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[All rights reserved.] [fsm PKINTBD AT THE TIMBS OPPICB, 34 QUBEN STREET, PARKDALB. PREFACE. making the following collection of articles on various Scripture subjects we are only carrying out thd design of the author. He had commenced the w;ork and spoken of it several times. Methinks, if he had got a glimpse into the future at the dawn of this year, the book would have been in the hands of friends and lovers of the truth some months ago. We believe the great enemy and deceiver tried in various ways to prevent the departed one using his pen ; he knew well how his ranks had been thinned through the pages of " Grace and Truth," and there- fore his wisdom was to try by all means to prevent anything of a similar aim being produced. The composition in many parts is blunt and homely. One literary friend wrote regarding it : " It is difficult to prune without hurting the vigour ; " so as we prefer having it in its native vigour, we rather give it to you unpruned. The title we have chosen is one which perhaps the Son of man, Who so often gave Himself this name, rejoices in more than any other. God commenced the seeking ; as soon as there was a wandering sinner to be sought, we hear, " Adam, where art thou ? " and it has never ceased since then. And now through these pages our desire and prayer is that many lost ones may be found and safely sheltered in the fold of the Good Shepherd. The Great Shepherd of the twenty-third Psalm, we believe, was more frequently preached upon than any other sub- ject in England, Scotland, Ireland, and America; it was i:i n ^\ _;^, VI Preface. always fresh and beautiful, suited to all classes and kinds of people, the aged and the youDg. " The Claims of the Man Jesus " was a subject that was studied and preached upon ten years ago ; there was mani- fest power and blessing on the evening on which it was first delivered. As the congregation were asked, " Who believes in this rejected Man ? " hundreds rose to their feet in testimony of their faith in Him. The study of " The Writing on the Cross " was done in student days twenty years ago ; may the Holy Ghost blees it to the strengthening of the faith of some in the precious Word which is our unerring chart ! The thoughts given on " The Name of God " and " His Name's Sake " comprise many years' study ; "His Name's Sake" was written about two years ago. We remember well the triumph with which the writer held it up in manu- script, because he always felt he had gained a victory when he got his fast-flowing thoughts vmtten on paper. " The Glory of God " was the subject of his last sermon on earth ; the one Lord's Day hie revelled in preaching on "The Glory," and the next he had entered the pearly gates and was beholding His glory. There was no theme that he more rejoiced in than God's exaltation. Man was nothing in his view, nowhere— a failure in every position ; but he had L'inse apprehension and appreciation of God. A friend said after enjoying his preaching for some months, " I have learned one thing since I came here, — I have learned to know God." As the voice is heard no more, may the printed pages have a similar result, and to His Name will be all the praise. M. L. MACKAT. 10, MORNINGSIDE DRIVE, Edinbubqb, Nov, 1885. CONTENTS. PREFACE ; y THE SEEKING SAVIOUR 1 THE GREAT SHEPHERD 15 " UNTIL " 26 SERVING AND FOLLOWING 31 THE SACRIFICE, THE PRIEST, AND THE SAVIOUR . 42 THE POWER THAT THE WORLD KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT .60 christ the power of god . . . .74 "say not in thine heart" . . . .86 righteousness, human and divine . . .95 job's question and Paul's answer . , . 104 the claims of the man jesus . . . .116 the writing on the cross 146 ^ r m 9 viil' Contents. fAoa THE NAME OF QOD 159 EMMANUEL-JESUS 180 HIS NAME 185 MT name's sake 194 THE OLOBT OF OOD 206 THE TWO ANTHEMS 235 "LORD JESUS, come'* •••••. 242 "FOR ever" . 244 ■/ TBE SEEKING 8AVI0UB. " For the Son of Man is come to seek and to, oave that which was lost." — Luke xix. 10, LL Christians rejoice in the reality of the divinity of our Lord and Saviour JesuB Christ; but is it not of great importance to keep in our hearts the reahty of His humanity, especially when Holy Scripture tells us that "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God " ? Among all the accounts of our Lord's life on earth, Luke presents Him most fully as a Man. Matthew traces His genealogy only up to Abraham, and presents Him as a real Jew; Mark gives us no genealogy, but begins with His Gospel-ministry, and John gives what might be called His Divine genealogy — " The Word was God ; " Luke t: js His genealogy up to Adam, thus showing Him to be the Son of Man. Our theme is the Son of Man, and His work as told to us in Luke xix. 10 : " For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.** There is a beautiful because Divine fitness in Luke communicating to us . 1 <■ \ / ■' .% The Seeking Saviour. this statement in its connection. Luke was not au apostle. Very little is known of him hesides his being ** the beloved physician," who certainly obeyed the second part of the evan^cfelioal commission — " to heal the sick," although we do not hear much of his preach- ing "the kingdom of God." It is a precious thought that the Saviour Himself, in sending out the twelve, thought of man both with regard to his spiritual and bodily needs. A Christian physician above all men is able to look at men as men. Has he to cure disease ? He sees man as^ made in the image of God, and knows nothing of difference between the best and the worst. He is as careful in setting the fractured limb of the burglar as in minis- toriug to the lameness of au empress. And where he sees an opportunity he can mo :3b deftly plase a woid that may be of spiritual power to his patient. Thus Luke the recorder has been chosen with Divine wisdom to give us many characteristic accounts of God's love to men. Only Luke tells us of the Good Samaritan ; the Shepherd going after the lost sheep ; the woman seeking for the coin that was lost ; the Father receiving the prodigal ; the Pharisee and the publican ; Christ's inter- view with Zacchgeus ; the penitent thief, and many other wonders of grace. In the nineteenth chapter of Luke we find that Zacohseus, the chief among the tax- gatherers, was very anxious to see this wonder- i.-^\ % \% flttW The Seeking Saviour. ful Man of whom he had heard, namely Jesus. There was a crnw.1, and he was little; but neither his own inability nor the presence of the crowd conquered him. He found a point of vantage on a sycamore tree, and our Lord, fully understanding the wish of Zacchseus and the small grain of faith that was workiug in him, told him He was to become his Guest. All murmured, not knowing the grace of the Saviour, and to the murmurings Zacchaeus answered by a vindication of himself. Fifty per cent, of wnat he had he gave to the poor, not a mere legal ten per cent. ; and had he taken anything wrongfully from any one, he gave him four times its value — a most con- scientious, upright man. This we hold to have been the practice of his life before he met Jesus, and his vindication of his moral uprightness when they all murmured at Jesus going to him. Jesus, however, makes very short work of all this self-vindication, as He did with Nico- demus, thiit very good natural man who came and paid Him the highest compliments, and who received this answer : " Ye must be born again." The conduct of Zacchaeus was very proper and commendable, but our Lord says, " This day is salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.'^ Let us now look at this r. '■m >^' The Seeking Saviour. Divine reason for salvation coming to a self- righteous sinners house : First, the Person—'' The Son of Man.'* Second, His work — " is come to seek and to save J" Third, the objects of His work — " that which was lost.'' I. The Person. — The Son of Man. This is a wonderful name, and a name that cur Lord seems always desirous of being used. Does it not tell us of at least three things ? 1. Humi- liation ; 2. Perfection ; 3. HeirsMp. 1. Humiliation. — He reached His crown by the cross. Before His honour was humility. He, ** being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God : but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men : and being found in fashion as a man. He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Ho passed by angels, for He never became an angel ; passed by all the princi- palities and powers in heavenly places, all the peers of gloiy, and came in the strength of His own strong love to be the Son of Man, to be one of us, in order that He might be one with us. He laid aside the crown and the sceptre of the universe to enter into lae circum- stances, sorrows, and responsibilities of man; to handle the saw and the axe, and to be the work- ing man in the midst of His own great work : ;:i( The Seeking Saviour. *" The foxes found rest-, and the birds had their neat In the shade of the cedar tree, But Thy couch was the sod, O Thou Son of God I In the deserts of Galilee." 2. His Ferfection. — Can one man live to the glory of God, and without sin ? Behold the perfect, sinless Son of Man. ** holy, harm- less, undefiled, separate from sinners." Adam failed, by the temptation to become as a god. The Son of Man prevailed, by taking the subject part of a man. He answered the devil's temptation by no appeal to His divinity, but to the Scripture given for man's use. Tne first man, through her who was to have been a help-meet for him, fell by indulging in the lust of the flesh ("the tree was good for food *'), the lust of the eyes (" it was pleasant to the eyes"), and the pride of life ("a tree to be desired to make one wise "). The Son of Man showed His perfection when tempted by the devil, manifesting Himself as THE promised Seed. The Son, in resisting by the Word of God the temptations of the devil, rested upon the written Word : " By the word of Thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer." When the lust of the flesh was suggested. He answered : " It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone." When the lus,t of the eye was before Him \ "It is written. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only Shalt thou serve.'* And when the pride of life was temptingly exposed: M The Seeking Saviozir. "It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." Have we seen His humiliation as Son of / Man ? We also soe His perfection in exalta- ii'/ tion as claimed by Him in this title ; for He claimed in it that which had been written by the prophet Daniel : " I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given Hirn dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shaU not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." 3. Heirship. — The Son of Man is Heir of man. We have great exactness in 1 Cor. xv. 45-47, where Ch;'ist is spoken of as " the last Adam," and ** the second man;" that is to say, there are two men, the first one a total failure, the second his Son and Heir, " the Lord from heaven," in " Whom is all perfec- tion." And there never will be another representative head (Adam), for '* the last Adam" has come, and has been known as " a quickening Spirit." Cain is not spoken of as the son of man, neither is Abel nor Seth ; the Seed of the woman alone secures this title, and with it serves Himself Heir to all man's possessions. And what are these ? ** The cattle upon a thousand hills " are the Lord's. :^^..-,^--.-.,> V.V' ;-.> The Seeking Saviour. The gold in all the mines and the pearls in all the oceans belong to their Maker. Wnat, then, is man's possession, and what can he leave as peculiarly his own to his son and heir? Only- one thing, and that is his sin. Behold the Son of Man in anguish under it ! Behold Him bearing '' our sins in His own body on the tree I " '' Behold the Lamb of God, Who taketh away the sin of the world ! " If there had been no sin to bear, there would have been Son of Man ; if there had been no Son of no Man, there would have been no sin put away. II. His WoiiK. — When He has become Son of Man, we find Him doing a work commen- surate with this wonderful title. 1. He has come. 2. He has come to seek. 3. He has come to save. 1. He has come. — How precious is the word *' come " as found in Scripture : " Come now and let us reason together," says the con- descending and loving Jehovah. " Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden," is the word of the Son of Man. '' Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you." will be the glad summons of the Judge of all the earth. But however precious "Come" may be, "«6* come " is much more so, and can alone make the invita- tion possible. Tliat is to say, the Son of Man did not say to man, *' Come," till He Himself had come. ^ ( 8 TJie Seeking Saviour. '■■>. No sooner had the tempter ruined Creation work, than the Redeemer-God began His work, and came to seek the wandering Adam in these words of pathetic tenderness: "Adam, where art thou ? " And through type and symbols God has been coming to man, and at last " the Son of Man is come." Glorious event in the annals of eternity I Glorious cHmax of the history of time I Glorious mani- festation of the God of heaven I Glorious pi'ovision for the sons Of men! He has spanned all the distance between heaven and earth. He has bridged all the chasm between an a^gry God and a guilty sinner. He has. in His own person shown the true Jacob's ladder stretching from the throne of God to the rock-bound cover of the sinner's tomb. The lifeboat's noble crew do not invite the ship- wrecked sailors to come to the life-boat until the life-boat has gone to them ; so Christ does not say, "Come," until He Himself " is come.*' He has annihilated the distance. He can say, " I came down from heaven." " The Son of Man came not to be ministered imto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." He came not "to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.'* " This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." Christ Jesus came from His Father and His eternal love, His crown, His throne, " into the world," this V The Seeking Saviour. distant, fallen, groaning, sin-doomed, God- hating world. 2. He came to Beek. — " Seek ye the Lord," is a Divine injunction, and as a duty is bind- ing on all creatures whom God has made. The law given to Israel discovered how loth man was to seek God, so that we find in Eomans iii. 11, among the various accusations brought against man, this one is prominert, *' I'here is none that seeketh after God." But now grace has revealed to us this wonderful fact, that God in the person of the Son is seeking the sinner. Adam ran from God when he fell, but God went after him, seeking him, as much as to say. If ye flee from Me, and if ye prefer the devil's lie to My truth, and prefer to do without Me, I come to seek you. I wish you back. I do not wish to do without you, — "Adam, where art thou? " He sought out the fishermen and their friends at Galilee's sea. He sought for little Zacchaeus in the midst of a crowd as he was on the sycamore-tree. Reader, He is seeking for you now, as you may be seated in the tree of your own self-righteousness or self-importance or self-greatness. But it is only as one descend- ing from all such morality trees or self- sufficiency trees that you can be found by the seeking Saviour. 3. He has come to save as well as to seek. — "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men." His mission is /'-: lO The Seeking Saviour. ii' very specific ; Hia work is very exact : He came not to instruct men in science or art^ to teach them how to use the geologist's hammer, the astronomer's telescope, or the student's microscope. All these could be dis- covered and employed by the reason of man. He came not to solve or settle the questions arising between science a^^d religion. Ho came not to teach politics, or to decide whether unlimited monarchy or constitutional government or democracy is the best method. He came to save — to sxive us from the loenalty of sin by His atonement. ** For by grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not of your- selves ; " "receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls ; " to save us from the poioer of sin by His Holy Spirit, by Whom we work out our *' own salvation with fear and trembling," knowing that *' it is God Who worketh in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure ; " to save us from the preseiice of sin by the completed top- stone put upon Hie work. For '' to them that look for Plim shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." Salvation-work has been His great work since creation-work was marred. Salvation- work is the work revealed from Genesis to Eevelation. Salvation was the work of the Father till the Son appeared (for " My Father worketh hitherto "). In type and sacrifice, in blood and fire, in history and prophecy, I ' n-f-niiTni i iiiriniT jmrirrf nrif i n i i i The Seekmg. Saviour. II salvation was the work. When the Son came it was still to worl^ at salvation, by tnreoept and example, by lessons and parables, by suffering, and finally at the Cross to say, <* It is finished." The Son of Man is come to save ; and since His day the Third Person of the blessed Trinity, the Holy Ghost, has come to unfold .o us this salvation, to carry on this Divine work among men, this heavenly work on earth, this eternal work in time, and by letter and instruction and unseen and un- heard influence to convey to us conviction, repentance, conversion, regeneration, salva- tion ; and to the Father, Son, and Holy G-host we bow as to the God of our salva- tion. Ill Those interested in this work, The Lost. Lost has bound up in its letters (1) the idea guilty; (2) the idea corrupt; (3) the idea valued. 1. The lost is guilty. — " All we like sheep have gone astray," etc. We' have left the fountrdn of living waters, and hewed out for ourselves " broken cisterns, that can hold no water." We have offended; and he who offendeth '* in one point is guilty of all." The holy law as an impartial jury has brought in the verdict ** Guilty." And thus we are lost to Him Who created us. We have brought ourselves under the curse of His holy law. Yea, we are guilty, as bound up in the same 12 The Seeking Saviour, d' // humanity of the apostoh'o accusation, "Ye have killed the Prince of Life." 2. The lost is corrupt. — Intended for the Creator's use, we are now by nature and practice of no use to Him, utterly " unprofit- able : " the fine gold has become dim. In- tended to show His power and Godhead in this world, we have sunk beneath the level of beasts; so that humanity has even wor- shipped '* birds, four-footed beasts, and creep- ing things." We have not only been guilty of specific breakings of God's holy law, by which we are seen to be transgressors, but our natures are fallen, we are depraved and corrupt, the imagination of the thoughts of the heart only evil continually. And the work of a seeking Saviour is required not only to pardon our transgressions, but to cover our- sin. Self-will, self-seeking, and self-pleasing have taken the place of God's will, God-seek- ing, and God-pleasing ; and thus while self is gratified we are lost to God. 3. The lost is valued. — While passing through the street, if a straw dropped from my hand I should think nothing and say nothing about it. But should I lose a five-pound note, I should at once think of and speak of my loss. And why ? Because I knew its value, and could do very badly with its loss. "I have lost the sheep," says the shepherd, be- cause to him it was valuable. "I have lost my piece of silver," says the woman, because The Seeking Saviour, 13 she could ill afford to lose it. '^ I have lost my hoy," says the father, heoause he loved the hoy. The lost is valued, the lost is loved. Oh, what love is in that little word 01 one syllable, " lost I " You even may not feel that you have lost God ; hut the grace and value and appreciation all begin on His side. You have chosen the world, the devil, and the flesh; but God says: I love you, I do not wish to do without you. I feel I have lost something. Suns and stars, planets and com(3ts, day and night, summer and winter, are all under My control. The reins of ten thousand stars and systems are held in My un- created hands. Angels that excel in strength rejoice to do My will, and obey My command- ments. The sea hears My voice and calms its waves. " The floods clap their hands " to My glory. The forests shake at My presence Flowers bloom to reflect the beauty of the Eternal. Yea, even " fire, hail, snow, and vapours " fulfil My words ; '* fruitful trees, and all cedars ; beasts and all cattle," join in alle- giance. Oh, thou vicegerent of God, made in His image, placed at the head of creation I I have Lost thee. Still I love thee, have so loved thee that I have said. Thou art lost to Me ; so loved thee that I have sent My only- begotten Son to seek thee. And only the lost sinner lies in, the pathway of the seeking Saviour. What is the answer, my fellow lost one, / '4 T/ie Seeking Saviour. that you and I have to make ? Let us do it together; for "there is no difference : for all have sinned and come short of the glory of • , God." Yes, Lord, we are guilty; we are corrupt; we are lost. We would write ''Lost " on the palms of our hands, on the soles of our , feet ; in all we do and wherever we go we are lost. "Lost" we engrave on our intellects, our wills,, our affections ; at all times, under all circumstances, and in all our faculties, we but say " Lost." We wait not for the judg- ment-bar to hear the doom. We accept Thy judgment, "Lost." But we joyfully .h ^ar through that word the echo from the eteiaal realities, "Loved " We hear it from the in- carnate Word, "It is finished." And as we are and where we are we joyfully believe the message that Thou, Father, hast sent by the Spirit to us, that "the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." And on our part we take the lost sinner's place., and claim the lost sinner's Saviour. ■■■■Mlli THE GREAT SHEPHERD, Psalm xxiii. HIS subject is au old theme, one which most of us have boeu acquainted with ^^^ from the time we sat ou our mother's knee. The twenty-third Psahn is one of the most perfect lyrical gems that the world has 0ver seen. We have read it many a time, but it is always fresh. ■ *' The Lord is my Shepherd I " It is a wonderful thing that He should condescend to make Himself our Shepherd. Three times in the New Testament is the Lord spoken of as a Shepherd : once in the Gospel of John, once in the First Epistle of Peter, and once in that wonderful letter to the Hebrews. In John X. 11 you read, ** I am the Good Shepherd ; " in Hebrews xiii. 20, " Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that Great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlast- ing covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will; " and lastly, if you look at the First Epistle of Peter v. 4, you will find this written, " And when the Chief ;«v' i6 The Great Shepherd. Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." Each mention of the word has a distinct adjective, one the " Good Shepherd," one the " Great Shepherd," and the third the " Chief Shep- herd." Now we shall look first at the twenty-third Psalm in its glorious setting. It is a perfect gem. Most gems look well or not just as the setting they are in sets them olf properly or not. But this gem, which would he beautiful in any setting, shines out all the more here on account of the inimitable lustre of its setting. With the twenty-second Psalm on the one hand and the twenty-fom-th on the other, it could not fail to be beautiful. The twenty-second, you know, is the psalm of that wonderful hour of Calvary. It was the psalm used by our Lord during His crucifixion ; and it is thus the expression of our Saviour's feel- iugs at that d:eadful hour. Then we come into the twenty-third Psalm, the psalm of Christian experience, the psalm of the journey, the psalm of the desert, the psalm of the wildernesSc And then there is the glorious tweuty-fourth Psalm. It is not the dying psalm I nor the weariiiess and the weeping of the desert ; but desert cares are over, and weeping gone ; and we have the magnificent psalm of the glory of the King. V7e have the Good Shepherd in the twenty- second Psalm, the Great Shepherd in the 'Ihe Great Shepherd. 17 twenty-third Psalm, and the Chief Shepherd in the twenty-fourth Psalm. We have CrosSy desert, and croion. The cross, that is the twenty-second PsaJm; the wilderness, that is the twenty-third; the crown, that is the twenty-fourth. First, then, we have the Good Shepherd laying down His life with the cry, *' Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Then we have the Great Shepherd. For He must needs be a Great Shepherd, with such a great flock of sheep, and- very stupid ones, too, sometimes, to look after. We are going through this great wilderness, wandering about, and the Lord is the Great Shepherd looking after His flock. And then in the twenty-fourth Psalm we h ^ve the Chief Shepherd, who rewards all the under- shepherds. Looking then at its setting, the Good Shepherd on the one hand and the Chief Shepherd on the other, we look at the guidance of the Great Shepherd. And in passing let me say a word on one point. We hear a great deal at the present time of the goodness of God. They have made out that God is so good that He will never punish any one. Atid this belief is gaining ground daily, even among Christians, I am sorry to say; they try to explain away Christ's doctrine of everlasting punishment. Some go so far as to say that r,o one will be eternally punished; that all will be let off. But Christ says, **I am the Good Shepherd, and I lay down My life for 2 m. i 8 ;*. i8 The Great Shepherd. the sheep." There is no letting off there. There is the punishment of sin in the cruci- fixion of the Son of God for His sheep. Now in the psalm of the wilderness we have a wonderful perfection. The first verse is the theme of it all, and the challenge of faith. The Psalmist puts the Lord between him and circumstances, and boldly challenges any one or anything to come between him and God.* It is the challenge of faith. " Come what may," the believer can say, "I shall not want." I have not in the past wt^nted any- thing, or do not at the present want anything, but "I shall not want," because the Lord is my Shepherd. Of course our human nature will perhaps want many things ; it may want the very necessaries of life ; but those are not real wants. God says that they who trust in Him shall never want any good thing. The last verse is the summation of the whole matter, as the first is the challenge. The second verse makes provision for our Weakness^ and speaks about the pastures where the Great Shepherd leads His sheep. The great thing in a shepherd is to know all the best pastures, and where the greenest grass grows, so that his sheep may get the best possible food. Now Christ leads us into the greenest pastures, and by the still waters. The thoughtfulness of knowledge with the preparedness of power makes the guidance perfect. There is not a difficulty that has The Great Shepherd. 19 arisen, is arising, or will arise, but the Lord has anticipated it, and met it, and provided for it. His wisdom anticipated it ; His power provided for it. But the believer may say, " I am weak, I am going through the desert, and I can get nothing from the earth," for there is nothing that springs from the earth that will feed your faith. In other words, 'there are no waving cornfields in the desert. What will He send you ? Manna down from heaven. He will send you better than angels* food. " He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters." The pillar-cloud of His own eye leads me. ** He maketh me to lie down." This is the quietness of perfect confidence. The hungry sheep does not lie down in green pastures ; only the satisfied one ' does so. This is conscious communion with God, not the activity of service. We cannot always fight ; we must have communion. In warfare you must not put on the sleeping dress, but the fighting dress. Our loins girt about with truth, having on the breastplate of righteous- ness, and our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and above all the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation, and lastly the sword of the Spirit, — that is the armour we are to wear when we go forth to the battle. That is the activity of battle. But if you are always battling, you will find 'm t4-h1 ^ 20 T/ie Great Shepherd. that you cannot always stand. The more we are in the quietness of perfect communion, the more shall we be able to stand the hardships of war. You often hear of believers, especially young disciples, who get up into the heights of bliss, and want to stay there. They mount up with ' wings as eagles ; and you may let them stay there, for they will be brought down to the daily fight of fife soon enough. And after the mounting what is there ? " They shall run and not be weary." And then shall they mount again? No, "they shall walk and not faint." That is a patient continuance in well- doing. And it is sometimes harder to do that than to mount with eagles' wings ; to keep amid the storms, and troubles, and sunshme of life a steady Christian walk and conversation. God's ways are various. It is not always sowing and reaping. He sometimes, after a time of refreshing and revival, sends a winnow- ing time ; and noce but those who are firmly resting on the Kock of Ages will stand through it all. But after this you would think that was enough; but no, having done all, we are to ** stand" — stand ! Yes, it needs grace to stand. Sometimes when the battle is pressing against us hard, we cannot do more than keep our ground, and it requires almighty grace to enable us to do even that. And after the mounting, and after the running, and after ■'■■"«' The Great Shepherd, 21 the walking, and after the standing, you might think that was surely enough. But there is a lower step yet. "He maketh me to lie down** in the quietness of confidence and communion. The third verse points us to the question of Sin still present in the believer, and requir- ing daily cleansing. Here it is no question of quickening, but of cleansing. But this He, the Great Shepherd, had also anticipated and met, so "He restore th my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name*s sake.** There is my weakness ; He gives me food. He thought I would be sinful, — "He restoreth my soul." Then in the fourth verse, when the Psalmist comes to speak about this awful'thing, Deathf there is a transition in iihe form of speech. At first, you notice he spoke about God; now he changes and speaks to God. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil ; for Thou art with me ; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.** Does he not say "For He will be with me'*? No. "For Thou art with me." "He" sounds as though He were high up in the heavens, — " Thou,** that He is close beside me, down on our earth. "Thou art with me,** A Friend, more intimate than a.iy friend on earth — a Friend, more dear tha- any friend on earth, a Friend to dry every t3ar, a Friend who will ni u ^ 22 The Great Shepherd. stand by the grave and will weep with you and with me. He has a human heart, and He will not only stand by you, but He will weep with you, for He is a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. It is not " I am going to tread the valley of death after awhile." I do not believe the deathbed is the valley of the shadow of death. I believe we enter it from our cradle. The Hebrew word could be rendered quite as cor- rectly, "I am now treading the valley of death." John Bunyan, in the Pilgrim^ s Pro- gress, makes Christian go through a river of death, which he finds deep and rapid and difficult to get through. Now according to the illustration of Joshua's crossing of Jordan, the Christian goes through dry-shod, and he can triumphantly sing — " Where are thy waves, O Jordan ? Thy emptied bed lies dry, And all thy power is broken, Thy waters stand on high. I fear not Jordan's river ; Its flood is pass'd for me , And, hasting dry-shod over, . I soon at rest shall be. , ' *♦ I do not dread death's valley, ; To me a pasture green ; For there, beside still waters. Is laid its peaceful scene. I do not fear death's shadow, A shadow ne'er can harm ; I must rejoice in Jesus, When resting on His ann.* TJie Great Shepherd. 23 •'* I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me ; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me." We need both the rod and the staff, the rod to correct and the staff to support, and they both comfort. In the fifth verse we come to owr enemies — principalities and powers in heavenly places. These He has thought of and met as my Great Shepherd. Both lion and bear are known to Him and met by Him, and there is nothing left for me but to sit at His table under His banner of love. " Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies." He gives me the place of a royal priest beside Him. " Thou anointest my head with oil." Surely we have now reached the running over of our blessings, ** My cup runneth over.*' The Lord hath filled it to overflowing. There is water from the overflowing cup to refresh the earth, and there is incense from the adoring heart to ascend to God in worship. And let me say, in passing, to all Christian workers, Sunday-school teachers, and others, you will do very little good except with the overflow. We must ourselves be so filled with Divine truth, that we cannot contain it all, so that it will overflow, and the overflow will bless others. Unless you are filled to overflowing yourselves, never try to fill others, because you will need all you have got, and have none to spare. This is the finishing of it all — myself not i i m m /" '4 The Great Shepherd. I wanting, but running over to bless others. What more do we want? We have seen everything met: weakness, sins, death, and foes. What more can we want ? Yes, there is still something more. We have to look at our footprints left in the sands of the desert. He thought of this ; therefore ** surely good- ness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life ; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." Before us we have Him- self: " Thou leadest me." Then *' Thou art with me," the Lord protecting either flank. We are guarded, you see, in the Jjront, and on either side, but there is stili the un- protected rear. " Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." These great twin-brothers, goodness ari mercy, follow us from behind. And it does not say they have followed us merely in the past, but they shall follow us all the days of our life. The Psalm opened with the bold challenge, " I shall not want." " Find out anything, if you can, that I want." Now it closes with another challenge, which no one can gainsay, " Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.** We are protected on every side; and then there is nothing before us but the bright city of God, " the house of the Lord for ever. " City of the pearl-bright portal, City of the japper wall, The Great Shepherd. 25 City of the golden pavement, Seat of endless festival, Citv of Jehovah, Salem, City of eternity, To thy bridal hall of gladness From this prison would I flee ; Heir of gloir, That shall be for thee and me." r /' . e * !| ><■ " until:' 1. liSBSlHE shepherd seeks the lost sheep * * UNTIL he find it ' ' (Luke xv. 4). And it is only the lost sheep that lies in the pathway of the seeking shepherd. If I take the place of a lost sinner, and nothing else, it is not so much my part to seek Christ as His to seek me. This is grace. He seeks until He finds; He does not stop in His search until He and we meet. Alas I our part is only straying. The word of law would he, ** They that seek Me early shall find Me " (Prov. viii. 17). And the consequence of man being put on this ground is stated by God Himself: *' There is none that seeJceth after God " (Rom. iii. 11). The holy, just, and good law of God came demanding of us love to God, and proved that what God justly demands &om man He has not got, and cannot get, so that, without exception, it may be said of all men who ought to have sought after God, " There is none that seeJceth after Ood.** Gbace comes in now, and says, " I will seek you, and I will seek until I find." Thank God, it is He who breaks in, upon us, and not " Untiir 27 we upon Him. We would willingly remain among those who ** forget " God. Our wills are free only to wander, and get further from Him. In fact, the first thing God does in breaking in upon our enmity is "to make us willing." Our part is to take the place of a sinner and nothing else. Most people believe they are sinners, but comparatively few believe that they are sinners and nothing else but sinners. As truly as He hath shown us that we are lost, and nothing but lost, so surely can we gladly claim that seeking Shepherd, for He seeks until He finds. Nothing stops Him in His search; not all the hatred of man or devils ; not all the malice and spite and envy of the chief priests ; not all the murmurings of the Pharisees and scribes; not all the waywardness of the wandering sheep ; nor the indifference and degradation of those for whom He is search- ing. He will have His joy, the joy that rejoices not until it finds. 2. But there is another and an awfiil " UNTIL " in Luke xvii. 27 : ** They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all ; and as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man." That little word " until " tells out the sad ■ml s - ii "^- 28 " Untiir story of what man is. Men will please them- selves, let God's claims or God's grace be where they may. And thus will they go on "until!" But every history has its until. The course of the vilest infidel is brought to a close by an UNTIL. The world's race to destruction will be consummated in that until. Vain are the thoughts of those who think of the gradual conversion of the world. They go on as Jesus Christ said they would — careless, and wholly engrossed with their own afifairs, until the Lord comes. This is not each man knowing the Lord from the least to the greatest. The world goes on in rebellion and self-pleasing until the Lord comes a,nd sweeps them away as with the besom of destruction. May we be now as men that believe this, and tell out the virtues of a Christ for sinners until that day ! Few of us, I fear, realise that there is a way of keejping out of hell, but no way of getting out of it. That vain imagination, that the punish- naent of the wicked will not be eternal, is sapping the very foundations of Christian action. What is the use of Christian effort ? let us take things quietly if, after su£fering for a while in a purgatorial hell, all are to be restored ! May God have mercy on us for our lukewarm- " Untiir 29 ness, and stir us all up to believe His simple word, that until Jesus comes men will go on in their mad career, but that this is the limit to their proud waves ; for we again read, that 3. The heavens will receive Jesus Christ ** UNTIL the times of restitution of all things which God hath spoken," etc. And this untily while bringing glorious and final salva- tion to the Christ-receiver, restoration to God's ancient people, and emancipation to a groan- ing creation, is the time of destruction of all Christ's rejecters. For God says (Acts iii. 21, 23), that in the time of the restitution of all things ** it shall come to pass that evenj soul which will not hear that Prophet (Jesus) shall be DESTROYED from among the people." " Let God be true, and every man a liar." Christ will remain away until this time of mingled salvation and destruction : salvation to all who were sought out and found by Him ; destruction to all who rejected Him, it being one of God's impossibilities to renew, such to repentance. Solemn words I May we make our calling and election sure ! '* He came not to call the righteous, but sinner s.^^ Thus called and thus saved, we can patiently wait, leaning on the precious word, while even some that profess Christ's name are leaning to their own understandings, and taking their own ideas as their light, or, while a godless, reckless world is posting on to de- struction, taking no warning, dancing madly. ■:''?; ill 30 ♦' Untiir blindly on, until (and what an .until it will be!) — until He shall gird His sword on His thigh, to slay, and not to heal ; and, in the midst of their calamity and dreadful fear. His word is : — " I will laugh at your calamity ; I will mock when your fear comety ^ (Fiov. i. 26). Hfl m 8EBVING AND FOLLOWING. " If any man serve Me, let him follow Me." — John xii. 26. E are quite prepared to hear this, " If any man follow Me, he ought to serve Me," but it is the converse of this we have in this text. Is there not much Christ- less energy, restlessness, and activity among workers simply because there is so little follow- ing of Christ ? Who are Christian workers ? should every child of God not be a Christian worker ? The mothers and daughters at home work lor the Lord as well as the evangelist and preacher. Every member of the body should work, and if from not working some joint has become stiff, it has to be brought into working trim by gradually giving it a little to do day by day. Christ says to the sinner, Come to Me, and I will give you rest ; He says to the worker, Take My yoke and learn of Me, and you v^ill find rest. As the former part of this gracious passage shows how the sinner is to get rest, so this shows how the worker is to find his rest. This, therefore, could never refer to an un- mi . ; m 32 Serving and Following. saved man, and should never be applied to any except to those who are consciously converted. A dead horse could never be harnessed to draw the plough. You would not put a yoke on a cold corpse : and an unsaved man is dead (Eph. ii. 1) ; therefore you cannot apply the yoke to him. But to such as have life, these words must be very potential, very solemn, very encourag- ing, '* Take My yoke upon you.'^ What a feUowship ! What grace to give us to be sharers in His yoke ! And what was His yoke? I think we obtain some indications of its meaning if we do not dislocate the passage from its preceding context, but view it in the connection in which it stands. In the former verses He was upbraiding the cities wherein most of His mighty works had been done ; where He had been working good works, and had been called a devil; relieving men, and blamed for so doing, as one who had fellowship with Satan. Scornfully *' despised and rejected of men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." This wa? His "yoke," rejection, when acting in p; < ;Tace ! And this is the yoke we are to Ial. Do good to men, and be blamed for it. Do many good things, get many reproaches ; lavish your love on this world, and be content to be misunder- stood; lavish your goods as to God, and get no return but side-looks from men. **Take My yoke," says our Lord and Master. The -7-. Serving and Following. ZZ road may be thorny, but it has been trodden before by Him. Do you know "the fellowship of His sufferings"? He says, "If any man will come after Ale, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." Are you under His yoke, and no other yoke ? Not the yoke of a Grod- dishonouring legalism ; not the yoke of conformity to the world in its fashions, its smiles, its sneers, its gentilities, its ways of acting, its manner of judging, and its opinions of this and that. " My yoke " is all the Christian needs, and all the Christian wants. '•''liearn of Ife." Here again we have this beautiful, comprehensive Me. Keader, do you know its power ? It is Ms. Not My servants, not My angels, not My prophets, but Me. How many sit and learn of some great saint, generally taking his distinctive fUults, like cracks in reflecting mirrors, rather than his graces. A dear brother said one day, he believed the. memoir of a distinguished saint "had done much harm." "How can that be ? " I asked. " Because," said he, " men wish to get into hie experience, and then think they will get his feelings. If they could only pray as often, read so much of the Bible, get up at such an hour, conform to all the rules he laid down for his conduct, it would be all right with them, instead of going directly to the Lord Himself." There is real truth in this. 3 s. 34 Serving and Following. " Learn of Me," says Jesus. Do it by praying, by communing, by singing, by read- ing, by meditating, by watching His wondrous hand, — it matters little in what way it is done, but, at all costs, get to the only worthy pattern "• Me," and " learn of Me." " Fori am meek and lowly in heart.^' How unlike the maxims and practice of men — every man for himself ! Stand up for your rights ! Let no man trample upon you ! Do not be reckoned a fool! Get a character for being sharp, shrewd, and that no one is able to over- reach you ! How different this from the simplicity of the child vith the single eye, learning of Jesus to be '' meek and lowly ; " following Him who, " when He was reviled, reviled not again," but was dumb before His accusers. The true Christian walk is to learn of Jesus to be least of all and servant of all, without being proud of the service. *' Bearing all things, believing all thing, hoping all things, enduring all things ; " content to be nothing, or to do anything, for Christ ; to stand still, to advance, or to go whither that lustrous guiding Eye directs. Thus, and only thus, "ye sh&ll find rest unto your souls." How calmly and joyously did Jesus, who had said, " Lo, I come to do Thy will," turn li'om earth's rejections, earth's scorn and hardness, after He had done many mighty works, to His •Father, saying, " I thank Thee, Father ! " % Serving and Following. 35 In the parallel passage iu. Luke we are informed that *' Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast liid these .things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto habes. Even so. Father ; for so it seemed good in Thy sight " (Matt. xi. 25 ; Luke X. 21). Cast out by men, He found His rest in God; and this yoke of His He asks you to bear, and this is the rest He asks you to find. Our rest is not in service, not in much doing, not in a restless unbelief, not in an uneasy annoyance at not having a great crowd to speak to, ?nd thus have an opportunity of doing a greater amount of good, but in His Father. How many of the true saints of God are in bondage to their little bit of service, in their own little corner of the mighty vine- yard ! Our particular ways of doing things are often a yoke. Alas ! is it not the common sin of all the workers for God, that they get under yokes to their work, and when the character or sphere of their work changes, they are fretted and disconcerted, instead of resting in calm, childlike, simple faith on the unchanging Father ? Are we first following, then serving ? Are we serving Him in the following ? We fear that there are more who serve but do not follow tiian those who follow and. do not T , i r ' V> i \ [:>.! J ■■' 36 Serving and Following. serve. Hew much Christless work there is I How much this following Jesus, this learning of Him, this bearing His yoke, strips us of all that is of self 1 Live only for others — ^live as Christ lived — walk behind Him, and be of no reputation — cheerfully spend for Him — cheer- fully want with Him — need nothing else but Him. My fellow Christian, only in thus following Jesus can you find rest. You have tried many other things. Long ago you found none in the world ; since then you have been seek- ing rest in this and that. Have you perfect rest in the yoke-bearing of Jesus ? Only thus will you find that His yoke is easy and His bur'-^en liglit. Nothing else will suit that Divme life which God has implanted but His yoke. And this is a rest not to be got once for all, but is a rest we are to be ever seeking, and ever finding. ^ There is a rest that is obtained at first, and it is for ever ; that is the rest in the atone- ment and person of Jesus, — rest fc ^m the consciousness of all guilt imputed and con- demnation to be incurred. For there neither is, nor can be, any condemnation to us, who are **in Christ Jesus;" for He has eternally settled that question for us eighteen hundred years ago, and He ** dieth no more." But there is this day-by-day 7?7id?m^ of rest to our souls in bearing His yoke. The more yoke-bearing the more rest-finding. In these Serving and Following. 37 days of restless activity in every department of 'the Church and world, activity in business, politics, science, art, and religion, in the desire for the novelty, and the consequent un- rest, there is much need of standing still and listning to the voice of God's aged prophet, as with freshness he echoes the words of our blessed Lord through these many centuries. <* Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and ivalh therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls *^ (Jer. vi. 16). These paths Jesus trod — in these paths His followers, those who have come and got rest as guilty sinners, love to walk. In Philippians ii. w( get Christ's humiliation, the worker's example; in Philippians iii., Christ in exalta- tion, the worker's aim. Philippians is the letter of Christian experience, and twenty- eight times **joy " or ** rejoice," or some such word, is used; and Paul wrote it from a Komish prison chained to a soldier. He had already sung himself and Silas out of the prison at Philippi, and no doubt the jailer would appreciate this call to universal joy. How could Paul thus joy in his chains? Simply because he put God between him and all cir- cumstances. Sense and unbelief put circum- stances between us and God., Faith, that thus brings real joy, puts God between me and my riches, me and my poverty, me and my adversity, me and my prosperity — perhaps a h \ its ofier; it is to every one. It has H. IIi)^it in its application ; it is to every one that i ieveth. It is *' unto all " in its offer; b'.*^ I'l is only "upon all that believe " in its application. There is no question about anterior fitness, or felt want or position in respect to weaUh or righteousness. The offer is to all, high or low, rich or poor. It is on the principle of faith alone this salvation is secured ; but all who do believe have. This is what humbles man. i! ! ! 1* > \ !;. V fl3 ! ' I S. "I ■'ii! ,r ! /:>. 72 The Power the World knows nothing about* This is what makes it to be of graoe, for it is of faith that it might be of grace. " Are you saved ? " "No." " Then you never heard the gospel ? " " Oh yes, I sit under an • evangelical minister." " I don't doubt it, neither do I doubt but that he has preached the gospel, very likely, every Lord's-day in your ears, but you never heard it." " How do you make that out ? " " Because God says, -Hear, and your soul shall hve." *' What am I to hear ? " " 'News ; that is, something you never knew before — you could not have known before or guessed at before. News from God to you ; not news for sinners merely, but news for you. Not only news, but good news. Good news, not concerning you; for if you or I were in it, there would be no news, far less good news ; but ' good news concerning his Son Jesus (-hrist our Lord ' (Kom. i. 3). That Christ is for you, simply because you are a sinner." " What, Chfist for me individually, as if there were not another sinner in the world? " "Exactly, and when you receive and rest on Him, by believing the good news for your- self, you will say, Well, I never thought that was all — it is so simple — I am content no The Power the World knows nothing about. 73 longer to strive to acquire, but quietly to acquiesce in the God-made plan. God laid my sin on Christ. God did all the work. God said, *It is finished.* God comes with His own gospel, His own power, His own salvation ; and better news you never heard, and never will hear ; believe, then, where you are, and as you are, as news, as good news. Believe and live, for * the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.' " 1 1 . ■ 'i ,.].<■ t i-y .f^Vf ■X. CHBI8T THE FOWEB OF GOB. N considering this subject, the power of God, one would at first think that we should look to the manifestation of His power as seen in the rolling river, the majestic Niagara, roaring, rushing over with its millions and millions of tons of water, eclipsing all the steam-power that man could put together; or we may take our stand by the ocean and see it tossing the ships that man has built, and dashing them to pieces as children's toys, or the thunderstorm and the lightning flash, and say, Look what a God we have ! or we might take the telescope, and direct your eye away from this little speck called earth, to look at the stars at night, and see there millions and millions beyond what the naked eye can see revolving, the nebulas that we observe in the galaxy of the heavens, and to know that He upholds all these by the Word 0^ His power, and that He keeps the reins of the government of millions of stars, of many times larger dimensions than this little speck of creation, in His grasp. When we think of all this, well may we Christ the Power of God. 75 exclaim, " When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained, what is man ? " We are lost in silent wonder. Let us also take the microscope and rub off the dust from the butterfly's wing, and we shall find that each speck of dust is a gorgeously chiselled feather, and the Hving God who has chiselled these feathers in the most perfect and beauteous form has counted the hairs of your head and mine, and has named every sparrow. His power is seen in what He can condescend to, as well as in wha-t He upholds, in the majesty of His might. But we are not to contemplate the power of the God of creation, to study His grandeur, though it is profitable for us to do so. Man has drifted from God, and so our little planet is bounded by death. Death goes round about it ; death envelops it physically. Seven miles up there is death. No man can live there. A band of death is round our globe ; but in a more real sense our fallen creation is bounded by the grave. Man's power can do much. He can almost annihilate time and space. He can tie the globe with a string, and take the lightning and send it as his message. He can bring creation under his feet, and do mighty things, but he is limited by the grave ; the tomb he has never been able to pass through ; the grave he has never been able to span ; but the peculiar manifestation of the ' t ■ \ iiil '/(> Christ the Power of God. power of our King begins where man's power ends. I. The Power of the Cross. — In 1 Cor. i. 18: ** For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foohshness ; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." The cross was not only death, but the most shameful death — the death of the felon — and this death, sufiered by Jesus, becomes the power of God ; for the moment that creation work was marred, the Lord God came in with the promise of the bruising of the serpent's head, setting forth that it was through death the new crea- tion was to be begun — showing that it was by death His new power was to be set forth, and that as soon as creation work was marred redemption work was begun. When the Lord v^as here and was found fault with, and challenged on the creation Sabbath for w^orking, those men who found fault with Him, as the destroyer of disease and of death, did not see that while God never can go against His commands. He can rise up in His power above all ; and that He who has seen His creation manned has begun in another sphere, in another work, aiid in another country, the country beyond the grave, through death and resurrection. So He tells us : '* My Father worketh hitherto, and I work " — working in the activity of His redeeming love ; and then He goes on to say, because He is the Son of God, that now we Christ the. Power of God. 11 may meet Him aB Quickener through the grave, or we mutt; meet Him as the Judge, the Son of Man, and then we shall have to meet the doom that is ours. Thus we ap- proach the cross as the power of God to guilty men. '' For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Ch'ist crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto thom which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God." Christ the power of God has come into the domain of death, and met the de- mand of de th, and this is why Christ is the power of God unto salvation. The blood has paid the debt, the blood that runs in a scarlet line from the gates of Eden to the great white throne, and which then is the theme of the redeemed to all eternity. "Thou hast redeemed us with Thy blood " — the blood which tells of a life taken for a life forfeited. That is what satisfies God, although it is a stumbling-block to the Jew and foolishness to the Greek, both ancient and modern. To the one who requires a sign in these days, the blood will still be a scandal. To the man who wants wisdom, the blood puts all his wisdom in the dust. Why? Because it tells that Christ has entered into the domain where IbujiQMt 78 Christ the Power of God. neither man's wisdom nor power is available. In the grave man has no knowledge and no power — the cross is the power of God. But — II. The Tower of the Besurrection. — " And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead " (Eom. i. 4). This is abstract — not His own resurrection, but by resurrection from the dead. He has authority over the grave, the resurrection of good and bad — the resurrection that He has in His own right and in His own power, in which God raised Him from the dead — the resurrection that quickens us to go with Him, and the resurrection that He has of the ungodly to quicken them, and to bring them to the bar of judgment, whether they wiU or ^ot, — all resurrection declares Him to be the Son of God, and thus in the resurrection we have the Lord Jesus Christ shown to be the powerful One. If He went into the grave, He has been raised on the other side of the doom of sin ; if He went into the domain of death. He is declared now to be the Son of God in power by resurrection. He went into the monster's jaws and plucked out the sting. He was there in the power of the eternal God, and He is raised again from the dead, beyond all the powers of Satan and the grave, and is now raised to the throne of God, as we read in Eph. i. 18 : *' That ye may know what is /! Christ t/ie Power of God. 79 the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us- ward who heiieve, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead." He was crucified in weakness, but was raised by power. We have seen Him thus in the power of the cross, also in the power of the empty tomb, the power of the resurrection, but we again see — III. The Power of His Quickening. — ^For we are quickened together with Him. He is revealed not only as the risen One, but as the quickening One. He that was dead /or- sin, and we that are dead in sin, were quickened together by the Spirit of power. The power of God is thus given to men who were dead. God would have been for ever incommunicable to dead sinners unless Jesus Christ, who was the life, had come into the place of death, and had been raised by the glory of the Father ; but now are we kings together with Him. One other thought in Heb. vii. the 14th to the 25th verse inclu- sive. IV. The Poy)er of His Intercession. — Christ intercedes for His own, whom He has justified and quickened. On high He is the Great High-priest, entering in with His own blood to appear in the presence of God for us, now to keep us clean, and He is there fet I, ; J, fHl 8o Christ the Power of God, making intercession, according to the un- sullied holiness of the presence of God. There He is, "ever living to make intercession." It is He who has hegun it at the cross, with whom we are quickened together from the tomb. He goes on to the end of our experi- ences, difficulties, and dangers. He is up yonder on the Throne to . save to the utter- most, that is to say, of time. He is our Advocate with the Father. He :'i our High- priest before God. ** It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is ever at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? " V. ffis Indwelling Tower. — Romans viii. 26: "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities : for we know not what we should pray for as we ought : but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." If we have an Intercessor yonder, we have an Intercessor here ; and as the Intercessor yonder is for His people, the Intercessor here is in His people. The Spirit does not dwell in an unconverted man. He quickens the uncon- verted. He seals, and dwells in, the beHever. There is a Christ for every sinner, and a Spirit ready to quicken him in connection with that Christ, but the Spirit only makes intercession within those who are the Lord's. So WQ haVe Christ in His power dwelling Christ the Power of God. U in us here by His Spirit, and we have Christ in His power appealing for us yonder; and in His power we go onward and pray that we may know the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering — to know that we are thus identified with the risen One. This. is our standing and state here on earth; now on account of that power within us — the holy God — we boldly affirm that sin shall not have dominion over us. Keckon yourselves dead indeed unto sin. Of course it does not say sin shall not have its presence ; but it is a question of its dominion. Why ? Because the Spirit of God is within us. " Reckon '* yourselves — it is not "feel" yourselves dead. If I were really dead, and felt dead, it would be absurd to tell me to reckon myself dead to sin. Suppose I go to a registrar and say — ** There is a man in this parish who wants a vote." " What is his name ? " " James Blank." **Why, he is dead more than a year ago, and he can't have a vote." That is what you and I have to say to our old nature. "You have no vote; you have nothing to do with the government of me now. We are dead to sin, and the obsolete man is off the register" — ^the old man has gone, so far as voting is concerned. It is only the new man I ii ;ji( f • ! 82 Christ the Power of God, in Christ Jesus who has a right to my service. Let me take a familiar illustration. When the man with the palsy was healed, he did not merely get healing hut power. **Rise, take up thy bed, and walk," and so he carried his bed. Before this the bed carried him. He was dependent upon his bed, and upon those who each took a corner; but now, as soon as we have got into Christ, it is, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. Take the case of the reformed drunkard. Why, when he used to pass public-houses, the cursed desire for drink was paramount over his conscience and the interests of wife and family; but now, being dead to sin, he says to this craving, " You have no vote." He carries the obsolete man to the prayer or conference meeting, instead of the old man carrying him into the public-house. • So it is with us, " Rise, take up thy bed." We have power now, and sin shall not have dominion over us. VI. The Power of His Gospel— '''Fox I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ : for it is the power of God unto ' salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also tc the Greek." Christ speaks through us, and now we can use the power He has given us. In order to have this power we let God speak as much as possible, and ourselves to speak a3 little as possible. In the days of His humiliation He gave all power and authority fco His apostles — Christ the Power of God. 83 power and authority to oast out devils, and one came to Him and said, *' Your apostles could not do it." Why? Because there arose a reasoning among them as to which should be greatest. I believe that we often lose our power by thinking we are some- thing. There are Peter and Andrew; the man comes to be healed, but neither of them can do it. Peter could not be trusted with seeing that devil under him. Peter might say, " I am sorry for my dear brother Andrew, but if he had been like me he would have been successful." Brethren, in the holy work of God, the "holy self" often comes in. Whatsoever there is of self, let us cast it from us, and lean wholly and solely upon the Lord, and trust in the power of His might. Self- seeking is all the fouler when it enters the domain of God. By nature we all wish to be above and beyond our fellows ; may we have the desire to lift high the banner of the cross, and in its fold conceal the standard- bearer. May the standard-bearers be all hid, and Christ alone seen. Then, indeed, should we feel that we had in our hands the Gospel of God, which is the power of God unto salvation. We pray much for the Holy Ghost — the working power, and always ought to do so, but I would say, *' Go to your knees and ask God to show you what the Gospel is," for God has said that the Gospel is the power. None of us can save a soul, but we can hold ^^\ r 1. ! ' ■ >k IMAGS EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) #: % :A 1.0 I.I l:i|2^ 12.5 »£ Uii 12.2 u Ui ■MUu 1.8 1.25 1 1.4 III '-^ < 6" - ► % v] 7 ■%' Photographic Sciences Corporation ^^ >> 33 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. MS80 (716) 872-4503