation of the
Love that so loved the world! A Koman Caesar
alone it was who could command that the whole
world should be enrolled. Hence Paul's resolve
to reach the metropolis.
Watch the holy abandonment of the phrase,
'^Ifhy any means, ' ' Paul signing a blank cheque !
Paul offering to go to Rome either as steerage
passenger or cabin. Paul with no personal ''axe
to grind," but content to endure all things for
*'the elect's sake."
Did he mean it, this Paul, and this ''by any
means'"? Yes, he meant it so deeply that God
58 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY
took him at his word. God sent him steerage
passenger in a chain ! No I God did not take ad-
vantage of Paul's warm-heartedness so manifest
in the very openness of his offer. But God saw
that the Cross would best be illustrated by a chain.
A test this for the Paul who said, **I am not
ashamed." Will the chain cause a blush? will the
chain shut his mouth? Far otherwise. **The
offence of the Cross" was Paul's glory; '* boast"
is the word he uses again and again to show that
the chain of iron is a chain of gold.
in
**I am not ashamed of the Gospel. " How often
the sentence is torn from its context; how often
people miss the point that the apostle only reaches
it in Eom. i. after elaborately explaining that he
longs to have a prosperous journey to come unto
them. Precisely as our Lord Jesus Christ has
written unto us a whole New Testament pending
His coming again, so, too, Paul could say, as the
Christ in essence says concerning the whole New
Testament: ** These things I write unto you,
hoping to come quickly."
In Africa, the land of the bondslave, what is the
PAUL NOT ASHAMED 59
simple and luminous meaning of the word
'^ slave''? Why, obviously, ^*a person who has
no power over his own body.'' And surely this
is Paul's point in leading off with his first, *^Paul,
a bond-slave of Jesus Christ." Paul, the man
who has no power over his own body. And is not
this Paul's point when he further on urges other
people concerning their bodies? **I, Paul, a man
who has no power over his own body — Paul, bond-
servant of Christ^ — I beseech you present your
bodies a living sacrifice." Let us never forget it,
then, when we quote the phrase so glibly. Paul 's
proof that he was not ashamed of the Gospel was
ever at hand in his readiness (**I am ready") to
go to the earth's ends with God's Gospel.
How often do we hear nowadays of men who
shout Paul ! Paul ! yet do not the things that Paul
did. The writer has just glanced anxiously at the
indexes of eight annual volumes of a paper wholly
given up to the study of Paul's Gospel. Like a
slap in the face came the discovery that not once
in all these volumes have you a clear shout for
the Gospel to be preached to the uttermost parts
of the earth. Yet Paul's ^^ mystery" is nothing if
it is not to *4et all men know" it. Paul's Gospel
60 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY
was by ^ ^ the commandment of the everlasting God
made known to all nations' \f By all means let us
say Paul! Paul! but let us be followers of him,
even as also he was of Christ.
vn
A EOYALLY REVISED VERSE
^^ There are two ways of looking at the coming
of the Lord. If I he in the constant spirit of
worship within the veil, according to Hebrews, I
shall see the future as does Christ. Over 1800
years ago He said, *I come quickly.' And
whereas, in point of desire, I put nothing what-
ever between that object and my soul, because
Christ puts nothing; yet, on the other hand, if
you ask whether the fervency of my love to the
Lord and the brightness of that hope are
diminished, because I see that He must take time
to make that coming worthy of Himself, I sa/y,
No: He waits patiently, and so do I.''
R. C. Chapman.
vn
A ROYALLY REVISED VERSE
^'Tlie Lord direct your hearts into the love of God,
and into the patience of Christ.'^ — 2 Thess. iii. 5 (R.V.)
Remembering as we do how life's joy and in-
centive is pivoted on the love of God, it can con-
ceivably be never amiss to send ont the old call,
'* Behold, what manner of love!" But herein is
love, not that we loved God but that He loved us
with a love that would not let us go. His love
to us, not our love to Him is the theme.
Therefore the immediate concern of these lines
is to claim (and reclaim!) for the love of God a
long-lost proof -text. Where the R. V. has revised
let us revise too. For God's love in the immu-
table fact of life: not our love to God, but His
passion for us. And to turn our backs upon the
objective Ocean of Love to be engrossed with the
subjective drop in our cold hearts, is surely to
jeopardise joy.
Yet even thus has Paul's charge to the Thes-
salonians been distorted. We believe memory is
63
64 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
not a fault in suggesting that following the er-
roneus A. V. this Pauline phrase has been per-
sistently pressed as urging a deeper subjective
realisation of the love of God, and charging them
to be more warm of heart and more aflame with
love. That such a meaning is quite foreign to the
context can be proudly proved for the loyal love
of these Thessalonians is not at all in question.
Not their love to God is the theme, but God's
love to them : ' ^ The Lord direct your hearts into
the love of God." For the entering of their
hearts into God's love is not at all the same sweet
thing as the love of God entering into their hearts.
His objective love is an ocean, and our subjective
capacity is a drop : And Paul's call, we shall see,
is to look off to the boundless and soundless
ocean. Not to look in at the dreary drop !
I
This is how we prove the point.
That the context reveals hearts of love at Thes-
salonica is easily evident, for they were com-
mended for their ^^ labour of love." Had not
Timothy been a witness of it all? Finding Paul
in Athens, had he not delivered to the Apostle
the ''glad tidings" of their love? Why then
A EOYALLY REVISED VESSE 65
suggest carnal coldness of heart? Surely PauPs
call is both old and bold, I mean, the Matthew
xxviii. missionary call to look off to God's
love in its ocean aspect. Quoth happy lit-
tle Paul, *^God so loved the world, and not
Thessalonica only!" The Lord direct your
parochial hearts into that ocean of His where
*^me'' is merged in **all." To say **God
loves me," is to testify that you are a trophy of
grace ; but the saint never lived who did not reach
this ME through the gateway of God's whoso-
ever. And what a graceless love that forgets the
door by which it entered the house.
Now just here, probably, we strike the whole
tender point in PauPs desire for these loving but
too localised Thessalonians. Their very love to
Christ and longing desire for His return had the
momentary effect of causing them to forget the
vast salvation-for-all scope of God's love. In
their longing love they wanted Him, oh, so quickly
to come. Theirs had been sorrow upon sorrow
and who could wipe away tears like Himself?
Hence in their very love to Him they had mo-
mentarily forgotten the world-wide extent of the
hole of that pit from whence they had been dug.
Therefore it is Paul— Paul the itinerant mission-
66 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
ary — sends in on them this rousing reminding
call. He, Paul, is out in the dark night of Asia
Minor, and they (watch this!) are residents of a
well evangelised town. This we see from 2 Thess.
iii. 1: *^ Brethren pray for us that the word of
the Lord may have free course, with me'* (out
here in the darkness!) *^even as it is with you."
The Lord direct your hungry-for-His-retum
hearts into the vast love of God, for God so loved
the world and not paltry Thessalonica only. Just
think a moment, says Paul: and think, oh! yes,
think tremendously the human heart will in this
holy particular. Think it out, heart of mine,
silently and soberly to the one inexorable con-
clusion. If these loving saints of the first century
had had their wish, then truly the church, which
is Christ's body, would have been a small enough
thing! The vast fields of Gentiledom were as yet
all unsown with gospel seed, let alone unreaped.
Where was Europe then! And there stood the
men of Thessalonica gazing up into heaven, for-
getful for the moment of the departing Christ's
command: *'Ye shall be witnesses unto Me. . . .
unto the uttermost part of the earth ! ' ' The Lord
direct your loving hearts into the love of God,
who so loved the wide, weary World as a lost
A EOYALLY REVISED VERSE 67
unit. Every hour the craving cry rang up to
High Heaven from trusting-but-tried Thcs-
salonica, *' Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!"
And as an eager echo down came the challeng-
ing command of Christ: "Go, my church, go ye
into all the world!" Yes, He will come after the
Church goes.
Watch well that word **into." The idea surely
seems to be the scope and breadth of God's love.
For this is the preposition used in Acts to picture
the ship 's gig being let down into the sea. This,
too, the word that shows us the wheat thrown
into the stormy wave. And so, too, with their
loving hearts. The Lord direct your hearts into
the ocean of love, for ye are not straitened in
God but in yourselves. Surely there is a very
grave yet gracious hint in all this. They wanted
to be with Him where He was in the glory, for-
getful of the fact that Christ had pledged His
presence with them even unto the end of the age.
How then could they be with Christ in Heaven
before the end of the age if Christ had surely
said He would be with them even unto the end
of the age!
Or put it this way. Did not our living loving
Lord anticipate this tedious tendency of the human
68 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
lieart in his last great prayer? For almost in
the same breath when he said, Father, I will that
they also , . , he with Me where I am'' did He
not wisely say, ^^7 pray not that Thou shouldest
take them out of the world/'
II
The best test of the truth of this exegesis, how-
ever, will be found in remembering that Paul's
is really a twin-charge to the Thessalonians.
**The Lord direct your hearts (1) into the love
of God and (2) into the patience of Christ, Here
again where the R. V. has revised let us revise
too! And, surely, the whole truth is out at last,
for this is not our ^^ patient waiting for Christ,"
just as the former was not more of our love to God.
I repeat, precisely as at first the Apostle threw
them back on the love of God to them, and not
theirs to Him ; even so, finer far than any paltry,
patient waiting of ours for Christ, is His patient
waiting for us. Yes, us, all of us; not **us" of
tedious Thessalonica only! Depend upon it:
Christ's patience, at any rate, is going to do its
perfect work, in order that we, the body of Christ
as a truly terrestrial unit, may be perfect and
entire, wanting nothing. Not a hoof will be left
A ROYALLY REVISED VERSE 69
behind ! We, the mere sowers, may be impatient.
And to curtly command us to be patient certainly
does not mend matters. Hence Paul's upward
point yonder to the patient Christ at God's right
hand, *'from henceforth expecting." He, the
true Husbandman, has long patience. Surely,
then the sowers impatient of the heat of the day
can find calm and strength in that long loyal
patience. For note this keenly: **The field is
the world/' Long patience for a large field.
Ah ! what an enormous disparity we find between
the loving Christ's long patience and our per-
verse petulance. He has long patience **for the
precious fruit of the earth"; not merely patience
unto precious sowing, but patience unto precious
reaping. If the love of God did the splendid sow-
ing, then the long patience of God will royally
reap the fruit. *'Be patient, therefore, (what a
logical conjunction!) brethren, unto the com-
ing of the Lord: behold the husbandman (i. e.,
HE WHO IS MOST INTERESTED IN IT ALL!) Wait for
the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long
patience. Be ye (note the dig!) also patient."
** Precious fruit," yes, because of ** precious
blood." The patience of Christ will have a per-
fect work, and the body of Christ as to absolutely
70 APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY
all its members will be perfect and entire, wanting
nothing. Himself it was who went forth weeping
bearing precious seed. Now He waiteth for
precious fruit. ** Precious seed," — ** tasted death
for every man." *' Precious fruit — ** Preach in
oil the world to every creature." Hear, then,
the sum of the whole matter. Will the God of
love do less in Grace than He does in Law?
Surely this is a pardonable query just here where
the Apostle challenges their hearts as to being in
the love of God. The God who visits iniquity
^*unto the third and fourth generation," will He
not also visit even a third and fourth generation
in grace? The husbandman hath long loyal
patience. Has He not visited Christendom unto
even a thirtieth and fortieth generation in grace ?
Thus it is the clamant calls come in on us
from the earth's four comers. Pray for us in the
dark comers of the earth, brethren, that the Word
of the Lord may have free course and be glori-
fied, even as it is with you in beloved gospel lands.
**Free course" means that it might reach the ut-
termost man in the uttermost parts of the earth.
vni
"THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES"
When the saintly Fayson was dying he said,
*'/ long to hand a full cup of happiness to every
human being!"
* * *
'^ Until the times of the Gentiles he fulfilled.
Luke.
* « #
"7 would not, brethren, that ye should he
ignorant of , . . the fullness of the Gentiles,
Paul.
* # *
*^The riches of the world . . . the riches of
the Gentiles.
Paul.
VIII
Luke xxi. 24
Might we not say of this expression, used by the
Holy Ghost, that it bears on the face of it God's
controversy with ns? For note well, it is the
Gentiles; not merely some select specimens of
Gentiledom. Love's arms encircle the globe, and
Love's thoughts are **to all generations" (Ps.
xxxiii. 11). The scope of God's thoughts and
purposes are as the scope of His eye — '^He be-
holdeth all the sons of men." And the scope of
God's eye is to be the scope of our energy. **He
f ashioneth their hearts alike ! ' ' cries the Psalmist.
And God's evangelist replies, **For like doom,
comes like gospel!"
I
And now let us ask a very pertinent question.
Why, oh why, this plural — ^^ Times," governing
this other plural *^ Gentiles"? Doth not the
Holy Ghost still say, *^Now is the accepted time"?
73
74 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY
To a sinner Grod guarantees not ^'times'' but
only His holy time — ^^Now.''
Ah! here, indeed, behold the long-suffering of
God. He in sovereignty can ever forestall man
in responsibility. Does man in lethargy fail to
pass God's ^'Now'^ around the globe! Love
will not be content with merely a sample of
Gentiledom. If Western languages have hymned
Love's praises, Love will have a song from the
remotest and most impoverished dialects of
farthest lands. Yes, the **last shall be first''
to Love; and out of the mouths of the babes
and sucklings who use earth's poorest tongues,
God will ** perfect praise." Thus, then, will God
overcome the apathy that mocks His purposes";
'^The Gentiles" shall all have their *' times";
and, however varied the Gentiles, so varied shall
be their times.
On that old, happy day of our lives — the ''now"
day, when we passed from death unto life — ^how
open-armed God's *'A11" and God's ''Whoso-
ever" were to our souls. And now God chargeth
us by that primal day of our joy to gladden other
lands and people with the All that gladdened us
as the guests of God.
We may here recall the phrase in Acts as to
*^THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES'^ 75
God's visiting *^tlie Gentiles to take out of tliem
a people for His name.'' This visit of the Lord
our God will be co-terminous with the glorious
** times of the Gentiles." Little does man seem
to realise how well the God of Nature will fulfil
His visit of Grace. He who in Nature riseth up
early to flood with light the far unknown waters
of some hidden inland sea, will He not visit every
rood of this lost earth with His gospel? **Are
not My ways equal?" saith the God of Nature
and of Grace. And David, speaking of the earth
as a far-rolling unity of hill and dale, island and
continent, saith, **Thou visitest the earth. . . .
Thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God,
which is full of water. . . . Thou crownest the
year with Thy goodness." And will God do less
in Grace than He does in Nature? Will He not
crown ''the acceptable year of the Lord" with
goodness too 1 Nay, He will crown it with Grace ;
even as He crowns every three hundred and sixty-
five days of time with Goodness.
On that day when the last stone from the
world's last and remotest comer is brought into
the building, then shall He crown the acceptable
year with His grace. For thus saith the Lord
to His quarrymen, who realise indeed what **a
76 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY
great mountain'' this belting the globe with His
gospel is — ^'O great mountain! . . . thou shalt
become a plain : and He shall bring forth the head-
stone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace
unto it!"
To Zerubbabel, God's temple-builder, lo! here
was indeed very much of mountain and very lit-
tle of temple. Faith only could in vision see the
rugged mountain-heap quarried into a plain.
''The Temple has swallowed the mountain," says
Faith ; and the final headstone will mean the out-
burst of God's Hallelujah chorus, ** Grace!
Grace ! unto it ! " Yet, not by might nor by power
shall it all be accomplished — and who dare de-
spise the day of small things?
n
In the great majority of the uses of the word
"visit" in the Old Testament it means stern, im-
placable judgment, the sword of the Lord striking
home unerringly and surely. Yea, unto the third
and fourth generation doth He visit the iniquity
of the fathers. Yet this same word tells us that
open-armed love will as surely and individually
''visit" every nook and corner of a world of
heathendom as it visited inexorably in retribu-
**THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES'' 77
tion for every broken law. The argument from
Nature leads up to the revelation of Grace.
Hence, too, Christ's lovely name of *^The Day-
spring from on high." For as the eastern skies
in all lands herald light for all and light in abun-
dance, so too the Dayspring from on high doth
visit and redeem a world lost in night.
Ah, when the Psahnist, a thousand years before
the Cross, cried, '^Have respect unto the Cove-
nant, FOR the dark places of the earth are full of
the habitations of cruelty" — ^how well did he
understand the purposes of Grace! Paul had
certainly read this, and God bade him write some-
thing very like it in Romans — ^^ Where sin
abounded, grace did much more abound!"
David's *'for^' tells all. '*Have respect unto the
Covenant," Lord, which promises to bless ^*all
families of the earth," for all families are under
the curse. **The dark places of the earth are
full of the habitations of cruelty," therefore
**have respect to the Covenant!" That God did
respect the Covenant, our tongues can tell. And
David's call comes back on us, the faithless ones.
Not **have respect to the Covenant" is the call;
but ^^have respect to the command!" David's
*^for" of thousands of years ago is still living
78 APOSTOLIC CHEISTIANITY
and cogent. And where there is sin abounding
there must we preach grace abounding.
They tell us of — and we have seen them — poor,
dwarfed, downtrodden tribes with only glimmer-
ings of an innate notion of their own manhood.
Very, very low in the so-called scale are they, and
have as many bestial traits of character as human.
'* Child-nations ' ' is a matter-of-fact exclamation
of the anthropologist, who has merely to glance
at the conical occiput and receding chin. But
Christ, who comes to seek and save the lost, says
in open-armed love to all such ** child-nations ' '
—*^ Suffer the little children to come!" Out of
the mouths of such babes and sucklings God will
perfect His praise. ''The last shall be first!"
BOOK II
LORD'S SUPPEE EEVERIES
I
THIRSTINa AFTEE GOD
^Long the blessed Guide has led me
By the desert road;
Now I see the golden towers
City of my God.
There amidst the love and glory
He is waiting yet;
On His Hands a name is graven
He can ne'er forget.
THIRSTING AFTER GOD
Psalm xliii
''As the hart panteth after the water-hrooks,
So panteth my soul after Thee, 0 God.
My soul tJvirsteth for God, for the living God."
In this hart or gazelle of the desert, panting after
the water-hrooks, we have surely the crown of
all language as an image of sincerity in the sonPs
thirst after God. What more sincere in all the
earth than the lustrous-eyed gazelle, panting after
the water-brooks? There is perfect desert in-
stinct here; perfect innocent need, going out to
perfect supply, and expressed so perfectly too in
that pant succeeding pant.
Note the first phase. This, then, is the old
obvious story. David has lost his God, albeit
God, his God, knoweth the desert, thirsty way that
he takes.
And this God {who Himself hath commanded
for all time, ''If thine enemy thirst, give him
8X
82 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES
drink"!) this God will indeed be the health of
David's countenance, and that right early.
God, then, has driven David into the desert to
learn what a God is his God. To learn that for
every pant of David's soul after God, the living
God, there is a deeper, dearer pant in God's heart
after His child. For this, surely seems the mean-
ing of verse 7: **Deep is calling unto deep" —
the deep of David's longing calling out to the
deep of God's longing; the deep of David's empti-
ness calling out to the deep of Divine plenitude.
And thus it must ever be, whether with the soul
about to be saved or the soul saved in the long
ago. Yes, thus indeed, to the intent that by the
arid desert and its parched thirst, we may be led
on and up to Him.
# # # # # # *
Watch the second phase. Thirst, then, is the
Psalmist's great theme, and thirst's eternal an-
tithesis— God, the Quencher thereof. David is
indeed marching through night to daydawn. He
shall yet praise Him.
This thirst has given to David what it gives to
the gazelle — a clear-eyed earnestness that asks for
the one thing, and for all things in the one — **My
soul thirsteth after God." Oh, for more of this
THIESTING AFTER GOD 83
clear-eyed transparency, and its language of pant.
The paradox of this panting seems to be that
in its wealth of expression there is no language.
Parched throat and tongue refuse to articulate
the soul's secret. And God is thereby spared a
reminder of Babel, with mere vain verbiage, and
He hears, moreover, the language He loves so
wisely and so well — the souPs pant. Garrick
said he would give a hundred guineas if he could
say *^ Oh!'' as Whitfield did it when he held 30,-
000 spellbound.
"We have said that with this holy thirst going
out for God there is a deeper thirst in God's heart
going out for His thirsty child. This heart-pant
we probably hear in that arrestive ^*Ho!" in
Isaiah, when God calls to the thirsty. As a good
Philologist has said, ^ * The interjection, instead of
being a part of speech, is indeed a whole speech/'
What this writer probably means, when his defini-
tion is applied to this **Ho!" leaving the very
lips of God, is this, supremely this. There is a
time when the heart is too full for words; when
out of sheer loving, yearning, commiseration on
His part, comes forth that ^*Ho!" from the lips
of God, springing out to the soul's succour.
Now watch phase three, David had lost his
84 LOED'S SUPPEE EEVEEIES
God; but how did he lose Him! Ah! this, too, is
an old story. He had gone with the multitude;
he went with them to the house of God, with the
voice of joy and praise, with the multitude that
kept holy day. This, we say, is the old obvious
story, and how easy it is to be carried on with the
*^ Convention" crowd. So easy, having caught
the infection, to praise God in a crowd. Oh, the
blessedness of it, and the fragrant memories
thereof !
But all that is past now for David. A receding
memory leaves it almost below the verge.
God hath called him out to the thirsty desert;
and though it might seem far otherwise, David
is on the right path now. For listen to his
words — **My soul thirsteth for God!" Not for
the multitude keeping holy day; but for God, my
God.
All this recalls the seventh chapter of John's
Gospel. The people have been trooping up to
their feast — a multitude going up to the house
of God — **a multitude that kept holy day." But
the Lord says, *'I go not up yet," albeit when
His time was come He went up, and found them
** murmuring" concerning Him. And finally, **in
the last day, that great day of the feast, ' ' a great
THIESTING AFTEE GOD 85
vision of the sadness of the nnsatisfied multitude
flooded His loving soul with pity. All down the
centuries He saw them keeping their feasts, and
getting leaner and leaner; becoming annually-
drier and drier, like their arid patches of Syrian
desert. Then, on that great last day of the feast,
Jesus stood and ckied to the multitude (Isaiah's
**Ho!'' in another form) — ^*If any man thirst,
let him come unto Me and drink." In other
words, '*You have had your feast, and what has
it done for you? Nothing: hut I am the true
Feast; let him who thirsts come unto Me" — ^not
to it, the feast; 11, the creed; or aught else. He
came to bring us to God, ''my God" — ^the soul's
exceeding joy.
Over against the great vacumm of human thirst
God in His day of grace doth put Himself as the
Ocean, and as we drink with the pant of sincerity
we shall become like Him.
Now for the final phase. How very vital
all this must be, and hence, doubtless, the fact
that this is the Lord's last word to us in Eev.
xxii. First, in verse 1, is the river's source, far
up on the highest height of the everlasting hills
— the throne of God and of the Lamb. Down it
86 LOED'S SUPPEE EEVEEIES
flows from the high throne of God, that blessed
river of God, full of water. And it strikes at
last the dry and thirsty land where no water is;
so whether from the Spirit and the Bride, or from
him that heareth, ^^Come!" is the glad call, and
drink of **the water of life freely."
Then, the weary, desert pilgrim, having struck
at last the river of God flowing across life's waste,
resolves never to leave it. He spends his days of
sojourning ascending its hallowed banks. In his
glad experience, as with Ezekiel's wonderful
river, ** everything doth live whither the river
cometh." And finally, having drunk of it and
bathed in it, all the way along, at last he reaches
the city, out from which it flows. It is the city of
our God. Here doth He dwell. God is known
in her palaces for a refuge. Here, too, is the
river, the streams whereof make glad the city of
God ; * * God is in the midst of her ; she shall not be
moved."
n
THE PSALM OF PSALMS
None of the ransomed ever knew
How deep were the waters crossed
Or how dark was the night
That the Lord passed through.
E'er He found the sheep that was lost
n
THE PSALM OF PSALMS
A Lord's Supper Meditation
Psalm xxiii
The sequence of thought, linMng even separate
Psalms, is often their true divine key. Take, for
instance, David's bold *^My" in Psalm xxiii.
How simple it is to see unerring explanation of
all this certainty of soul in David, in that preced-
ing vision of love in Psalm xxii. ! The roots of
Psalm xxiii., revealing Jehovah as Shepherd,
strike back deep into the sterile rocky soil of
Psalm xxii. The sheep can only reach the green
pastures of Psalm xxiii., because the Shepherd
of Psalm xxii. held on His way among the thorns
of the waste.
This is ever the divine law of cross-and-crown
sequence. The sheep by the still waters of the
Lord's Supper look across the gulf to the Psalm
where Jehovah is a Shepherd unto blood. The
thorns are over there and the green pastures are
89
90 LORD'S SUPPER REVERIES
just here, and *^My" is the adoring result of it all.
Surely in such loving sequence do we find an ade-
quate reason why the ineffable name of Jehovah
can be linked with the name of a lost sheep of
humanity, lost David, or lost anybody. Jehovah
is MY Shepherd.
Thus we learn that, Psalm of sorrow though it
be, the grace of God is so exceeding abundant at
the Cross, that we find a pledge of the very peace
of the sinner in the woes of the Saviour.
I
Watch the contrast of it all. Like David, the
Christ, too, opens his Psalm of Calvary with a
'*My." Twice does the forsaken cry ring out to
the skies. How different David's **My" from
that of the lonely Christ. A heaven and a hell of
difference, surely! The deep of Christ's for-
sakenness calleth across to the deep of David's
calm and joy. And this surely is the divine in-
tention concerning these Psalms — a sequence so
certain that the sufferings of Christ shall not
have long to wait for the glory that should fol-
low.
Else how shall we explain that praise-shout:
* ' The meek shall eat and be satisfied ' ' I Who are
THE PSALM OF PSALMS 91
the meek of Psalm xxii., if not the green-pastured
sheep of Psalm xxiii.! Was it not, indeed, just
such an adjacent prophecy as this that hastened
David to glorify the Christ, by singing of pas-
tures where the meek and lowly sheep find rest
to their souls?
But watch this divine sequence a little longer.
David's **I shall not wanf finds its reason in
the fact that Jehovah is with him. And so, too,
in the opposite experience of Christ's loneliness
do we see the utter poverty of the Cross. With-
out God was the sinner, and without God was
the Saviour. ^*I, the Shepherd, am poured out
like water, ' ' is the source of all that satiety in the
sheep.
The Second Man, the Lord from heaven, was
His divine title ; yet He it is, who, in dying pang,
says : * ^ I am a worm, and no man. ' ' Watch, too,
those still waters of tranquillity, and listen in
contrast to the words of Christ's roaring. All
God's waves and billows are rolling over Him
there, in the strong crying and tears of the Son
of God.
This contrast is seen further down under an-
other figure. Both David and David's Lord have
a cup, and both the cups are seen running over —
92 LOED'S SUPPEB EEVERIES
the red wine of wrath and the red wine of joy.
No wonder that old English word blood comes
from the same root as bloom and blossom. With-
out the shedding of blood there is no — truly there
is no anything without the shedding of blood!
Far away even in the marshes of Africa, the
tribesmen say: ^^No blood, no blossom!*'
Contrast, yet further, David's head anointed
with oil and the head of the Christ of God
wounded with thorns. That soft oil and those
sharp thorns are so widely removed from each
other that they spell salvation to the sheep.
There is one phrase, indeed, in this Psalm
(almost Pauline) which reveals how fully the
writer has seized upon the fact that Christ is his
Saviour-Substitute. When David says: ^^Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death," surely here we have a most naive hint
that if the Substitute-Christ has so utterly died
for the sheep, then in some glorious sense the
sheep will not die at all. *^ Shall not see death''
is the note of joy for the sheep. But for that
wounded Shepherd of the Psalm of sorrow there
was no qualification. The inexorable *^Must be"
of the Cross was ever before him. If the worst
came to the worst, David could say: **I will not
THE PSALM OF PSALMS 93
fear." For the lonely Christ, the worst must
climax in the worst.
II
So, too, further on. A divinely intended con-
trast we see in the two groups of enemies sur-
rounding David and David's greater Son. There,
in the presence of his enemies, God doth load his
table with good things. God Himself prepares
that table, prepares both the time and place for it,
to wit, when the enemies are in full view. But
look at the contrasted Christ, hungry both in
body and soul ! His is the bread of aflBiction ; His
the abjects' death.
And if David 's joy was the confounding of his
enemies, how deep the woe of Christ in being
taunted by His foes! There they are, shooting
out the lip and shaking the head in derision.
David gets the banquet, and David's Lord gets
the penury of Calvary. Surely the lesson for us
is writ large in all this intended contrast. Do
I, or do you, ever and always take our brimming
cup to the Calvary cup and, before drinking even
one drop of joy, bless the cup of woe that the
Shepherd drank all alone for us? These are
days, indeed, when whole books of '* Bible Con-
trasts" are greedily perused. How much harder
94 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES
it is for the child of God to bring his life in its
faithlessness into sharp contrast with the loving
ways of our steadfast God. As man is, after all,
a comparative race, how well, indeed, if he learns
life's beet lesson of contrasting God with the
creature.
David's last contrast is with the Man of Sor-
rows, an outcast from the Father 's house — and he,
David, boasting of that house as his dwelling for
evermore. The homeless Christ, out in the cold,
knocking at the Father's door! *'My God, my
God! Why—?" Surely here, in the Christ's
own ^^Why?" we seem to see why so many
theories of the Atonement are in currency. A
dozen and more ** working" theories of Christ's
Atonement! Does not their very number show
that they have tried and failed to fathom Christ's
own perplexed **Why"? Oh, let this be our
Atonement-watchword for Time — this, too, for
Eternity^^'Why! Why?" When you think
you fathom it, and when you reduce it all to a cold
syllogism, then indeed are God's mighty fallen.
Christ's own perplexed ^'Why?" declares it all to
be a mystery; and the creed was never yet written
that did not shut out great deeps of atoning love.
THE PSALM OF PSALMS 95
**For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of man's mdnd,
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully hind J'
III
One word more in conclusion. It will be seen
that there is close affinity between the assurance
of David's **My'' and the certainty contained in
his *^shalP'— ^'I shall not want." This is the
jubilant dogma of faith. But whence all the cer-
tainty, if not in the wondrous blank-cheque Name,
^* Jehovah"? God, who in grace revealed His
own unutterableness, could only perforce reveal
Himself by a Name which ever confounds the
grammarians of this world to translate. It was
the Jew himself who best caught the divine in-
tention, when, as a nation, he resolved not even
to pronounce the Name Jehovah at all. If the in-
effable Name is untranslatable, said he, then let
it be unpronounceable! Hence it is, the best
translation in any language of that glorious
Name will only be the best because it is the most
unpretentious. So full of meaning, indeed, is the
name Jehovah, that human speech can only call a
halt, and translate it, blank-cheque fashion: **I
96 LOED^S SUPPER REVERIES
AM, etc., etc." Thus praise is sacredly silent in
Zion before Zion's King.
And David's whole point in his *^ shall" lies
just here. If, says David, my Shepherd has such
a blank-cheque Name — **I AM, etc., etc." — then,
indeed, /, too, can issue a blank cheque on the
unknown future of life. How often we forget
that **I shall not want — " is as much a blank-
cheque as Jehovah's own Name I AM — ! If
God's name is **I AM, etc., etc.," then Faith's
echo-shout can obviously only be: **I shall not
want, etc., etc."
Thus the deep of supply calleth out to the deep
of need. If God does so challenge Faith as to
His very name, **I AM, etc., etc." then Faith
gladdens God's heart by sending back the sister-
challenge: ^'I shall not want, etc., etc,!'' For
when God declared His unutterable Name to be
I AM THAT I AM, what is this but just the
modernised I AM, etc., etc. !
The whole eternity of God lies a great deep in
that ineffable Name, and the responsive *' shall"
is faith striking its roots deep into the eternity of
God. Everlasting is His name, so "shall"
adorns the mouth of all God's children. We are
THE PSALM OF PSALMS 97
the lords of the future, and another king can
never arise who knows not Joseph.
And this, finally, is the real root of David's
phrase, ''For His Name's sake/' His Name, the
blank-cheque Name, explains it all. True, the
language of modern banking was not known a
thousand years before the Cross. David's
equivalent for a cheque-book was, in those stormy
days, "a Strong Tower." And the blank ele-
ment is well enough seen in both. Does not
David, later on, sing of the Name *^ Jehovah" as
a something we can ^^run into and be safe"?
Precisely as in the stress of commerce a merchant
runs into his blank cheques to meet all demands
against him, even so David claims that Faith can
^^run into" the Jehovah-name as into a strong
tower. Surely it must be blank enough if you
and your needs can run into it. Thither let us
flee!
Ill
A EESUEEECTION REVEEIE
What the Pa/rahle of the Sower is to our
Lord's Parables so, supremely so, is The Resur-
rection to our Lord's Miracles. Leading the long
Une of His Parables is that first and finest
Parable of the Sower, for did He not give it
princely priority when He asked, ^'Know ye not
this Parable? And how shall ye know all the
Parables?"
And so, too, with that ^'corn of wheat" Miracle
of The Resurrection. Leading the long line of
Christ's Miracles is this keystone certitude, and
if we know not this Miracle how shall we know
all the Miracles?
m
A RESURRECTION REVERIE
John XX. 1-19
It is ^^tJie first day of the week/' note well; and
the Soul finds in this word first something that
it desires with great desire. Weeks and days
of the week it knoweth not ; yet doth it seize upon
this word ** first" as containing worlds of import.
For this first has no last, and this beginning no
end. Here is a dawn that will never see a sun-
set; and God's first day of John xx. is precisely
as His first day of Genesis i. One day, one func-
tion, was His law of Creation. **Let there be
light" was the lone command of Earth's first
day. **And there was light" is the long, lone
blessedness of Resurrection's Eternal day.
*^ Cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was
yet dark/' She was early, yes, but God was
earlier. To the Soul's early there is ever God's
earlier. In the days of His flesh He was ever ris-
ing early and protesting, saying, *^Obey My
voice"; and now He who had risen early to
101
102 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES
preach, riseth early to save. Note, that this
**when it was yet dark" is the Morning-Star hour.
When He rose so shall we — *^ while it is yet
dark." No forty days will elapse between onr
rising and our ascending. To rise will be to
ascend.
^'And seeth the stone taken away from the
sepulchre/' In the might of Imperial Rome the
world as a unit, and the power of that world, was
headed up in Caesar. There was no King but
CsBsar, and no power like Caesar 's power. When,
therefore, Rome struck Christ's death-blow, all
the world's strength backed that blow. And as
the death, so, too, Christ's burial. As surely as
the Empire had killed Him, so surely did it mean
to patrol the tomb. King Caesar would await
King Corruption and then each would go his re-
spective way. This stone, then, ** great stone"
though it was, was not merely a woman's diffi-
culty. It was an Imperial fact. ^'Who shall roll
it awayf said they. Yet the real difficulty was
not a mere stone, however large, but Death 's real
gates of brass and bars of iron. They locked
Christ in, and not mere stone. Rome's iron nails
and soldier's spear had bolted the gates of brass;
be there big stone at the door, or no stone at all.
A RESUEEECTION REVERIE 103
And so this while-it-was-yet-dark vision of the
stone rolled away tells its own tale and another
tale also. The lesser is contained in the greater.
**The Breaker'' is Micah's name for Him, and
here the Lord earns it all. He hath broken the
gates of brass in Resurrection and cut the bars
of iron in sunder !
^^Then she runneth , . , So they (Peter and
John) ran together/' How suggestive an inau-
guration of the Resurrection! The Saints have
incentive; they run. God has outrun them; yet
would they run. And even so it ever was with
the Church. The memory of the empty tomb ever
vivifies His own. This made Gospelling so gladly
easy in the years 33-66 a. d. This constituted the
*^ Offence of the Cross''; for there the world's
power spent itself; and the Gospel of the opened
Tomb heaped humiliation on that vaunted power.
Where God struck the world its death-blow, so
even there the Church ever does so. Ah, empty
tomb, may we run because of thee !
^^She runneth to Simon Peter and the other
disciple, and they ran together J* Yes, running
indeed, but not to outsiders. That will be, and
soon enough. The Resurrection, first of all,
causes Christ's own to ^*run together"; to run
104 LOED'S SUPPER EEVERIES
to each other's hearts for commniiioii and help.
See that lovely miniature of what all this being
** together' ' may involve. **As they ran together
the other disciple did outrun Peter." How sim-
ply put and yet how unerringly. But not he who
is first exercises his rights as such. The first
at the tomb is the second to enter it. He
who is forward in running is backward in enter-
ing. And he is that disciple whom Jesus fondly
loved; he, who would rather be second in some
things and first in one thing. This one thing all
the Church owns to be his fond loving. He who
fondly loved was fondly loved. He loved Him
because He first loved us. Peter dared and John
loved; yet do we read that **they went away to
their own home/' dear brethren both of a dear
Lord.
In the running of fellowship there will always
be outstripping. But the kindly dignity of
outrunning consists in its resolve not to be first
in everything. It leaves something for some-
body else — '^that all might have a little."
''Simon Peter . . . went in; then went in also
that other disciple; and he saw and believed.''
It was what they did not see that agreed so di-
vinely with what they saw. This constitutes
A KESUERECTION REVERIE 105
believing. ^*We see not yet . . . but we see;''
even tbns doth God make Faith. ''We see Him
not," said Peter; yet do we see His stately go-
ings, and seeing we believe. The believing, it
must be most carefully noted, is all put down to
John's credit. They entered, ''but he believed."
Peter's thoughts are read for us by Luke when
he says that having beheld the linen clothes, Peter
departed, "wondering in himself at that which
was come to pass." Ah, how solemn! We can
have been first in and last to believe. "The first
shall be last." Love's eye alone can keenly de-
tect. Love is not blind, though a proverb says it.
Love only can see rightly. The Gospel, in fact,
hurries on to tell us that this believing was not
the belief of faith— faith in God's word. Saith
the record: "He saw and believed, for as yet
they knew not the Scripture." This is the be-
lief of love, not the belief of faith. God's hints
lead up to God's words. He who refuses the
■hint will get the word; but blessed is he who
taketh God's hints. Love ever does.
^^But Mary stood without weeping." Ah, now
we climb the heights! Not he who runneth, and
not he who entereth, but she who weepeth is
crowned. They are not going to get her reward;
106 LORD'S SUPPEE REVERIES
no man may take her crown! She gets Himself
— she who had been out betimes seeking Him while
it was yet dark. True, she never dreamed of
this, nor would we. We wonder why they did
not remember what He had told them. Ah, that
shows up not their unbelief but our own! They,
even now, are under the black cloud of Calvary;
their souls are shrouded in the horror of great
darkness. No empty tomb for them will mean
the long aching days of sorrow dragging out
ahead; the night getting bleaker and darker.
And so our wondering at all this only shows how
little a Calvary ours has been — ^how little a loss
we realise theirs had been. Looking across a
glorious Resurrection vista of nearly two thou-
sand years — in which Christ has been Head over
all things to the Church — ^how easy to criticise the
orphans who had neither Christ nor Paraclete!
Mary, then, was first, and first she shall be, said
her risen Lord. She who had experienced His
saving grace is honoured by first welcoming Him
back again. All has been tangled, and her only
relief is that of weeping. She, like the other
woman, would have wet His feet with those same
tears ; but now there are no feet to weep over, and
she weeps the tears of despair. And the tears
A EESURRECTION REVERIE 107
blind — blind so really that when He speaks to
iher she knows Him not. Supposes Him to be
the gardener, forsooth — oh, blinding tears! For
there are tears that blind metaphorically, even
as there are tears that clear the soul's vision.
She, too, had stooped in to see what the others
saw ; but her tears hindered her seeing what John
saw. God, then, must do His first godlike act
in Resurrection; do what He ever does to His
weeping Marys. He wipes away all their tears;
and that, too, with the old magic word of a hu-
man name; her name — ^^Mary!" And she — oh,
in a flash all is explained; and to show how well
she has learned her lesson she utters the lone
word **Rabboni!'' that is to say (if an interjec-
tion has any value at all), '*0h, what a Teacher!''
For the path has been winding and the discipline
severe, but all has been climaxed, even as our
lesson will be, with that one ascriptive word,
'^Rabboni!" **Who teacheth like Thee!"
*^Then the same day at evening, when the doors
were shut , . . came Jesus and stood in the
midst.'' The wonderful morning leads on to a
wonderful evening. They have shut out the Jews,
not the Lord. He who could not be shut in by
the Romans cannot be shut out by His own.
108 LORD'S SUPPEE REVERIES
Nay, but His own promise do they claim — ** Where
two or three are gathered together. " Look,
too, how they have left Him His rightful place
*'in the midst''; and look, too, how He claims it!
** Jesus stood in the midst." The promise made
is the promise kept.
IV
"BE STILL AND KNOW"
The Lord separates the sin that He hates from
the soul that He loves.
* * *
We live by dying to ourselves. We die hy
living to ourselves.
IV
"be still and know"
A Meditation on Psalm xlvi
Jehovah is indeed our God, our Refuge and our
Strength. Often, too, have we known Him as a
very present Help. Yet how far, far oftener it
has to candidly come to this: '^Be still, and
know that I, am God!'' His attributes are sound-
less and boundless, but back, ever back must we
come to Himself. This is life eternal, this the
Alpha and Omega in one — to know God.
Whether it be the witness of such an one as Paul
the aged, or Augustine, or Richard Baxter, the
word is ever the same — God, God, GOD, and that
I might know Him! But watch withal one tre-
mendous thing. The atmosphere of such a
knowledge is that war ever and inexorably pre-
cedes peace. *^Come, behold the works of Je-
hovah, what desolations He hath made'' — in
making peace! There is no birth without a
pang. There is no high hill but beside a deep
valley.
m
112 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES
I, a little bob-about of humanity, must be still
to know Him. Therefore He must make me still
with a solemn stillness. He wars with me for
my peace. ''From whence come wars," asks the
Apostle, ''if not from this old, old war — the soul
vEKsus God? Come therefore, behold the desola-
tions He hath made! Behold the trusty treas-
ures of His deep designs and see how in loyal love
God roareth as a lion in the path of His rebel
child." He had only this one way with THE
SON when He undertook our case; and He hath
no other way with the sons. God must desolate
me for my peace. He must cross His church be-
fore He can crown it. Come, then, behold not
only life's desolations, but also life's consola-
tions. After the desolation comes the consola-
tion. Look, too, at the specific details in our
Psalm of this peace-after-war postulate and how
it eventuates.
Firstly, He, the Holy Warrior God, breaketh
my rebel bow. Yes, the old bow that had hurled
many a dart at Him, our God. Now all is far
otherwise. His arrows are sharp in the heart of
the King's enemies. To emancipate. He must
needs subjugate.
Secondly, in bringing about the rebel soul's
*^BE STILL AND KNOW" 113
peace He cutteth the spear in sunder. Yes, my
old spear wherewith I pierced His wounded side,
cruel spear that wounded Him — ^but unto my heal-
ing ! . Best stroke of my God that snappeth it in
twain. Now it will pierce no longer. That
spear, though, is not wholly abandoned ; it is now
beaten into a pruning Jiooh, He only 'breaks the
spear to make it a pruning hook — emblem of
peace, yea, peace through direst, reddest war.
The old spear wherewith I stabbed my God I
now use to prune myself. Anon, too, it will prune
others, for what He tells me in darkness, that
must I speak in the light.
Thus, by the inexorable law of Cross-and-
Crown sequence we emerge upon these sweetest
of words, ^*BE STILL." I would not be still, so
He had to make me still. Come, behold the
desolations He hath made, all to this intent.
Here, a sick bed, there a hidden heart trial; and
everywhere, a cross for all who will ever wear a
crown.
^ ' The evening and morning were the first day. * '
And we will never, never have a divine day un-
less it be after the primal pattern of God's first
model one. The Devil's day is the opposite of
God's. The Satanic formula runs, ^'the morning
114 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES
and the evening make the diabolic day." Yes,
first the morning then the evening that never sees
a snnrise. With God our God the evening and
morning make a divine day !
**And know." Ah! they know best who have
battled with God and been defeated. '*! will be
exalted" is God's cry. So must man be laid
low; but not so low as ever the Son of Man lay.
And He who went lowest must be Highest. ^^I
will be exalted." So, too, shall we find like ex-
altation in like humiliation. The same word is
used for being ^ lifted up" on a cross and on a
throne and the same glorious Lord was lifted up
on both.
Thus we work out at the xlvi Psalm's lovely
end, which is really its beginning too. There is a
secret key and that key lies in the mention of
Jacob's name. For every mention of the phrase
*^God of Jacob" really means ^^God of (EVEN!)
Jacob! Yes, the God of even such a wriggling
cheat as he: *^The God of all Grace" and there-
fore 'Hhe God of (even) Jacob."
''The Lord of Hosts is with us, THE GOD OF
JACOB is our refuge," our ''high tower."
There is exaltation for Jacob and all his ilk!
^*BE STILL AND KNOW 115
The Lord of hosts is with us now, as surely as
He was against us with all His hosts to break and
subjugate us for our peace. Hence this abrupt
juxtaposition of ^*Lord of hosts*' and **God of
Jacob.*'
Yes, Jacob's name is the determining factor
here in the exegesis of this bitter-sweet Psalm.
For watch. Storm and calm, war and peace, is
Jacob's soul's history, as well as a world's. A
soul is a world, and as is the world, so is the soul,
to wit, Jacob's. As many as the sons of Adam,
so many the Jacobs. Watch this out with Jacob 's
name and history as a key.
Ah ! God had indeed to desolate this Jacob ere
he could consolate him. Come, behold the works
of the Lord in this Jacob. Come, behold him
broken, indeed, at last by life's Jabbok; lamed
for life, but, oh, so peaceful now! Broken at
last the old cunning Jacob bow, cut asunder the
unerring spear of his youth! And as by that
brook Jabbok he battled along, God did say to
him in love as a nurse to a weary child, ^^Be still
and know that I am God. ' '
Now it is all over, and after blackest night
breaketh morning clear and fair at last. A holy
116 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES
war, indeed, that would thus subjugate our rebel
soul unto Thee, our God !
*'Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, 0 Most
Mighty, and in Thy majesty ride prosperously!''
V
"PEIVATELY"
In a mountain the law was propounded to
Moses; in a mountain the law was expounded by
Jesus.
* * «
The former to a man of God, the latter hy the
Son of God, The one to a Prophet of the Lord,
the other by the Lord of the Prophets,
V
*^ privately": a one word bible study
Mark vL 32; Matt, xxiv, 3
Glancing at the New Testament we see this ad-
verb in close and ahnost sole association with
two significant nouns — * ^ mountain ' ' and * * desert. ' '
There, on *Hhe high mountain apart,'' or in ^^the
desert place," He appoints the trysting-place
with the saints. Surely here is a holy hint that
God embraces the extremes of life. This double
trysting-place of mountain and desert is His own
royal rebuke to the old lie, that *'The Lord is God
of the hills but He is not God of the valleys."
I
Watch Mark's first use of the word. The sent-
ones have come back to the Sender. Where the
words of the King had gone there had been power,
and they who had seen much of man must now
see much of the Master. So to the desert they
must go — to Christ's retreat from the strife of
tongues. That place of His Temptation is to be
119
120 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES
the place of their rest ; where the Christ was with
the wild beasts, even there He gathers the lambs
of His flock for rest (Heb. iv. 9).
^^God hath His deserts broad and "brown —
A solitude — a sea of sand
Where He doth let heaven's curtain down,
Unknit by His Almighty hand.''
To the desert, then, by ship they go; but as
though to mock the idea of hermitic solitude, the
crowd take the short cut by land, and lo, the
desert is no longer desert !
What then? What, indeed, if not a feast, a
table in the wilderness *? He who was forty days
and nights in the wilderness without bread, will
not let them go hungry an hour. For this invi-
tation to come apart shows that Christ had re-
solved to feast them bountifully in the desert.
They, who had no ** leisure so much as to eat,''
must come apart to rest, and the resting consists
in the feasting and the giving others to feast.
Here, then, the Master teaches them the double
lesson, that while to be apart privately is the
soul's deepest need, it is no easy thing in this
desert of life to get apart with Him.
Moral: How many a short cut the world
knows, by which to invade our calm of soul !
^TEIVATELY'* 121
II
But the Teacher must finish the lesson. He is
the perfect Teacher, because He perfectly lives
His own homily. Not even the apostles may
break into His privacy. Disbanding the ranks
of hundreds and ranks of fifties, He sends them
away back again to the bustle of their towns, and
even His own He constrains to depart in the ship
to the other side. For He who so suffered
this interruption of the desert-rest must needs
show them how much to be prized above all life's
prizes is aloneness with God. There, jutting up
into the blue sky is God 's mountain, and what the
desert denied Him of solitude the mountain af-
forded * ^ He went up into a mountain privately to
pray.'' Here, then, He teaches where this word
*^ privately" first leads us. Not to the united
prayer of saints, but to life's holiest of all-lone
prayer on the lone mountain.
'^God hath His mountains bleak and hare,
Where He doth hid us rest awhile;
Crags where we hreathe a purer air,
Lone peaks that catch the day's first smile."
Moral: By every legitimate human contriv-
ance we have to **set bounds about" this holy
mount of ours, that the people draw not nigh.
122 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES
m
The next ** privately" is still the mountain;
yea, a high mountain, and Christ on it with only
three, and not twelve, of His own. He does not
go where they may not come, and He would thus
lead them into His own way of living life. They
must know Him on the mountain as they could
never know Him in the desert. '*He bringeth
them up into a high mountain" privately, and
was transfigured before, alas, not them all, only
three, and so suggestively three too! Here is
divine irony indeed. For in all ages, not even in
the ratio of three in twelve, has Christ been a
transfigured Christ to His own.
Moral: How few Robert McCheynes and
George Miillers there are!
IV
Pursuing the track of this adverb, we see unity
of design, and find ourselves among the same
apostles who come ^^ privately" to their Lord
with the powerless query: '*Why could we not
east him out?" ''We" is emphatic, for who are
these, if not those who come back rejoicing that
even the devils were subject to them? ''We, oh,
we! Where is our old-time power?" What a
^^PEIVATELY" 123
private affair this is! How often we publicly
lament our impotence when the remedy is all in
our private life. The question they ask in secret
is, however, answered by Christ on the house-
tops for the Church in all ages to hear: ** Be-
cause of your unbelief." Ah, no wonder the
power is lost! Power means publicity as to its
exercise, and as night wars with day, so pub-
licity wars with privacy.
Moral: How common the swing of the pen-
dulum from power to poverty!
v
And, granted the power bestowed, what so
necessary as the last use of our adverb? They
are about to be left on this earth the chosen cus-
todians of Christ's truth. From their lips and
pens will come anon the divine **form of sound
words, ' ' and they, in turn, will transmit the same
as a divine unit to faithful men who will be able
also to teach others. How necessary then for
them, as for all of us, to spurn human creeds,
and approach Christ privately on the matter of
His own teaching. **The disciples came unto
Him privately, saying, Tell us when these things
shall be.'' Not to particularise prophecy
124 LORD'S SUPPER REVERIES
(tliougli well we migM), how little, indeed, is
Christ permitted to preach His own truth pri-
vately to His own ! Nay, He is not spicy enough
for itching ears, and the puhlic ministry of the
Word often supersedes such private divine tui-
tion as He loves to give. Yet as now, so in all
ages, the greatest need is to be in private au-
dience of our God, that the good "Word of promise
may be fulfilled in us: *^They shall be taught of
God."
It was only Paul for the desert and the desert
for Paul that saved the faith from black havoc
while yet in its infancy. There in the desert, far
from the madding crowd, not only of sinners but
of saints, God needs Paul as Paul needs God.
Yes, and the saints of the madding crowd need
Paul too. Even in this holy matter of getting
alone with God, he must supply their lack of serv-
ice. Paul was allured into Arabia with the
promise: **They shall be all taught of God.'*
Did he regret going? See him emerging from it
all with a shining face, and listen to his shout:
' ' Who teacheth like Thee ! ' '
Moral: It is written: **They shall be all
taught of God.''
VI
CEETITUDE
'' Some men "believe their doubts and doubt
their beliefs."
m * ne
Said Christ to Thomas: Ye know.
Said Thomas to Christ: We know not.
VI
CERTITUDE
John xiv. 4
*^ Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know."
Listen to the certainty of it all from Him who
knows the hmnan heart better than it knows itself.
But the word of Faith rings back as nsnal only
the hollow, sepulchral note of Unbelief. And God
would thus unmask unbelief before our eyes. So
in sharp sorry juxtaposition He puts the word of
Faith over against the word of Unbelief —
* * Whither I go *^ We know not
y^ hnow,^' whither."
Again —
**The way ye ''How can we know
know," the way?"
Ah! Christ knows them better than they know
themselves. Thomas really knows a thing that
Thomas thinks he does not know. For Thomas
has a ''My Lord" and a ''My God" who knows
Thomas better than Thomas knows himself.
127
128 LOED'S SUPPER REVERIES
I
Note the real root-reason of it all. Their
'' whither' ' was as usual only an it. It, that
is, heaven — a locality; and it — the hard, theo-
retical way thither. And, of course, sought by
the search of sense, neither it, the Goal, nor it,
the Way thereto, was found. He is found of them
that seek Him not; and the remedy, which is an
old one, was immediately applied.
The Father is the blessed *^ Whither" of our
soul's pilgrimage, and the **Way'' is Christ the
Son — a new and living Way. Yes, **I am the
Way, ' ' not to heaven, the locality, but to the Per-
son, the Father. For what saith St. John?
Right down the long fourteenth chapter of John,
and on and on through the wondrous fifteenth, the
longer sixteenth and hallowed seventeenth chap-
ters, it is not Heaven this or Heaven that but the
Son going to the Father. Yes, and the Son lead-
ing many sons.
But the purpose of this, which we may call the
Thomas interlude of the chapter, we shall alto-
gether misunderstand if we proceed forthwith to
^'Poor Thomas!" him without seeing all that is
involved as to the latent unbelief of the heart.
Here, then, is a man — a typical and true man,
CERTITUDE 129
frankly standing forth as the spokesman of our
fallen race. He has denied the Way, and bound
up with that denial is this other — that of the
Truth.
Look at the blunt ^*We know not" frowning
over against the gracious **Ye know.'' Thomas
has believed his doubts and as a result has doubted
his beliefs. Christ is positive ; so Thomas is not.
Aye, and Thomas, plus a million of his ilk, can be
positive when Christ is not. The Gospel is a reve-
lation ^'from faith to faith," i.e. of heights and
heights of faith. Yes, and one has truly said it
is a revelation of ' ^depths and depths of unbelief. "
Yet the Christ, who cannot lie, says, **I have
told you, Thomas — I, whose yea has been ever
yea, and whose nay, ever nay — that I am the "Way
and the Truth. Moreover, Thomas, I have been
speaking of leaving you — of going to the Father,
and that to you in plain Galilean speech is, I am
going to die. And having died, yea, though I shall
rise again, thou, Thomas (7 see it coming!) thou
wilt not believe it. Yet, Thomas, I am ^the Way ' ;
I am *the Truth'; yea, verily, I am *the Life' and
death cannot hold its prey ! ' '
This Thomas interlude, though broken into by
Philip's query, is merely adjourned for a few
130 LOED^S SUPPEK REVERIES
days. Wondrous days indeed, for therein God
has ^* brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus,
that Great Shepherd of the sheep."
And now forth He stands who was dead and is
alive again — ^living after the power of an endless
life. And in chapter xx. Thomas is commanded
to make an end of the matter, yes^ that old matter
begun hy himself in this fourteenth chapter. Best
doubter, he is now best believer; and ^*My Lord
and my God ! ' ' ends the solemn matter. To him,
the Way, and the Truth, and the Life, are a peer-
less Person, whom to believe is bliss.
And now for our side of this subject. Away, He
has gone into the glory — gone to the Father — the
Way indeed, and the Life indeed.
And cheering the pilgrim's path as he travels
through the night is the central fact — He is the
Truth. This is the reason why the names Way
and Life flank the very vital name of Truth. Cen-
turies are going to pass, and still He is going
to sit, **from henceforth expecting," upon the
Throne.
And still the night will grow blacker as souls
journey on to Him, **Whom having not seen they
CERTITUDE 131
loyally love. The very blackness of the night
seems to feed the jflame of sedition and many a
time we out-Thomas Thomas with our *^We know
not." But God knows His timid Thomases better
than they know themselves. With royal reitera-
tion and through life's gathering gloom He, our
Lord, sends back on us His eager and earnest ''Ye
know'^ right in the teeth of our blundering-in-the-
dark ''We know not/' And, surely, Thomas
would be well and wisely advised to believe in a
cock-sure Lord rather than in a cock-sure Thomas.
Jeremiah was a **heart" man hence his tears,
yet he it was who said, *Hhe heart . . . who can
know it?" Then it was a jealous God answered
this **who can know it" challenge of His pro-
foundly puzzled Jeremiah. '*! the Lord search
the heart." *^The Lord knoweth the heart."
And the God who knows me better than I, John
Smith, know myself, this God it is who sweetly
tells me that I really know the very thing that I
timidly and Thomas-like think I do not know.
in
And this God is our God for ever and ever, He
will be our Guide even *^over" (see Hebrew)
death. For note this. He loves us for the good
132 LOED^S SUPPEE EEVEEIES
that is in us — and because He put it there. * ' That
good thing committed unto thee keep . . . !" It
is not merely that we believe in Christ but that
He believes in us. And He never believes in
us better than when we least believe in our-
selves. It is not merely that we hope in Christ
but that Christ is in us the Hope of Glory
hoping His own Hope and believing His own
Belief. We do not hold it, the truth — a dogma.
But He, The Truth, a Person, holds us. And just
as mere dogma is not good enough for us so is it
not good enough for Him. He must have more
than talk. If we talk the talk we must live the life.
Let me conclude thus.
Paul once nearly blundered into this thing but
he did not. The God who keepeth the feet of His
Saints also keeps the pen of His Apostle when
writing to the Galatians. I repeat he almost
blundered but he decidedly did not. Writing
them an Epistle he said, *' After that ye knew
God — " and then Paul pulled up sharp. *'If
this is not modified," mused the Apostle, **then
the right point of view will be missed." So the
Pauline pen runs royally on and without deleting
a word he redeems and regulates the phrase.
* ^ After that ye knew God ob bather (I'll put it the
CEETITUDE 133
proper way!) were known of God." *'I do not,"
says Paul, * Hake it back, but I almost want to. It
is not your knowing God but it is God's knowing
you.
BOOK III
MISSION STUDIES
I
"SO THEY TOOK THE MONET''
When the widow gave her last two mites, this
is what she thought. Said she, ^'Whatsoever I
receive is a token of God's love to me. There-
fore I part with it contentedly as a token of my
love to Him!''
I
*'S0 THEY TOOK THE MONEY"
Matt, xxviii. 15
Nay, they did more. *^They took the money and
did as they were taught.'' Now there is point
in these words undoubtedly ; but there is far more
point in their context. For here, at the end of
Matthew, the gospel record is closing and the
gospel preaching is beginning. Now the above
words occur, not merely in Matthew's last chap-
ter, but also hard before Christ's last command.
There is a transition here far too abrupt not to be
intentional. Here is Satan propagating the lie,
and here, too, is the Christ propagating the Truth.
Here are Satan's great money methods of propa-
ganda unveiled before us ; here, too, the Christ's.
Satan seems sure of one thing, that money will
do what he wants. Had he not specifically hired
Apostle No. 12 for a stated sum? And why not
a batch of Caesar's men?
137
138 MISSION STUDIES
I
Let lis now contrast these two commissions, for
curiously where the Church has only seen one
commission, there are in reality two. A glance
shows us the deep subtlety of it all. Here in
sharp juxtaposition we see the lie and also the
truth.
Watch, I say, these rival Missions with their
rival methods.
The Christ ordains that they must do all things
whatsoever He has commanded them.
The Liar claims a like obedience for they '*did
as they were taught."
The Christ proclaims the promise that He will
personally back all his servants, saying, **Lo I
(even I, emphatic) am with you alway.''
The Liar likewise saith to his devotees: Do
the deed : sow the sinful seed and if this come to
the Governor's ears lo! we will stand by you
alway.
The Christ by way of a salary giveth them not
mere money (no mention of it even!) but He gives
them Himself. * ^ I 'm your Salary ! ' '
The Liar lures them on with large money for it
is a large lie. Large? Yes I but Christ went far-
ther and gave not mere money but Himself.
*^S0 THEY TOOK THE MONEY '^ 139
II
Look closely now at this resurrection-lie, and
see if it is not the head and front of all Satan's
offending. For the Eesurrection is Heaven's
ALL, even as it is the Church's breath of life.
Look, too, at this salaried lie, as to its actual
words. Saith Satan in effect : ** Say ye. His dis-
ciples stole Him away; . . . and, if this come to
the governor's ears, I will stand by you, I will
not desert you!" *^So they took the money and
did as they were taught."
Is there nothing suggestive, I ask, in the fact
that Christ commissions His church to go thou-
sands of miles and yet never hints about the
needed money en routed Passage money for thou-
sands of saints going thousands of miles is easily
involved in this commission: Go ye into all the
world. I repeat this ^*ye" means many, many
men; this ^'all" means many, many miles. Yes,
and this **ye" plus this **all" means money,
many millions of money ! Yet He never even men-
tions mere money in the concise context where
Satan in his lie-commission makes money! money!
loom so large. 0 ! give me The Christ for divine
methods in His divine service.
Then does He ignore the whole question of
140 MISSION STUDIES
money? Nay! there is no question at all about
it for the less is included in the greater. ^ ^ Go ye, "
saith this living loving Lord, * ' and lo ! I am with
you to run the whole concern and pay all the
hills J'
Of course, the salary was a large one. *^They
gave large money unto the soldiers." The
Resurrection was Satan's extremity; hence this
large money for a large work. True, there are
hundreds the broad world over who do a large
enough work for Satan without receiving a large
wage. Man's extremity is the hour of Satan's
parsimony. Satan's bounty ever tells of his own
extremity.
Take, for example, the daring attack upon our
Lord in the wilderness. There Satan reckoned
upon the Son of Man's extremity; yes, reckoned
that mere creature hunger would eventuate in
capitulation. But God knoweth no extremity,
nor God's Man either. Yet note the fact and
tremble. Satan tempted even the Son of God
with a crust of bread!
The large money was for a large work, and
see how well they worked. Alas, how well men
labour for him who labours not for them. Saith
Matthew, **They did as they were taught, and
*^S0 THEY TOOK THE MONEY'' 141
this saying is commonly reported . . , to this
day," Here tlien we behold Zeal on a salary —
prepaid, too, according to tlie words of the Lord
Jesus, *'They have their reward."
in
Look now in conclusion at this resurrection-lie
and see how unerringly Christ combats same.
Saith the Liar : Say, they stole Him away.
Saith the Truth: Lo! I {even I, emphatic) am
with you to give this lie its death-blow.
Saith the Liar : Say, they stole Him away.
Saith the Truth: This will shame even the
Devil : Me ? they could not steal Me away, for lo !
I am with you in person to nail down the resurrec-
tion-lie with the resurrection-truth of my Eeal
Presence with you.
Ah! heart of mine, how often thou forgettest
that the resurrection is not a mere event in history,
but a person. Not a creed about Christ it is The
Christ. Nay, not mere windy word- wrangling can
settle this subject. He can only treat this lie the
way many a good man has to meet a dark, dirty
lie against his own private honour. He must
(not talk it down !), he must live it down. And as
Christ's so The Christ. He is with us in peerless,
142 MISSION STUDIES
powerful person to live down the Jewisli lie about
His resurrection.
Shall we venture now to deny that here, in
such abrupt contrast, there is no significance in
Christ's absolutely ignoring the word money in
His last command! In Satan's propaganda it is
the word that ever bulks so largely. But for that
there would have been no need for Matthew's
pathetic phrase, **Then the eleven disciples" —
the unity of the twelve broken by the god Mam-
mon! Moreover, the mournful declension of this
Judas — seceding, too, on such a poor wage as
from £3 to £4 — surely indicates what a poor
earthly store was theirs who had treasure in
Heaven. ** Silver and gold have I none," said
Peter, ^'but such as I have, give I thee."
''But such as I havef Yes, Peter thou hast
the living, loyal Lord who not only pays your way
but presences the way. And His pay is His
presence !
^'And they went forth and preached every-
where, the Lord working with them."
n
"THE LAW OF FAITH"
// faith in God gives us our Eternal life why
should not faith in Him give us our morning
meal?
* * *
We boast of being so practical a people that we
want to have a surer thing than faith. But did
not Paul say that the promise was by FAITH
that it might be SUBEf
n
Bom. ill. 27
Writing, as Paul does in his Epistle to the Eo-
mans, to a great legal nation, how appropriate is
his frequent mention of Law. Among those Eo-
mans Law was held in such high honour that the
echo of the Eoman Code can be heard even in
a British Court of Justice to-day. How ap-
propriate, then, we repeat, that Paul's language
should be framed in such precise diction as
would be understood by a Eoman lawyer. Surely
the sublime and logical sequence of PauPs every
* therefore" and ^^ wherefore" is a true echo of
their own later language of the Forum. Thus we
learn that the Paul of Mars Hill in Greece can
prove himself to be a Eoman to the Eomans, even
as he was then on that Athens Hill a Greek to the
Greeks. As surely as the home of stem law was
away there in the heart of Eome — law that
grasped and unified the Empire with an iron
hand — even so in all tlie great Epistle to the Eo-
145
146 MISSION STUDIES
mans, the word law is found dominating and
dwarfing all other issues. The more than sixty-
references in Romans, for instance, to the law of
Sinai are so obvious that we need not now con-
sider them in detail. Such mentions of Sinai
law, vital though they be, and forming as they
do Paul's basis of God's gospel, we do not dwell
upon. It is with another and almost curious
mention of law that we are now concerned. In
this, it will be seen that Roman Paul is still cling-
ing to the imagery of law, the very use of the
word in its newness and power adding illumina-
tion to the subject, while at the same time con-
ciliating Roman ears. One such powerful phrase
is: *^The Law of Faith."
Note, then, the blessed fact, that Paul is such a
Roman to the Romans that he preaches faith as a
law. Faith, so definitely in contrast with law all
through Paul's Epistles, is yet declared to be a
law. '^By what Law!" asks the Apostle, and we
can almost see the genial smile of his answer,
^^By the Law of Faith." To Paul, what a wealth
of authority lies behind his proclamation, as the
Christ's ambassador, of the law of faith. Many
^^THE LAW OF FAITH" 147
a pro-consul and procurator had he seen flourish
an imperial edict in the teeth of a lawless mob,
and to Paul, in this solemn concern of the law of
faith, was not God commanding all men every-
where to repent? If PauPs theme was **the
Kingdom of God'' (Acts xxviii. 31), then, surely
this was a royal edict. Eeaching the metropolis
as he ultimately did, the last glimpse we have of
him in Acts is as ** preaching the kingdom of God,
no man forbidding him." And the kingdom of
God, to Paul, meant the sphere in which God's
Law of Faith was regnant. Through him God
was commanding all men everywhere to repent
from their law-breaking, much more insistently
than any Eoman official could claim obedience for
his Emperor.
Faith, as a law, however, had a fuller import
than its commandment aspect. To the Apostle
this law necessarily excluded much, while it in-
cluded much. As an edict, the same Law of Faith
that embraced all men everywhere, just as sweep-
ingly rejected all man's vain boasting. Boast-
ing is excluded, not by whim, but by law — *Hhe
Law of Faith." For the Law of Faith is the
law of brokenness of spirit, of emptiness, of hu-
mility. And where is boasting here, if not ex-
148 MISSION STUDIES
eluded? The inflexible demand of the law of
emptiness is that it excludes fulness, even as
brokenness and humility are eternally at war
with pride. So inexorable are these laws, that
they operated before time was, and drove Satan
out of heaven. Boasting, alias Satan, was ex-
cluded.
Faith is a rock, is certitude, is supremely the
sure thing in life. Faith is law, not mist, not
mere talk, not dream. It is the only sure thing
in the world. This is God's guarantee, as it were,
why the Bristol Orphan Homes continue. This,
too, is the reason why all who truly tread the
path of faith are sure of unerring supply. God
is under law to support them, and the watchwords
of such a law are ^^shalP' and ^^must." The
only link that binds us to the eternity of God and
His steadfast throne is this Law of Faith. Every
'' shall" and ^^must" in the treasure house of
God is the portion of Faith. There is nothing
uncertain in the Law of Faith. The future is
merely uncertain in our ignorance of it. "With
our God the future is, and thus faith is under
glorious law, and never can '^draw a blank."
Faith is the evidence of things not seen.
^^THE LAW OF FAITH ^' 149
**His methods are sublime,
His ways supremely kind;
God never is before His time,
And never is behind/*
II
So definite a thing is this Law of Faith that the
Apostle John boldly shows it to be universal even
among shrewd men of the world. He declares
that, even in the low plane of human affairs, faith
as between man and man is utterly indispensable
to a day's life in the world. It is the native at-
mosphere of the human family right across the
globe. It is the cement that binds the social fab-
ric in unity. So sure is the Apostle John of
this that he boldly argues from this very law of
mutual human faith to the higher Divine faith.
**If we receive the witness of men, the witness of
God is greater.'' Nor does John end here. Such
definite leverage does the Apostle see here for the
Gospel plea, that he returns to it again under an-
other form; ^^He that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom
he hath not seen I" Thus it is that God turns the
world's anti-faith laugh against itself, reminding
shrewd men and women that the poorest invest-
150 MISSION STUDIES
ment is the one that ignores God and His Law of
Faith. For they who have not faith, yet show
the work of that Law of Faith written in their
hearts in the very fact that human mutnal faith
is the fundamental law of even such a vital theme
as commerce.
Boasting is excluded by the Law of Faith, says
Paul, and so too is bankruptcy. God only ex-
cludes in order that He may abound in including.
He excludes the sight of human eyeballs, only to
give the soul the piercing falcon gaze of faith.
The arm of flesh is disowned only to make bare
**the Arm of the Lord.'' Truly he need be no
weakling of a missionary who is fully subject to
this law. Funds will flow in according to Divine
law. '* Lacked ye anything?" once asked the
God of this law. ** Nothing!" was the answer of
His own — the answer of the ages.
I like to think of a hidden subtle suggestion
there seems to be in this phrase, '*Law of Faith,"
that, after all, law is law, whether for my eternal
life or my daily meal. The same Law of Faith
governs both; even such a stately law as that of
Divine supply. David surely felt the wide grasp
of this law when in one breath he praised God for
binding up the wounds of the broken in heart and
^^THE LAW OF FAITH'' 151
telling the number of the stars! (Ps. cxlvii. 3, 4).
A word of cheer, this, surely, to all who are
trimming the little lamps of testimony in dark
heathen corners of the earth. The God who
lights a myriad of burning worlds will keep the
little mission lamp alight unto His praise. So
exact and sure are God's ways with us that the
final sum of them all is **the length and the
breadth and the height of it are equal."
Ill
Finally, what shall we say of such an unwaver-
ing Law of Faith, if not that here, indeed, we
touch the bed-rock of Christianity. The cring-
ing flesh sees only irritating indefiniteness in
Faith as a business basis in life's varied and puz-
zling affairs. God's most splendid certainty that
subdued kingdoms and stopped the mouths of
lions is to the flesh no law at all ! But the saved
soul knows far otherwise. Finding Faith a glori-
ous law operating unto its own life everlasting,
surely such a soul sees, in a flash, the Divine law
of heaven's lesser being contained in heaven's
greater, and as a result will step out with
alacrity on the bare promise of God for all.
Surely, just here, we find Paul 's reason why his
152 MISSION STUDIES
only reference to Faith as a Law is when he
declares that it excludes all human boasting.
Man^s spasmodic and halting actions are here con-
fronted by the serene certainties of faith. Faith
ever pursues its own calm and supreme function
in the universe of God, spurning all man's clever
little plans and by-laws as its handmaids. There
is not a child of God but sees that it is only the
naked soul stripped of pretence that claims faith's
blessing. And so, too, in all the operations of
that law, whether for bread of soul or bread of
body. As we received Christ Jesus the Lord,
even so must we walk in Him. He is Lord of
soul and body, and filleth all things. Beginning
in the Spirit, how impoverished must be the faith
that seeks to perfect any part of God's work in
the flesh. Thus it is that Paul has no other argu-
ment of rebuke to those Galatians than the simple
yet solid query as to how they received their
eternal life. And if by faith, your eternal life,
saith Paul, then, 0 Galatians, why not live your
earthly life thereby? The eternal life came to
their souls by faith, and the earthly life of testi-
mony must be lived by the same faith. Otherwise
it is foolishness: ^*Are ye so foolish!" Pre-
cisely the commiserating word many a worldly
^*THE LAW OF FAITH'* 153
relative throws after a departing kinsman wlio
plunges into heathenism trusting God only for
supplies. And this, too, is Paul's precise retort
to all who swerve from the path of Faith: **Are
ye so foolish?"
A goodly band in London many years ago was
being farewelled to other lands. Text after text
was given to us with the godly desire to make
them our soul's portion. Finally rose the beloved
M'Vicker with Bible open at the first chapter of
Genesis: *^ God made two great lights. ... He
made the stars also!"
And thus were we sped on our way to distant
lands with the glad belief that ''He who spared
not His own son . . . how shall He not with Him
also, freely give us all things'?" ''Lacked ye
anything?" And they said "Nothing!" Surely
nothing less than a serene, uwavering Law of
Faith operating by night and day could guarantee
such a sure supply.
in
"THE CERTAINTIES OF FAITH"
^^Tou know the hopelessness of such a tasJc
(as African Missiom) till you find a St. Paul or
a St. John, Their representatives nowadays
want so much per year and a contract.' '
General Gordon to Sir Richard Burton.
ni
"the cektainties of faith"
Rom, iv. 16
A MISSIONARY friend not long ago expostulated
with me, as a married man, for not having a
salary. Something sure was his idea. On that
occasion God spoke from His Word to both of
us on the salary subject. What settled the mat-
ter as to Faith being the only definite thing God-
ward was the following word, — * * The promise was
by Faith that it might be sure." There we have
the whole subject. The only sure thing is Faith.
The thing in my purse or in my hand is not sure.
An old platitude, no doubt, is this creature-hum-
bling, Christ-exalting Gospel, but it is well to
sound out the call, *^Wake brethren, wake."
We are thus led on in what is positively sure
as against what is not sure. The only sure thing
is that purposed thing God has stored up in His
own heart for me. My bank is God's heart. My
pillow is His bosom.
We certainly travesty this gracious word of
157
158 MISSION STUDIES
God, ** purpose/' when we use it concerning high-
sounding phrases as to everlasting heaven and
happiness, and disown it as to the plenishing of
the homely cuphoard. Tremblingly we can write
the phrase — the eternal purpose of God concern-
ing to-day's meal ! For God's purpose to usward
is exactly like the third chapter of Colossians.
It begins in heaven, as Mr. Spurgeon said, and
ends in the kitchen. It speaks of the heavenlies
and descends to the earthlies. ^*It is of Faith
that it might be sure."
This brings us to another consideration re-
garding the path of Faith. It was remarked by
my missionary friend to one of our number, that
we on the field should be relieved of the burden of
the money question, and left free for service.
This is so common and specious a mode of refer-
ring to the glorious life of Faith, that we should
nail it down as we meet it. No; none can have
Faith for me. Before high heaven I must my-
self have faith for myself. It is the only thing
another cannot do for me. Bread of my soul,
or bread of my body — I must trust Him for both.
(Of course they who trust not at all, often get
plenty of bread; but so do the ravens and young
lions.) If another can trust for me for my daily
^'THE CEETAINTIES OF FAITH" 159
bread, then lie can trust for me for my souPs
salvation. No committee can bear this burden
for me. Every man must bear his own burden,
in this matter, and that is where the Lord comes
in. **Cast thy burden upon the Lord" was writ-
ten for just such a one.
A close exegesis of the sixth chapter of Ga-
latians, so full of a true balance and combination
of qualities, would doubtless show that the precise
man to whom the words '* Every man shall bear
his own burden" refer, is a teacher, looking only
to the Lord for temporalities. This we shall see
anon. The Lord wants me to cast my burden
upon Him, not on a committee. Every man shall
bear his own burden up to the Lord, upon whom
he rolls it. In the sixth chapter of Galatians the
whole subject is revealed. Matters being there
put in their true sequence, and every man being
burdened with his own responsibility, God's rule
of practical, fraternal stewardship flashes into
full view. It can only now come into view. He
fixes me with my burden, and then, lo, in full view,
stand the brethren bearing one another's burdens.
There stands the brother who could not go to a
foreign land, so you fulfilled his lack of service.
And he met your lack as you had met his. He
160 MISSION STUDIES
bears you up in prayer, too — no light burden that
— and you seek to serve on God's upbearing grace.
In Gal. vi. 6, insert Paul's omitted ''but," and
how luminous the link becomes. ''Each man
shall bear his own burden, but let him that is
taught in the Word communicate unto him that
teacheth in all good things."
Do we not see here the holy fellowship of
stewardship in that linking but? Souls are
linked to souls in a deeper sense than words link
words. Every man must look off to God for all ;
yes, BUT every man is to look on the things of
others. There is no haphazard exegesis here, we
submit. The man who "teacheth" is the central
figure. That man must bear his own burden ; no
committee can do it for him. Yet, hastens the
Holy Ghost to add, each man must bear his own
burden, hut let him that is taught in the Word
communicate unto him that teacheth in all good
things. Widow's mite, spices of Joseph, and
Gains' hospitality all echo thereto.
They went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles ;
therefore let him that is "taught in the Word"
succour. Paul speaks of the Gentiles as those who
have not the law. From them who know not the
Word, nothing is received; hut let him that is
^^THE CEETAINTIES OF FAITH'' 161
taught communicate. The servant has often,
manwardly, been left to bear his own burden by
those who forget to bear one another's burdens.
There was no link, no connecting stewardship.
Paul's rallying call in this holy particular is
indeed inspiring, and often misunderstood. '^Be
not deceived" by parsimoniousness, shouts the
Apostle. *^God is not mocked. Whatsoever a
man soweth, that shall he also reap." God's best
Sower went forth weeping, bearing precious seed.
And as He sowed so shall He also reap.
It behoves us, having thus struck such a high
apostolic note, to be found of our God truly out
in the sunlight of this path of Faith. Nothing
shady; nothing halting in our gait. How often
the very phrase, ^'living by Faith," is in itself a
thing of calculation and counterfeit. How often
it stands, not for guileless following of the Home-
less Stranger, but for fleshly shifts and contri-
vances. Sincerity is the cement that binds the
Christian testimony together. Surely it is the
mother of all hypocrisy to claim to have taken a
plunge into the ocean of the Lord when, as a
matter of fact, we are really swimming with one
foot aground on the shore margin.
This metaphor is literally used concerning
162 MISSION STUDIES
Abraham, God's friend — the father of all who
believe. God covenanted with His friend to give
him the land by the word of His month. Yet of
the tangible land itself we thrillingly read that
He gave him '^no, not so mnch as to set his foot
on.'' So, too, with the children of God's friend.
We must go forth like onr father, not knowing
whither we are going. To be literal, we must,
humanly speaking, let ourselves drown, reserving,
no, not so much as a place to put our foot on.
A prearranged contract of salary might be too
large, or too small. To have even a semblance
of a contract makes it all the more false if we
walk in the steps of the faith of our father Abra-
ham. Not even so much as to set your foot on.
Not even a little bit of a Society about you. Is
all this too sweeping? Has Faith then no foot-
ing at all! Yes, and it is located in that very
same Scripture. Here it is: **He gave him
. . . not so much as to set his foot on; yet He
PEOMisED." And the promise is Faith's footing.
**It is of Faith that it might be sure."
In conclusion, it would be well to answer the
question as to what particular Scripture stands
definitely against a legal contract of salary in the
Lord's work. We have only to refer to the other
^^THE CEETAINTIES OF FAITH »' 163
half of that very same word in Eom. iv. 14.
There the Apostle is careful to discriminate, and
to him law and flesh are convertible terms. For,
saith the Apostle, if the Promise be of law, then
Faith is made void, and the Promise is of none
effect. Yes, even a very little bit of law, a very
small contract, a verbal understanding even — if
your money comes through such channels — then
Faith is made void, and the promise of none ef-
fect. Law, in this connection, is a contract in
which A undertakes to do so and so, and B re-
ciprocates with so and so. Along such lines,
whether for one's soul or one's salary, Faith is
made void. The fullest thing in all the economy
of grace (the fullest because the emptiest) is
made void, and God's promise returns to His own
heart unused.
The sum, then, of the whole matter is that he
alone is the really practical Christian who so acts.
The Faith that opens everlasting doors can best
prove its reality by being now, in time, a cup-
board Faith. Christ filleth all things, and there-
fore the barrel and cruse are of His filling too.
IV
ALL AT IT!
Why he surprised at Islam sweeping one-eighth
of the earth's surf ace f They have no priestly
cult; they are all at it!
# # #
*^All Christians are altogether priests and let
it he anathema to assert there is any other priest
tJian he who is Christian for it will he asserted
without the Word of God, on no authority hut
the sayings of men, or the antiquity of custom, or
the multitude of those that think so/'
Luther.
may
* « #
For ye all can prophesy one hy one that all
f learn, and all may he comforted.
Paul.
TV
ALL AT it!
John iv. 14 ; 1 Cor, xiv. 31
One of the strongest proofs that Christ meant
His Church to be a pilgrim band is the fact that
He stripped it of all ordinances, save the two
travelling institutions of Baptism and The Lord's
Supper. Wherever man is, there, even there, is
water. Wherever the pilgrim rests, there, even
there, is some sort of humble table in the wilder-
ness. A sharp intended contrast all this, surely, to
the heavy cumbersome Tabernacle furniture of a
past dispensation of works. How different the
pilgrim Church of the upper room, stripped and
lithe for service! There is no ecclesiastical
furniture for the only outfit they have is God's
iNFiT. That is to say, the minimum of machinery
and the maximimi of power.
In this connection, I am indebted to a quaint
unlettered African for quite a new proof-text
167
168 MISSION STUDIES
in favour of the *^all-at-it'' ministry so dis-
tinctive a feature of 1 Cor. xiv. That animated
photograph of open ministry in Corinth was
linked by the African with the wonderful fourth
chapter of John. On the one hand he showed
how the same Bantu word bound these two seem-
ingly very different chapters together. Lost in
Aryan speech, the link is still strong in Semitic;
and the ^^ bubbling up'' of a living water-spring
is the same word as that ^^ bubbling over" of gift
in Corinth. The Assembly is there seen as com-
posed of a congregation of so many living, bub-
bling water-springs. **He that believeth" is the
man of whom it is declared that in him the up-
bubbling spring would assert itself. Thus, the
animated photograph of Corinth given by Paul
is, therefore, only a natural sequence of ^*all that
believe being together." The God who created
so many living inlets, does of sheer divine neces-
sity saQction as many outlets. Hence the blessed
word of authority: **for ye all can prophesy (or
** bubble up") one by one." There is no ecclesi-
astical outfit in Corinth. It is all infit. And the
ordinance of God is, that what He puts in must
come out, ''We cannot but speak!" The thing
will out.
ALL AT IT! 169
Nor is that old unlettered African's link ex-
hausted yet awhile. Beyond the link of identical
language, you have the stronger link of identical
context. Surely the fourth of John is deeply con-
cerned with the very theme of 1 Cor. xiv.! For
were not the very words regarding the bubbling-
up spring of living water uttered in the specific
connection of Christ's words as to ''worship in
Spirit and in Truth"? And what, indeed, is 1
Cor. xiv. if not the divine snapshot photograph
of true and spiritual worship in the Assembly?
*'A11 of you have a hymn, etc." What is that if
not each individual well of living water bubbling
over? Living water only means moving water.
God put it in and God demands that it come out.
The water must spring up to the level of its
source, hence ''the Father seeketh such to wor-
ship Him." "Ye can all prophesy one by one."
"It shall be in him (in the Assembly) a well of
water springing up." How then can mere man
shut it down? "The Father seeketh such." Let
us all thank God, and that old African, for linking
John iv. with 1 Cor. xiv.; a double link of iden-
tical language and identical context. He was
right. Worship in Spirit and in Truth is the
170 MISSION STUDIES
double theme of these double chapters. The well
of water must bubble up if it is living water.
II
Now, all this can stand the sternest of scrutiny.
Let us bring to bear upon this humble vision of
bubbling springs in the Corinth Assembly the
severest test of all known ecclesiastical nomen-
clature. Take the most complicated of any form
of earthly worship. The most intricate of all
puzzling forms of human ritual shoots down its
roots into the solitary word, priesthood. Eome,
just here, remember, is the soul of frankness, and
heartily claims in priesthood the efficient cause of
all her elaborate ritual. Thus, the test becomes
unerringly simple, because pivoted on the lone
word, priesthood. Well, then, literally accepting
Eome's own dictum, and speaking in the terms of
ecclesiastical systems (for God had one such holy
institution!), what, I ask, is 1 Cor. xiv. if not a
vision of all the worshippers performing priestly
service? There they are, a family of priests,
with priestly status and office. **Ye can all
prophesy one by one,'* is divine authority con-
ceded to all those spiritual priests. The High
Priest has gone in, and they are left behind in
ALL AT IT! 171
wilderness testimony, priests unto their God.
^' All of you have a hymn'' — surely that is a sacri-
fice of praise f Now, only a priest, remember, can
offer a sacrifice !
To object, as some rightly do, that Paul here
regulates the said priestly sacrifices of praise is
merely to emphasise this very Levitical analogy.
For when, by the commandment of the Lord, Paul
said that they all could so offer the sacrifice of
praise, the priesthood of all believers was thereby
acknowledged. To regulate the godly exercise of
such ministry as he proceeds forthwith to do, is
merely to accentuate that very priestly aspect of
the Corinth Assembly. For the Levites were not
a mob, but served in orderly courses. Hence
Paul, by the commandment of the Lord, founds
on their very spiritual priesthood to declare that
all things must be done ** decently and in order."
The very Levitical phrase this, used in 1 Chron.
vi. 32 to remind us that, priests though they all
were, yet did they **wait on their office according
to their order.'' '^Ye can all prophesy one by
one." That is their Levite birthright. **Let
the prophets speak two or three." That is the
Levites in their courses. '^Ye can all prophesy
172 MISSION STUDIES
one by one" does not stupidly mean, ^^all in one
day'M
in
There is no cheap ad captandum analogy here.
The mere edge, this, of that rich vein of Levitical
analogy so beautifully elaborated by Miss Haber-
shon/ Quite one hundred and forty sober points
of analogy she adduces between the priesthood
of Israel and the Church of God! The inter-
penetration, too, of this analogy absolutely
perfect. In fact, after reading The Priests and
Levites, one sees at a glance that on this subject
he alone is divinely theological who is analogical.
The Pope and a quorum of Cardinals would have
hard work to try and explain away Miss Haber-
shon's solid one hundred and forty instances of
common analogical birthright between the select
Levites of old and all Christ's Church. Luther
it was, in the old fierce battle-days, who seized
upon this very 1 Cor. xiv. weapon to break
Popery therewith. Alas, that he should ever
have allowed himself to drift beyond such an an-
chorage! Nevertheless, Martin Luther's great
letter to the Moravian Brethren will ever stand
^ The Priests and Levites, a type of the Church, By
Ada R. Habershon. Alfred Holness.
ALL AT IT! 173
stubbornly on record, eloquent of the fact that,
when the tempest raged its worst, 1 Cor. xiv. was
the silencing weapon he wielded against Eome to
demonstrate the priesthood of all believers.
**A11 Christians," said Luther, **are altogether
priests and let it be anathema to assert there is
any other priest than he who is Christian for it
will be asserted without the Word of God and on
no authority but the sayings of men or the an-
tiquity of custom or the multitude of those that
think so." *^ Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but My words shall not pass away."
Why is it that so many exegetes under a
specious plea of rightly dividing the *^Word"
warn us off *^ Hebrews" as being a Jewish
Epistle f Is it because God has declared that the
whole Church of Christ is a priesthood, and
proved it to the hilt in one hundred and forty
stubborn links of analogy? And if all the Church
be a heavenly priesthood where is the laity 1 And
where the status of ^^clericy"? Truly a straw
indicates the current, and we are less Protestant
than we think.
The godly Pastor (and we must have Jiim!) is
the man who realises that he only officially exists
to foster this ^^all-at-it" functioning of the mem-
174 MISSION STUDIES
bers of the body. God's big-hearted Moses could
confound many a weakling jealous of his peurile
priestly prerogative. Listen to the royal record :
*^And there ran a young man and told Moses . . .
Eldad and Medad do prophesy in camp. And
Joshua said, ^My lord Moses, forbid them.' And
Moses said, *Art thou jealous for my sake?
Would God that all the Lord's people were
prophets that the Lord would put his Spirit upon
them!'"
Big-hearted Moses agrees admirably with brave-
hearted Paul who said ^ ^ Ye may all prophesy one
by one."
To sum up. To regulate all this bubbling up
gift is one thing. To supress it is quite amazingly
another. Why bring civil war into God's con-
test? In the very breath where He says ^^God is
not a God of confusion but of peace," the word
proceeds * ' Ye all can prophesy one by one. ' ' How
then can this connote confusion?
But the clinching and convincing proof is found
in the very (yes ! very) verse that is used to kill
out this same **all-at-it" ministry. What, I ask,
is so seemingly contradictory of this '^all-at-it"
proposition as the well-worn line, **Let all things
be done decently and in order"? Yet this very
ALL AT IT! 175
line occurs in the same convincing context as ^^ye
can all prophesy one by one" ! How, then, can we
even faintly conceive that '* decency and order"
are at war with its own context of ^*all-at-it"
ministry ?
On the convincing contrary, what can divine de-
cency and order mean if not this very open minis-
try which is its consistent contexts By what man-
ner of exegetical propriety can you enter 1 Cor.
xiv. by the back door of * * Let all things be done de-
cently and in order," and then calmly ignore the
preceding precept that ^*ye can all prophesy one
by one"? Here surely you have the old story of
David cutting off the head of Goliath with the
giant's own sword. And the very verse assumed
to be against is actually the proof-text for this
*^all-at-it" method.
This and this alone will evangelise the world
— all at it! Too long a mere nickname has
done duty for an argument. And to call this
''Plymouthism" or any other *4sm" is merely to
be the victim of an exasperated expedient. It is
the old obvious artifice of making a nickname do
duty for an argument. It takes all sorts of people
to make a world and all sorts of members to make
a ministering body. That there is a certain kind
176 MISSION STUDIES
of powerful, pungent illiteracy can be proved from
the inspired Word of God where not a few por-
tions are written in '*bad Greek." The pedantic
essayist may appeal to the select few, but God's
millions are multiform and the majority do not
care to catch up a royal rousing man on a mere
verbal technicality. The soft eye cannot say to
the hard, homy hand, ^^I have no need of thee."
Nay, much more, the very members which seem to
be more feeble are necessary. For the body is not
one member but many.
The case of Islam is a clear convincing proof
of a non-clerical caste sweeping one-eighth of the
world's population with an '*all-at-it" propa-
ganda. From Morocco to Zanzibar, from Sierra
Leone to Siberia and China, from Bosnia to New
Guinea has witnessed the success of ^^all-at-itism."
THE END
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11