A Glorious Vision.

THE Epistle to the Hebrews, this profound and blessed portion of the Holy Scriptures, unfolds a most wonderful vision of the Person, the Glory and the great Redemption work of our adorable Lord. The portion of the Epistle which is the richest in this respect is the Second Chapter. Here is a vista for the eyes of faith which is sublime. Our Lord in His Person, in His humiliation and exaltation, in His suffering and glory, stands out in a way which makes the believing heart rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of Glory. What He has accomplished for us, His present place in Glory and intercessory work, His future and dominion over the earth, all are mentioned by the Holy Spirit in this brief chapter. His humiliation by incarnation is mentioned in these words “Thou madest Him a little lower than the angels.” “Forasmuch, then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same.” And He is the One “by whom are all things” (verse 10).

His suffering and death and its blessed results are given in this chapter. “By the grace of God He should taste death for every man.” “That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil.” He made “reconciliation for sins of the people.”

We read of the gracious relations into which all believing sinners are brought in virtue of His work on the cross. “For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” It is that blessed, deep, eternal relationship of being One with Him and One with God. Then we find here His presence as Man in Glory. “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor.”

In that attitude He is now “the merciful and faithful high Priest.” “For in that He Himself hath suffered, being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted.”

The ultimate result of His work is also stated. He is “bringing many sons unto glory.” And that glory will be His own glory. Not only now but in that future day of glory He will declare “Behold I and the children, which God hath given me.”

Furthermore we have the fact of His earthly dominion, that He is to have possession of the earth. “The world to come,” that is the habitable earth, not heaven, is to be put in subjection under Him. “Thou hast put all things in subjection under His feet.” All these blessed truths are stated in this chapter of Hebrews.

In regard to a subdued earth we read: “But now we see not yet all things put under Him.” That was true when the Holy Spirit penned these words. This is still true and it will be true until the Father bringeth in the First begotten into the world, when not alone all the angels of God will worship Him (Heb. i:6), but when God will make His enemies the footstool of His blessed feet (Psalm cx:1).

However this coming triumph for Him who was made a little lower than the angels is not the glorious vision of this chapter. It is time by faith we may behold the glorious consummation as revealed in the prophetic Word, but here another vision for our present rejoicing and present help is put before us. While we see not yet all things put under His feet “we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor.”

This is the great vision for the present. This is what the Holy Spirit wants us to behold more than anything else. Of Stephen it is written: “He being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts vii:55). And whenever the Holy Spirit fills us He will direct the vision of the eyes of our heart to Him who was made a little lower than the angels and who is now in heaven crowned with glory and honor. And only the power of the Holy Spirit filling us can make this great fact and vision a reality.

But what does this glorious vision mean to us? What does it teach us? Oh, much more than the weak pen of the writer can tell out.

The blessed One who is there crowned with glory and honor is the One who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death; He bore our sins on the cross and died for us. What a blessed, blessed proof then it is, as we behold Him there, that our sins are completely and forever gone!

But more than that. In seeing Him there we behold ourselves. The deliverer of our souls at the right hand of God, the second man, crowned with glory and honor, is the pattern and forerunner of all who belong to Him and whom He is not ashamed to call brethren. Grace has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus (Eph. ii:5, 6).

Our eternal destiny, beloved in the Lord, is to be like Him, with Him and to share His marvelous inheritance as His co-heirs. That glorious vision is the evidence of our coming glory, when we shall be transformed into His image that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. As we gaze in the Spirit on Him who is crowned with glory and honor we can see ourselves.

And as the age darkens, as the Laodicean state becomes more prevalent, temptations and snares increase, the enemy’s powers and activities more marked, we need to open our eyes and hearts wider, to take in the vision of our blessed head in Glory. Only in this way can we be kept in these evil days. The only way of spiritual progress, spiritual enjoyment, spiritual worship is to “behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord,” and beholding that glorious vision we “are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. vii:18).

This glorious vision will keep us in the place of separation. It will make us heavenly-minded and produce in our lives the practical results of the cross of Christ “crucified unto the world and the world crucified unto me.” Why do real Christians, who know the truth and even know and speak of His Second Coming go along with the world and delight in its ways? It is because the heart is departed from Christ and has lost sight of the blessed and glorious vision. Years ago a saint of God, who is now present with the Lord, made the following statement:

“It sometimes happens that Christians have got so far away from Christ in heart, that they become engrossed in the affairs of this life, and some can even visit and enjoy the poor empty, tinselled shows of this world’s vanity. What could be more lamentable? They forget that death’s stamp is deeply graven on everything this side of resurrection. But such actions clearly prove that the heart must have been away from Christ for some time.”

Reader! if this means you return unto thy rest. Arise now and seek His face and behold your Saviour, who was made a little lower than the angels crowned with glory and honor.

May all our hearts, dear children of God, cry out with him, who knew Him so well, the prisoner of the Lord “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death” (Phil. iii:10). Soon we shall know Him and all His glory.

My Brethren.

OUR Lord Jesus Christ calls those for whom He died and who have believed on Him “My Brethren.” What a word it is! The Brethren of the Man in Glory! Brethren of Him who is at the right hand of God, the upholder and heir of all things! Pause for a moment, dear reader. Let your heart lay hold anew of this wonderful message of God’s Grace; Brethren of the Lord Jesus Christ! What depths of love and grace these words contain! What heights of glory they promise to us, who were bought by His own precious blood! His Brethren now; His Brethren forever. One with Him, one with His Father and His God. Sharers of His life, sharers of His Spirit, sharers of His glory and His inheritance. Blessed, glorious truth, He calls us His Brethren.

It is in the twenty-second Psalm where we find this truth revealed prophetically for the first time. That Psalm begins, as we have seen before, with the utterance of the deepest distress. It closes with the shout of victory and of triumph. He who was forsaken of God on the cross, the blessed sin bearer, has received glory. In the midst of the congregation, His redeemed people, He praises God, who has delivered Him and who gave Him Glory. In God’s own time, in the coming day of His visible manifestation, all the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Him. Then the Kingdom will be the Lord’s.

He who suffered on the cross was heard “from the horns of the unicorn” (Ps. xxii:21). Resurrection was the answer from God; the power of God raised Him from the dead. At once, after the great work had been accomplished, there follows the triumphant declaration of Him whose voice had cried so bitterly in death, “I will declare Thy Name unto my brethren; in the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee.” And blessed was the fulfilment on that day of joy, when the tomb was empty and He had come forth, the risen Christ. To Mary Magdalene He said on that glorious resurrection morning, “But go and tell my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God” (John xx:17). What joy must then have filled His loving heart. From His gracious lips there bursts forth a message such as He never gave to His own before His resurrection.

The great work on the cross had been accomplished, sin had been put away by the sacrifice of Himself. The Only Begotten of the Father, God’s holy Son, one with God, became Man; then passing through death, in which He fully glorified God, God raised Him from the dead. And now He gives the blessed results of His own work for those who believe on Him. He has brought us into the same relationship with His Father and His God, which He Himself holds, as the Man Christ Jesus, raised from the dead. His Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is our Father; His God is our God. And again we pause as we write this. Let our hearts repeat it: “My Father, your Father; my God, your God.” He has brought us into fellowship with His Father; He has brought us to God and the place He has with the Father and with God, is the place God’s fathomless Grace has given to us. How little our hearts take it in! How little reality we possess of all this! And yet He wants us to enjoy it as He enjoys the fulness of joy in His Father’s and His God’s own presence. May the Holy Spirit work in us unhindered, that through His power we may lay hold in faith of this mighty truth and have it as a practical power in our daily lives. My Father, your Father; my God, your God and Christ, who loved me and gave Himself for me, Christ, who loveth us, is with His Father and His God. In such relationship, brought to the Father and to God through the Lord Jesus Christ and kept there by His own Grace and Power, how happy we should be.

And because we possess now in virtue of Christ’s work this blessed relationship, He owns us joyfully as His brethren. Hebrews ii:11-12 puts this more fully before our hearts: “For both He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one; for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren. Saying, I will declare Thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto Thee.” The Lord Jesus Christ is He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified by His great work and are in Him, are believing sinners, reconciled to God by His blood. Both He that sanctifieth and we are all of One and this One is God, the Father. Therefore He is not ashamed to call them brethren. It is true we possess this relationship with the Man in Glory, the Lord Jesus Christ, because we are born of God. We have eternal life, His own life, and that makes us One with Him. But this is not the truth in view here. It is the truth that He has identified Himself with us and through His death and resurrection we are identified with Him. And what it means “in the midst of the church will I sing praises unto Thee” we shall not follow at this time.

But let us keep it before our hearts a little while longer. The Lord of Glory calls us “My Brethren.” He who is there in the Father’s house, in the Father’s presence and on the Father’s throne is not ashamed to call us brethren. He knows all about us. He knows all the depths of sin in which we are by nature; that by nature we were enemies by wicked works and children of wrath, but He took it all upon Himself and has taken it out of the way and now He looks upon us and all who have accepted Him by personal faith as being one with Him and one with His Father; therefore He is not ashamed to call us brethren. What a comfort it should be to our hearts! What joy it should create in our souls! He Himself received from God, His heart’s desire and the request of His lips (Ps. xxi:2). And all His desire and request was in our behalf, that He might bring us, His many sons, to glory. And now He rejoices in us, for we are His inheritance. He wants us to rejoice in Him and with Him in an unspeakable joy and full of glory. Our souls entering into all this and rejoicing with Him in His salvation, enjoying the comfort of it; this honors Him and honors God.

It should end the discouragement and unbelief from which we so often suffer. Though we are weak and erring, imperfect in all our ways, yet He is not ashamed to call us brethren. Such a fellowship and relation into which we are brought once and, for all by the Son of God, should, if accepted in faith, dispel any doubt about ourselves and free us from all gloom and discouragement. Alas! how dull we are not to enter fully into the joy and comfort Grace has bestowed upon us!

And then think of the dignity and honor which is ours. Sons of God with Him; Heirs of God with Him; one with Him, perfectly identified with the blessed One in God’s presence. Therefore He is not ashamed to call us brethren. To walk worthy of the Lord is our calling; and worthy of the Lord we shall walk if we have the great fact of our fellowship with the Son of God as a reality before our souls. It is a sad state to speak theoretically of our position in Christ, to know all this with our intellects and not to manifest it in our lives and show forth the excellencies of Him, who has called us from darkness into his marvellous light.

He is not ashamed to call us brethren. It should strengthen the love for the brethren. Love one another. The weakest, the most imperfect believer, that one who appears to us so unlovable and so ignorant, is nevertheless owned by him. Just let us remember in looking upon all believers, that he is not ashamed to call them brethren, that no matter where they belong, what their knowledge in the Scriptures might be, they belong to Christ, and are equally beloved of God. How we need it in a day when Satan goes about dividing the people of God. Love for the brethren, a deep, real heart love, will possess us as our hearts feed upon the fact of our oneness with him and with His Father and His God.

He is not ashamed to call them brethren. It will be an incentive to witness for Him. Dishonored as He is, it falls upon us to honor Him by our personal witness. While in the Father’s presence He sings and is the leader of the praises of His people, we must sing of Him here and utter His praise on earth. He is not ashamed of us; how could we ever be ashamed of Him? What an honor to speak His worth, to tell out, though in feeble way, His glory and exalt His name. And yet we must beware of an unscriptural familiarity with Him, which the Holy Spirit does not sanction in the Scriptures. We must not address Him, as it is so often done, as “my brother,” or other sentimental terms, which our pen is reluctant to repeat. In all this we must not forget His dignity and glory. While He thus identified Himself with us and is not ashamed to call us brethren, He is nevertheless the holy Son of God, the Lord of all. As such we must adore and worship Him. Some blessed day we shall be just like Him. We are predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren (Rom. viii:29). That will be in the glorious day when we shall meet Him face to face. “We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is” (John iii:2). What it all will mean? What day of joy and triumph for Him, when He stands as the leader of all whom the Father has given unto Him, when all according to His prayer will be the sharers of His Glory. Then He will be glorified in His saints for they will bear His image and reflect His glory. What a destiny! Like Him and with Him. And this future of perfect conformity to the Lord Jesus Christ and possession of the wonderful inheritance, which, in its riches we cannot grasp now with out finite minds, is rapidly approaching. How soon it may burst upon us!

Oh, friends, beloved in the Lord! Do we all enjoy this now in faith? Is it so that the Lord Jesus Christ becomes daily more real and precious to us? Do we live in the power of all this?

The Patience of Christ.

“BUT the Lord direct your hearts into the Love of God and into the Patience of Christ” (2 Thess. iii:5). With these words Paul exhorted the Thessalonian believers. They had many trials and difficulties. They suffered persecutions and were troubled. False alarms had affected their patience of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. The inspired exhortation puts before their hearts the Patience of Christ. Comfort and joy, encouragement and peace, would surely come to their hearts and strengthen them, if they remembered and entered into the Patience of Christ.

And who can describe or speak fully and worthily of the Patience of our blessed Lord! It includes so much. All His moral Glory and Divine perfections are concealed and revealed in this Word. The word patience has a wide meaning. It means more than we generally express by it. Submission, endurance in meekness, waiting in faith, quietness, contentment, composure, forebearance, suffering in calmness, calmness in suffering; all and more is contained in the one word, Patience. And such patience in all its fulness and perfection the Son of God exhibited in His earthly life. Whenever we look in the Gospels, we behold this calm, quiet, restful patience. His whole life here on earth is but a continued record of patience. In patience His childhood was spent, and when in His twelfth year the Glory of His Deity flashed forth we read “He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them.” In patience, He whose mighty power had called the universe in existence, toiled on, content in Nazareth, submissive to the Father, till after many years the day would come, when the work He had come to do should be begun and finished. To describe that Patience during His public ministry from Nazareth, where He had been brought up, to Golgotha, would necessitate a close scrutiny of every step of the way, every act and every utterance which came from His holy lips. What discoveries of His Grace and moral Glory we make, if under the guidance of His Spirit we meditate on His life here below. Humility and submission under God, patient waiting on Him, utter absence of all haste, perfect calmness of soul and every other characteristic of perfect patience, we can trace constantly in that wonderful life. What patience is revealed in the forty days in the wilderness, when He hungered and was with the wild beasts (Mark i:13). When Satan tempted Him and asked for stones to be made bread, He exhibited still His patience. In His service, that marvellous service rendered by the perfect servant, no ambitiousness or ostentatiousness can ever be discovered. He pleased not Himself but Him who sent Him. He was constantly going about doing the Father’s will. His kindness and love were rewarded by rejection and insults, yet no complaint or murmur ever came from His lips. He was always trusting in God, perfectly calm, perfectly satisfied.

And how His patience shines out in dealing with men. What patience He had with His disciples and how He bore with them in love. They were slow learners. What patience and tenderness in his conversation with her, whom He had sought, the woman at Samaria’s well. And greatest above all His patience in suffering. He endured the cross. When He was reviled, He reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously. (1 Pet. ii:23). He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. All the buffetings, shame, dishonors, griefs, pains and sorrows He patiently endured. Oh! the patience of Christ, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame!

And into this patience of Christ our hearts are to be directed. It is to be the object of our contemplation and to be followed by us, who belong to Him. The patience of Christ must be manifested in our lives. For even hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps. His humility, submissiveness, contentment, calmness, patience in endurance, in doing and suffering the will of God, must be reproduced in our lives. But how little we know of it in reality. Impatience is the leading characteristic of the closing days of this present evil age. It is alas! but too prominently seen among God’s people who are influenced by the present day currents. How little true waiting on the Lord and for the Lord is practiced! How much reaching out after the things which are but for a moment and which will soon perish! In consequence there is but little enjoyment of that which is the glorious and eternal portion of the Saints of God. How great the haste and hurry of present day life! How little quietness and contentment! In suffering and loss, murmurings, fault-finding and words of forced resignation are more frequently heard than joyful songs of praise. Unrest instead of rest, discontent instead of contentment, anxiety instead of simple trust, self exaltation instead of self abnegation, ambitiousness instead of lowliness of mind are found on all sides among those who name the name of Christ and who carry His Life in their hearts. And why? Your heart, dear reader, is so often out of touch with Christ. You lose sight of Him. His Spirit is grieved and in consequence there is failure and the impatience of the flesh. Return, oh my soul, unto thy rest! Direct, O Lord, our hearts into the Patience of Christ.

The Patience of Christ. He is still the patient Christ. Rejected by the world He has taken His place upon the Father’s throne. There He waits until His enemies are made His footstool. Long ago, in our human reckoning, He entered there. Long ago the Father said to Him, “Ask of Me and I will give Thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost part of the earth for Thy possession” (Ps. ii:8). Up to now He has not yet asked the Father. When He asks it will mean judgment for this world. In infinite patience He has waited and waited in the presence of God. And all this time He has carried on His work as the Priest and Advocate of His people who live on earth. With what tenderness and patience He has dealt with all who lived in the past centuries. His mighty power kept them and now they are at home with Him. The same patience He manifests towards us. How often we have failed Him and walked in the flesh instead of walking in the Spirit. We came to Him and confessed and then we found Him so loving towards us. But ere long we failed again and in His loving patience His arms were again around us. And thus a hundred times. He changeth not. He is the same loving, patient Lord towards His own in Glory as He was on earth. “He shall not be discouraged,” the prophet declared. Even so His Patience knows no discouragement.

In all the dishonor done to His holy, worthy Name, He endures patiently. He is silent to all what is done by His enemies. The Patience of Christ. May the Lord grant us His Patience. John said to himself, “I am your brother and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ” (Rev. i:9). To that kingdom and Patience of Jesus Christ of which John speaks of belonging we belong. The martyrs belonged to it. Afflictions, persecutions and sufferings were their part. They are ours. In humility, in endurance, unflinching courage, in the patience of Christ, let us suffer with Him, share His reproach until His Glory is revealed.

He Shall Not Keep Silent.

THE heavens have long been silent. It is one of the leading characteristics of this present age, the closed, the silent heavens. But they will not be silent forever. “Our God shall come and shall not keep silence” (Ps. i:3). In His divine Patience the Lord has been at the right hand of God for nearly two thousand years. He will not occupy that place forever. It is not His permanent station to be upon the Father’s throne. He has the promise of His own throne, which He as the King-Priest must occupy. Nearly two thousand years have gone since He passed through the heavens and during that time He has been rejected by the world. Every possible dishonor, insult and shame has been heaped upon His holy head through the instrumentality of the enemy, the devil. Never before has the rejection of the Man in Glory been so pronounced, so radical, so blasphemous as now. Those who love the Lord Jesus Christ are constantly seized by an unspeakable grief on account of these awful denials of the Christ of God and an horror as well. And still He patiently waits. But He will not always wait. His Patience will some day be exhausted. He will pray His unprayed prayer in Glory and ask of the Father the nations and the uttermost parts of the earth. The Father will then send the Firstborn back to this earth. When He comes in visible Glory to this earth it will mean the day of vengeance. The vengeance of God will fall upon His enemies. All the Christ rejecters, the wicked men and women who received not the love of the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness, the enemies of the cross of Christ, though they lived amiable lives (one of Satan’s pet phrases), will meet Him not as the patient lamb, but the Judge, the lion of the tribe of Judah. What will it be when His Patience is ended? What will it be when the kingdom and the Patience of Jesus Christ give way to the kingdom and Glory of Jesus Christ? Rapidly the day is nearing when the Lord Jesus Christ will be completely rejected. As long as the true church is still here this complete rejection is an impossibility. But the church will some day leave this earth. Then conditions are ripe for the complete rejection of the Christ and the reception of Antichrist who will then appear. And when the beast is worshipped (Rev. xiii) and the world defies God and His anointed as never before, when the nations of apostate Christendom stand in battle array (Rev. xix:19), then He will come as the King whose patience is ended and claim His Kingdom. What will it mean when His Patience is ended? Who can describe it? What judgments will fall then upon a wicked world and be meted out upon the enemies of Christ? The day of vengeance is rapidly approaching. It is the day of vengeance for the world. It is the day of the Glory of Christ. It is the day of the Glory of the Saints. It is the day of your Glory as a believer.

Let us suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. Let us be patient as long as He is patient. “Be ye also patient; establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned; behold the Judge standeth before the door” (James v:8, 9).

In His Patience pray for the unsaved. Preach the Gospel, give out the Gospel, send the Gospel, give for the Gospel, live the Gospel. A little while longer and His patience will end.

---

The Love of Christ.

THE Patience of Christ was recently the object of our meditation in these pages. Blessed and inexhaustible it is. And now a still greater theme is before our hearts. The Love of Christ. The heart almost shrinks from attempting to write on the matchless, unfathomable love of our blessed and adorable Lord. All the Saints of God who have spoken and written on the Love of Christ have never told out its fulness and vastness, its heights and its depths. “The Love of Christ which passeth knowledge” (Ephesians iii:19). And yet we do know the Love of Christ. While we cannot fully grasp that mighty, eternal Love our hearts can enjoy it and we can ever know more of it. And He Himself whose Love is set upon us wants us to drink constantly of the ocean of His never-changing Love and receive new tokens, new glimpses of it. Surely His own blessed Spirit, though one feels so insufficient for such an object, will guide us in our meditation. He is with us and in us to glorify Him and take of the things of Christ to show them unto us. The Love of Christ, the Holy Spirit ever longs to make known and to impart to our poor and feeble hearts.

The Love of our Lord is an eternal Love. It is not a thing of time. It antedates the foundation of the world.

He as the Son of God in the bosom of God was the object of Love. “Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world” (John xvii: 24). And then He knew us and His Love was even then set upon us, before we ever were in existence. He knew our sinfulness, our enmity, our vileness, and in Love which passeth knowledge He looked forward to the time, when He would manifest this Love to us His fallen creatures. “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high I cannot attain unto it” (Psalm cxxxix:6).

It was Love which brought Him down from the Glory, which He had with God. What Love to come into this dark, sin-cursed world, a world full of enemies. What Love to leave that bright and glorious home and appear as man, made of a woman entering this world He had called into existence. And there was no room for Him in the inn. It passeth knowledge.

And then that life, which He lived on earth, was lived in that mighty Love.

What Love we see in Him, in every step of that lonely path! What compassion, what tenderness in every action in every word we discover, ever new and fresh, in that blessed life of God’s unspeakable gift. Wherever we look we behold that Love. Loving compassion rested upon the multitudes; with Love He compassed the poor, the sinful, the oppressed, the heartsick and the outcast. Love carried the weak and failing men, who had believed on him, His disciples. A blessed word it is, which stands in the beginning of the thirteenth chapter in the Gospel of John. “Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” His Love for His own was expressed by serving them. He pleased not Himself but had come to minister. He then girded Himself and began to wash the disciples’ feet. What humiliation! Yet it was the fruit of Love. All He did was born of Love. His was on earth a constant, a never-tiring, an enduring Love. All the selfishness of His disciples could not quench that Love. Nothing could quench His Love for His own. Nothing will ever quench it. Peter denied Him. “And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter” (Luke xxii:61). Was it a look of reproach? Was it a frown of displeasure which Peter saw in that beloved face? Far from it. Love in its divine perfection shone out of the eyes of the Son of God. And after His resurrection that Love was still the same. There was no reproach connected with the restoration of Peter to service. In the greatest tenderness and Love He committed to His disciple, who had so shamefully denied Him, the lambs and sheep so dear to His own loving heart.

Again we say, that Love passeth knowledge. How could man’s imagination and invention ever have produced such a loving Person as our Lord, revealing the perfection of divine Love!

But there is greater Love than the Love which we behold in His blessed Life on earth. The greater Love is manifested when He laid down His life. He came into the world to die, to be the propitiation for our sins. He came to take our place on the cross. He came to drink the cup of wrath in our stead and suffer the awful penalty of our sins.

“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

God in Love gave thus His Son, and He gave Himself in Love. From shame to shame, from suffering to suffering, from pain to pain and agony to agony that Love went on to plunge into the deepest sorrow, to reach at last the place where His loving lips had to cry “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

Ah! what human tongue can teach or tell the Love that brought Thee there! It passeth knowledge. But with loving, praising hearts, in worship and adoration we can look up to that cross on which the Prince of Glory died and say with Paul, “He loved me, He gave Himself for me.” And again we join with the innumerable hosts of His own redeemed in the Glory song. “Unto Him that loveth us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and hath made us Kings and priests unto God and His Father, to Him be Glory and dominion forever. Amen.” And beloved reader, that Love which knew you and us all before we ever existed, that Love which came from Glory for you, that Love which went into the jaws of death, endured the cross and despised the shame, that Love which gave so willingly, gave as we can never give, that Love is still the same. It changes not. His Love knows no fluctuations. That perfect Love cannot grow cold or indifferent. We all had our first love; when first we saw Him with the eyes of faith, how our hearts were enraptured. How soon that Love began to grow cold and decreased instead of increased. Then our walk and service became affected for thus it must ever be when the heart is not responding to His Love and not in living, loving touch with Himself. Oh! the weeks and months and years of our Christian experience spent without the full enjoyment of His Love and Presence. But has this changed His Love? Has our unfaithfulness, our waywardness, our failure and backsliding affected His Love? No. He is the same loving Lord, the same loving Christ who has borne us and yearned over us, who has prayed for us and kept us. Whenever we turn to Him with broken hearts, confessing our sins, when in shame we hide our faces and tell Him all our failures, we find Him still the same loving Lord as He was when His loving eyes rested upon Peter. Oh! how He must love us! How He must love us, with that Love which passeth knowledge. What treasures that Love contains! Exhaustless it is ever flowing full and free towards His own.

How it must grieve Him to see us so indifferent, neither hot nor cold. How it must grieve Him that we enjoy this Love so little that we permit that Love so little to serve us and give Him so little opportunity to manifest His mighty Love towards us. Alas! We even mistrust that Love. When suffering and loss overtake us, when instead of prosperity adversity is our lot, we doubt that Love. Fears and anxieties are nothing less than an impeachment of the Love, which passeth knowledge. His Love will never fail. He will see us safe home. Let the forces of the enemy roar, let trials and troubles come, His Love will keep us. His Love is our eternal portion.

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And soon He will have us with Himself. The church He loved, for which He gave Himself, the church He sanctified by the washing of water, this church He will present to Himself a glorious church (Eph. v:24-27). Even while on earth He made known His loving purpose, for He prayed, “The Glory, which Thou hast given me I have given to them.”

It is His Love which will make us sharers of His own Glory and Inheritance. What that Love will do then! How we shall drink deeper of that Love, than we ever could drink here! Oh the depths of the Love to be fathomed in all eternity! Oh the length and breadth and height to be measured! It can never, no never be exhausted.

O, child of God, is not thy poor wandering heart beginning to be warmed? Is the warmth of His Love, the Love of Christ refreshing your soul? Thank God for it. It is but a demonstration of His Love. And do we not want more of it? Do we not need it?

All our indifference, our cold heartedness, our prayerlessness, our self indulgences, our inactivity and all else which mars our Christian lives, is because we do not have the Love of Christ before our hearts. If we were constantly enjoying His Love and this mighty Love would constrain us, what self-sacrificing lives we would live! How we would love one another and in love serve one another. What peace there would be among those of like precious faith. With a better heart knowledge of the Love of Christ, what joy would be ours in all trials and suffering and with what boldness we would approach the throne of Grace and make constant use of our God-given privilege, prayer.

The Love of Christ would lead us on and on in love for souls, in service untiring, and yet the same Love too will make us long and pray for His coming. Oh God our Father, grant unto us all and to all Thy people throughout this world a greater, a deeper, a more real knowledge of the Love of thine ever blessed Son, the Love of Christ, and fill us through it with all the fulness of God. Amen.

The Joy of the Lord.

IT is written “the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Every child of God knows in some measure what it is to rejoice in the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ must ever be the sole object of the believer’s joy, and as eyes and heart look upon Him, we, too, like “the strangers scattered abroad” to whom Peter wrote shall “rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Pet. i:8). But it is upon our heart to meditate with our beloved readers on the joy of our adorable Lord, as his own personal joy. The Blessed One when His feet walked on the earth spoke not only of “My Peace,” but He also spoke of “My Joy.” While He imparts peace and joy and is the peace and joy of our hearts, He also possesses His own Peace and His own Joy.

“The Joy of the Lord.” There was a time “when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job xxxviii:7). It was in the beginning when the heavens and the earth were created by Him, who is before all things and by whom all things consist, the Son of God. With what joy He must have beheld what was called into existence by Him and for Him (Col. i:16). But even before the foundation of the world He had joy. With God, in the bosom of the Father Love, Glory and Joy were His eternal portion. All was known to Him from the beginning. The fall of Satan, the fall of man through Satan, the entrance of sin with all its results, the cost price of redemption, the suffering in the flesh on the cross for the redemption of the creature, the multitudes, whom no man can number, redeemed through His work, believing in Him, brought to God, united with Him, Sons and Heirs with Him, the ultimate victory over all enemies, so that God would be “all in all”—all was known to Him.

What joy must have filled Him when at His incarnation He announced, “Lo I come to do Thy will O God” (Heb. x:5, 6). And then He came and took upon Himself the form of a servant, the first word the heavenly messenger spoke, sent to the virgin to announce the incarnation, was a word of joy. Never before had Gabriel been sent with such a message. “Hail” our English version has it; but the greeting means “Joy” or “Oh the joy!” And the angel later announced “good tidings of great joy.” And that blessed life which was lived upon earth to the Glory of God, was a life which knew joy. All along the way from Bethlehem to Golgotha He had joy before His heart. It is true He wept, He had sufferings, He was tempted, He was ill-treated, cast out, maligned, accused of evil and rejected, but joy filled His heart. His God and Father was His joy, yea, His exceeding joy. To do His will, who had sent Him was His constant joy. His joy was to walk in confidence, in dependence on Him. His Father’s love and delight, which rested upon Him were His joy. “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee” (Ps. lxxiii:25). This beautiful word must have been His constant declaration; and that is joy. “I have set the Lord always before me” (Ps. xvi:8) is another utterance of God’s Spirit concerning the holy life of God’s well beloved Son. And that meant joy. The seventy He had sent forth had returned again with joy, because the demons were subject unto them. That is sinful man in carnal rejoicing! some power manifested, some great success fills our proud hearts with joy. But His words told them of a different joy. They were not to rejoice that the spirits submitted to them, but that their names were written in heaven. “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and the prudent, and hast revealed them to babes; even so Father; for so it seemed good in Thy sight. All things are delivered to Me of My Father; and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and to whom the Son will reveal Him” (Luke x:21, 22). Thus He rejoiced. In the parable of the treasure in the field He speaks of His joy. The man who has found the treasure, for joy thereof goeth and selleth all he hath, and buyeth that field ( Matt. xiii:44). The man in the parable is the Lord Himself and the field is the world. With joy He gave up all and came down here to buy us back. And all His suffering from man and from Satan, the persecutions He suffered from His own people to whom He came were borne by Him with joy. He told out His own blessed character in the beatitudes and in speaking of those who are reviled and persecuted, He said, “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad.” Thus He must have borne it all with joy. And then the cross. The cross in which He who knew no sin was made sin for us. He was troubled in His holy soul when He looked towards the cross (John xii:27). In the garden He saw the cross. “And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke xii:44). And yet it is written “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. xii:2). All the suffering put upon Him by man, acting under satanic impulses and the shame connected with the cross, He despised, the cross itself He could not despise, but He endured that. The joy was that He saw and knew the full and glorious result of all His work He had come to do. He saw then the travail of His soul and was satisfied. But in that cross there was that suffering, which is unfathomable. God’s own hand rested upon Him. All His sorrowful complaints as predicted by His own Spirit were then fulfilled. “Thou hast laid me in the dust of death.” “All Thy waves and billows go over me.” “Thine hand has pressed me sore.” “Thy wrath lieth hard upon me.” “Thy fierce wrath goeth over me.” “Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit.” Thus He suffered from God—smitten and afflicted of God. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. Then from that cross there came that loud and triumphant cry when He gave His life “It is finished!” Oh! what joy must have filled then His soul, when He knew the work is done, all is accomplished. And with equal joy God answered the cry of His well beloved Son, when He rent the veil from top to bottom.

The risen Lord in meeting His disciples greeted them, with the greeting of joy, which Gabriel had used. “All Hail”—literally, Oh the joy! (Matt. xxviii:9.) What joy must then have filled His loving heart as He met His own again. Oh the joy! thus they had mocked Him when they crowned Him with a crown of thorns and bowed the knee and in derision shouted “All hail”—“Rejoice”—“King of the Jews.” But in the resurrection He shouts “Oh the Joy!” The victory is won. Satan, Sin, Death and the Grave are vanquished. And what joy is His now! What joy will be His ere long! With a shout He went up (Ps. xlvii:5). What a joy when He passed through the heavens and as the glorified man He entered the Holy of Holies! What a joy when the Father had the well beloved with Him again, and He took His seat at His own right hand. What joy for Him and the heavens when Glory and Honor was put upon Him and He was proclaimed throughout the depths of the universe as Heir of all things! What joy! All power in heaven and on earth is His. Oh the joy! as sinners are saved by Grace, whom He redeemed by His blood. And as His body is building He rejoiceth as the bridegroom over the bride. In unspeakable joy He carrieth on His loving, tender, priestly work in behalf of those for whom He died. His joy and delight, as well as His love and His power is with them, who are His.

But there is greater joy in the future for Him, the Man in Glory. Though even now He is “anointed with the oil of gladness above all His fellows.” His joy will increase and be full in the future. Another glad shout will be heard when he leaves the Father’s throne and descends into the air. A shout of triumph and joy it will be, which will open the graves of the Saints, which will summon those who remain to meet Him in the air. Oh the joy at last the travail of His soul will be brought into His presence. Oh the joy! He will have us then and we will be with Him. With exceeding joy He will present us faultless before the presence of His Glory (Jud. 24). In joy and a glorious triumph He will bring many sons to glory. What joy it will be when He leads forth from heaven’s glorious mansions, those who are “God’s workmanship created by Christ Jesus!” Then all the world will know and angels shout once more for joy in the full and glorious revelation of the new creation.

Oh! the Joy for Him! when Israel cries out “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!” Oh the joy! when creation sings her songs of praise to Him, whose pierced hands have removed the curse. Oh! the joy! when nations hear war no more but sing the worth of the King of Kings and lay their gifts at His feet.

If we could measure all which was accomplished on Calvary’s cross, then we could also measure His joy, the joy of the Lord.

Reader! If you are saved by Grace, one with the Lord, then all this is yours. The joy in the Lord and the joy of the Lord is to be your portion now and in the day of His joy and glory. Murmuring, discouraged, tempted, complaining, bereaved, downhearted, halfhearted child of God, ponder over these words. Let God’s Spirit lead you into them. The joy of the Lord is to be your portion. It will dispel your gloom. It will end your discouragement. It will give you songs in the night. It will lift you into a holy walk. The joy of the Lord can do this. He wants you to possess His joy. “These things have I spoken unto you, and that your joy might be full” (John xv:11). Let the Holy Spirit, who is given to you of God, make the Lord Jesus Christ a greater reality in your life. Let the joy of the Lord be your joy. Rejoice in God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let your joy be to do His will. Accept all from His hands. Rejoice in all things. “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice” (Phil. iv:4). Rejoice and glory in tribulation. “Count it all joy when ye fall in divers temptations” (James i:2). Having Christ, brought nigh to God, a perfect access into His presence, yea the right to come with boldness, a rejoicing and praising spirit should be manifested by us.

And look at the joy which is set before us. How it ought to lift us over all the present day trials and temptations and give us victory over the cares and anxieties, the pleasures and deceitful riches of this present evil and fast closing age. “Enter thou into the joy of Thy Lord.” This is our blessed and glorious future. We shall share His future joy as we shall share His glory. And it is but a little while longer and weeping, which endured for the night, will give way to the joy of the morning.

“AND He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God” (Luke xxiv:50-53). Something else is reported in the first chapter in the book of Acts in connection with the Return of our blessed Lord to the Father. “And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven”. (Acts i:10-11). This blessed message must have been the reason why they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Instead of tears and sorrow at that parting there was joy, because they knew and believed that He who had said “I will come again and receive you unto myself,” this same Jesus would come for them. What a blessed truth it is that the same Jesus, the same Lord who walked on earth, who spoke such words of infinite love and tenderness, who wept, healed the sick, raised the dead and commanded the demons, who calmed the storm, who had gone to the cross to die that awful death in our stead—that this same Jesus, raised from the dead, is now in the presence of God for us and our Advocate with the Father. It is the same loving, tender, caring, mighty Lord and Saviour, who is there and this same Jesus, not another, will come again. The reality of this filled the disciples with joy. They knew He had left them, they knew He lived and that He would come again. This knowledge gave them power to witness and to walk in holiness. The reality of this fills still the believing heart with joy and leads as well as keeps in the blessed faith life of fellowship with Himself, into which we have been called by the Grace of God. The heart of the believer under the control of the Holy Spirit has but one desire. It is to know Him and know Him better. Other desires for blessings may come up, but that life which is in the believer ever reaches out after Himself who is our life. “That I may know Him” was the passion of that wonderful man, who knew Him so well (Phil. iii:10). And it is just heart knowledge of this same Jesus in His loveliness, His patience, His power, His glory, in all His blessed fullness, which we need the most and through this all other needs are met.

Look up then in faith, child of God, He who is altogether lovely, whose perfect ways of love and grace, were so blessedly made known in His life down here, this same Jesus, with all the tenderness of infinite love, the love that never grows cold, is with the Father. Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, to-day and forever. The disciples heard Him pray His great prayer before He went to the cross (John xvii). As they listened to His words addressed to the Father, they learned as never before, how dear they all were to Him. How He loved them, cared for them, what He had done for them, would continue to do and what their future would be. And whenever we read these words in His high priestly prayer, we can hear Him still pray. We know that love for us cannot change; that prayer to keep does not fail; that concern, so deep and gracious, in all who belong to Him is unchanged, for it is “this same Jesus,” who intercedes for us, whose loving eyes watch our going in and our going out, our walk down here.

Oh! for the reality of this! This same blessed Lord is with us, for us, above us. We can count on His unchanging love. We can count on His power. The reality of the Person of our exalted Lord keeps us down here. Oh, draw near, beloved reader, for it is your privilege, your calling, to know Him and to enjoy Him. His heart is never satisfied unless you drink deep of His love and you lie in blessed dependence at His feet. Have you failed Him? Are days, weeks, perhaps months of wandering your past, days in which you grieved Him? Return, oh return! it is “this same Jesus” who at the lake of Tiberias so tenderly restored Peter and who waits for thy return.

And “this same Jesus” comes again. If the joy was so great when He left, because the heavenly messengers gave the good news that this same Jesus is coming again, what will be the joy when he does come! He comes as Saviour, which is the meaning of His blessed name. “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our body of humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body” (Phil. iii:20-21). The glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave Himself for us, will some day take place. And when He comes into the air and gives the shout, He will be “this same Jesus.” When we are caught up in clouds to meet Him in the air we shall meet Him, the same blessed Person, who walked on this earth, who died on the cross, who in His unchanging love kept and carried us and called us home. We shall see Him as He is. He comes, this same Jesus, to take us to be with Him. What will be His joy then when all His blood-washed, redeemed people are at last with Him! Then this same Jesus who bore our sins in His own body on the tree will bestow upon us His glory, the glory the Father has given Him.

Reader! Is it even now before you such a living reality, this same Jesus—is coming again; coming to take us all into the Father’s house with its many mansions, to the place whose portals were opened with His own blood! And how soon it may be that we shall see Him and be with Him!

If an angelic message were brought to-day to all Christians, we said recently in a meeting, and that message would state in terms unmistakably, one week more and the Lord Jesus Christ comes, one week more and we shall see Him; what would be the result? We can imagine the eagerness with which all would begin to serve and reach out after the unsaved; what self-denials and boldness we would behold! How all the earthly things, the childish things, the playthings of the dust, would lose their attractiveness. Then heaven’s glory would break upon us. But such a message is not promised to us. It is nowhere said that it will take place. No angel will come to announce the time when “this same Jesus” comes to call us home. The fact is God has told us in His Word, that His ever blessed Son will come and that He will come suddenly. He may come to-day. He may call us home before another morning comes. And if we believe it we shall walk in expectation and in separation. The Lord graciously revive the blessed Hope in our hearts and through it make us holy in our lives, zealous for the Gospel, untiring in service and loving towards all the Saints.

The Wondrous Cross.

WHO can tell out the story of the cross! There was a time when we thought we knew much of it; but oh! the depths, the wonderful depths of the cross and the work accomplished there, which constantly break in upon the heart, as one meditates on the cross. One who knew the cross, whose eyes were filled with all its glory, because He beheld Him, who hung on the cross, in highest glory has told us “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” Crucified unto the world. Dead to the world and to sin are the blessed effects of the cross.

Some time ago while remembering the Lord on the Lord’s Day we sang a familiar hymn:

How true!—contempt must be poured on all our pride when one beholds that sight, the cross on which the Lord of glory died. But is it so, “and pour contempt on all our pride?”

And when we sang the second verse its truth came home still more to the conscience:

How true! If such a one died to deliver us out of this present evil age then the vain things that charm us most, not the sinful things, must be relinquished. But is it really so—all the vain things that charm us most—we’d sacrifice them to His blood?

And then once more the heart said, How true! Marvelous sight the Lord of Glory on that cross for me! Forsaken of God, paying the penalty of my sins, drinking the cup of wrath, untasted by me. Such love surely demands our soul, our life, our all. But is it so? How often we sing these blessed truths and our lives are strangers to them. God grant that we may live out the truth of the cross in our lives. May the deliverance, the victory, the power of His cross be manifested in our lives. Dead to the world and the world dead to me.

His Legacy.

BLESSED and ever precious are the words, which came from the lips of our loving Lord, before he went to the cross. His own were gathered around Him; before He ever comforted them and poured out His loving heart, He manifested that love by serving them. He arose from the supper, laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. What a sight the Son of God girded! “After that He poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded” (John xiii:5). It was a great symbolical action. He who stooped so low to wash the feet of His sinful creatures is the same who declared in the Old Testament “Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities” (Isaiah xliii:24). The washing typifies the service our beloved Lord renders to His saints in cleansing them from defilement; it is “the washing of water by the Word.” And thus He continues in loving service till at last all His redeemed people are brought home into the presence of the throne and “the sea of glass like unto crystal” (Rev. iv:6) where no more defilement is possible and no more washing is needed.

Many and blessed are the words, which then flowed from His lips, after Judas had gone out into the dark night. Only He could speak thus. Thousands upon thousands, countless multitudes have been fed upon His gracious, comforting words and have been strengthened and upheld. Their careful and refreshing power is undiminished. Like Himself His Words are eternal and inexhaustible. The Father’s house with its many mansions, the fact of His personal return, the gift of the other Comforter, who came to abide with and in His own, the promises concerning prayer and assurance that the Father Himself loves them and many other precious truths were spoken by Him ere He left the world to go to the Father. At that time He gave His blessed legacy. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you” (John xiv:27). And the last word He spoke to His disciples before He uttered that marvelous high priestly prayer, contains also the assurance of peace. “These things have I spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer I have overcome the world” (John xvi:33).

The adorable Lord came to this poor sin cursed earth, a world of sinners and enemies of God by wicked works to make peace. The great work of reconciliation was effected on the cross. By His death on the cross the enemies of God, believing in Him, became reconciled to God. He made peace through the blood of His cross (Col. i:20). As believing sinners we are justified and have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Not our walk or service, not our faith or repentance or anything we have done or are doing is the ground of peace with God, but what Christ has done for us. Yea He Himself is our peace. And because He is our peace, it is a peace which can never be undone or unsettled.

When all was finished, the mighty victory over sin, Satan, death and the grave had been gained, when every foe had been met and fully conquered, the blessed victor appeared in the midst of His beloved disciples. It was on “the same day” the day when He arose, when the mighty power of God opened the grave, on the same day, He suddenly stood in their midst. The doors were shut. The disciples were full of fears and doubts. Thomas was not there at all. All at once their eyes beheld Him once more who had been crucified, had died and was buried. “Peace be unto you!” This heavenly greeting came from His lips and soothed their sorrows, cleared their doubts and dispelled their fears. And He who stood thus in their midst was the same whom Gideon had seen and who answered His fears with “Peace be unto you; fear not” (Judges vi:23). Jehovah is peace; He is our peace. On the glad and glorious resurrection day the gracious Lord appeared in their midst and proclaimed peace to them. But He also showed them His hands and His side. The marks of the nails and of the spear were seen there. They are the evidences of His death for His people. But He who was dead is risen and lives evermore. Ah! that is peace! The Christ who died for our sins, who is risen and is in God’s own presence is our peace. Would we enjoy that peace in a greater sense and have it more real, then let us just have Himself, the Person as the object of our hearts. “Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.” Nothing could make them glad aside from the Lord Himself. Alas! that some of God’s people try to find joy and peace in their service, experiences, knowledge of truth. Dear souls, it is the Lord only, who gives us peace and gladness.

But the blessed legacy of our Lord is not so much the peace with God, as it is “His own peace.” The peace which He possessed while on earth, that peace like a majestic river, ever flowing on in silence with not a moment’s interruption. His own peace, He bequeathed to His own. What a peace was His! What restfulness the divinely reported scenes of that blessed life breathe! We have written before on His patience, His joy and His love, the love which passeth knowledge. How much might be written too on “His peace.” But not half could ever be told. What calmness we see wherever we look. The threatening multitudes did not disturb Him, nor did the fierce storm on the Galilean sea; peacefully He rested in sleep, while the angry waves tossed the little ship aside and the terror-stricken disciples awoke Him. They cried “Lord, save us; we perish.” And then His eyes opened and in loving tenderness He said unto them, “Why are ye so fearful, O ye of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea and there was a great calm. Ah! poor human heart! how canst thou ever doubt with such a Lord at thy side!

And this peace which was His constant portion, was the result of a constant communion with God. His meat and drink was to do the will of Him that sent Him. That calm, unruffled peace was the fruit of His constant trust in God and dependence on Him. And this peace He wants us to enjoy. In a world full of tribulation, anxiety and care, a world full of increasing evils, conflicts and sufferings, He wants us to have His own peace. The enjoyment of this peace of our Lord Jesus Christ depends on our communion with God and the realization of our union with Him. On that blessed evening of the resurrection day the Lord spoke a second time, “Peace be unto you.” Why should He repeat the same greeting? The words which follow explain this. “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (John xx:22). As Christians saved by grace and in Christ we are sent by Him as He was sent by the Father. As we realize this and walk under Him, as we set the Lord always before our eyes and our life’s aim is to do His will and not our own, to please Him and not ourselves, to serve Him and not man, to let Him plan and not we ourselves, to be nothing instead of something, to be in the dust instead of exalted, then shall we enjoy His legacy “His own peace.” He wants us to have it. He wants us to be kept in perfect peace. Are we willing to have it? And what else honors our absent Lord more than a life which manifests His peace. What pleases the Father more than to behold His children reminding Him by their lives of dependence and peace, the result of the rest of faith, of His own blessed Son. And the Holy Spirit, who produces all this in us will ever lead us on in the fuller enjoyment of the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We must expect in the coming days greater tests of faith, greater conflicts, greater trials. It cannot be otherwise in these perilous times. We must not expect anything else. But He can and will keep us. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because He trusteth in Thee.” And ere long the God of peace will bruise Satan completely under our feet. What joy—oh what joy awaits us when we shall see Him face to face, who is our peace.

---

What have I to Do With idols?

MUCH is said in reproof of Ephraim by the prophet Hosea. All the wicked dealings and defilement of Ephraim is uncovered—and the Lord said: “I will be unto Ephraim as a lion.” Again Jehovah said: “Ephraim is like a cake not turned.” “Ephraim is like a silly dove without heart.” “Ephraim hath made many altars to sin.” “Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone.” But all reproof and chastisement did not bring Ephraim back. Nothing seemed to be able to draw Ephraim’s heart away from the idols. At the close of the Prophet Hosea, however, Ephraim is made to speak and a significant word it is. “Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard Him, and observed Him; I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit found” (xiv:8).

A familiar yet blessed truth is contained in this statement. Ephraim dealt with by judgments after the severe rebukes of the Lord could not let go the idols. Joined to idols, the Lord said, “Let him alone.” But the day was to come when Ephraim would willingly forsake all idols and cry out, “What have I any more to do with idols?” And what brought about Ephraim’s conversion? Ephraim heard Him and observed Him. The sight of the Lord, His love and tenderness, His patience and kindness beheld in faith, was enough for Ephraim to forsake all idols and cleave to Him alone. Thus Ephraim became like a green fir tree.

And this is still true to-day. There is no other way to be separated from idols and walk wholly with the Lord than Ephraim’s way. Why are God’s people joined to idols? Why are Christians half-hearted, conformed to this present evil age, given to covetousness, which is idolatry (Col. iii:5)? There is but one answer. Our hearts do not listen to that blessed voice, which delights to speak to those who belong to Him. Our eyes do not look upon Him in all His glory and beauty. We lose sight of Him who is altogether lovely. Our minds instead of being occupied with the things of Christ are centered upon earthly things. Our thoughts are so little brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ and are controlled by our own imaginations and the spirit of the times. There is no other way of being delivered from idols, from everything which would draw us away from Himself and all which hinders from giving to Him the pre-eminence. That way is heart occupation with our Lord, conscious communion with Him through His Word in the power of His Spirit. We must hear Him, we must observe Him. Then He appears to our hearts in all His lowliness, in all His majesty and glory, and that vision will be enough to disgust us with the playthings of the dust and He will become the supreme object of our lives. There is no other way to practical holiness than hearing Him and observing Him.

Reader! Gaze afresh in that lovely face of transcendent beauty. Think of His great love for you, His never-changing love, His eternal love. Follow the dictates of that new nature Grace has given to you and have the Lord constantly before your eyes and heart. Anything less will lead you to idols. What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard Him and observed Him.

The Never Changing One.

“JESUS Christ the same yesterday, and to-day and forever” (Heb. xiii:8). Blessed truth and precious assurance for us poor, weak creatures, yea, among all His creatures the most changing; He changeth not. “For I am the Lord, I change not” (Mal. iii:6). “Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall all perish, but Thou shalt endure: yea all of them shall wax old like a garment, as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end” (Psalm cii:25-27 and Heb. i:10-12). The above blessed statement puts Him before our hearts as the unchanging Son of God, the solid rock of ages. It is a verse which is like Himself, infinite, inexhaustible. Our adorable Lord is here mentioned as having a past, a present and a future, a yesterday, to-day and a forever. This Epistle at the close of which we find this word gives us a definition of the yesterday, the today and the forever of the Son of God. He is the true God; He had never the beginning of days, a yesterday, a past without a beginning. By Him the worlds were made. He is the effulgence of His glory and the expression of His substance (Heb. i:3). His yesterday is Eternity; His goings forth are from old, from everlasting (Micah v:2). And in that yesterday, in the bosom of the Father, the great plan of redemption was blessedly known. Oh! what a love that knew all and was ever ready to give all to carry out that wonderful scheme. “Wherefore coming into the world, He says, sacrifice and offering Thou willedst not; but Thou hast prepared me a body. Thou hadst no pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. Then I said, Lo, I come, in the roll of the book it is written of me, to do, O God, Thy will” (Heb. x:5-7). And then He came to manifest the eternal love of God. He came in the form of a servant; He, whose yesterday is eternity, was made a little lower than the angles (Heb. ii:9). And while on earth He was the same as in eternity. He showed His power as the Creator, over nature, disease and death. Though in humiliation, the Son of God had Glory, yet it was hidden. How blessed it is to trace His way while on earth and what love, mercy, patience, meekness, humility, peace and much more we find here. And then His great work of redemption. It behooved Him in all things to be made like unto “His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people (Heb. ii:7). Who in the days of His flesh having offered up both supplications and entreaties to Him, who was able to save Him out of death; with strong crying and tears (having been heard because of His piety); though He were Son yet learned obedience from the things He suffered; and having been perfected, became to all of them that obey Him, author of eternal salvation” (v:7-10). In His yesterday He made purification of sins; He put away sin by sacrificing Himself. He fulfilled the eternal will of God, by which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

And this Epistle likewise speaks of His “today,” the Present of Himself. His “to-day” began with the opened tomb, that blessed, glorious resurrection morn. He is the great shepherd of the sheep brought again from the dead, our Lord Jesus Christ (xiii:20). He is the appointed heir of all things, on the right hand of the majesty on high, taking a place so much better than the angels, as He inherits a name more excellent than they (Heb. i:3-5). He is addressed by God as high priest according to the order of Melchisedec (v:10). We gaze into the opened heavens and we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor (ii:9). Now a summary of the things of which we are speaking is: We have such a one high priest who has sat down at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens; minister of the holy places and the true tabernacle, which the Lord has pitched and not man (vii:1). He has a priesthood unchangeable. Whence also He is able to save to the uttermost those who approach by Him to God, always living to intercede for them (viii:25). For the Christ is not entered into holy places made with hands, figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us (ix:24). But, He having offered one sacrifice for sins, sat down in perpetuity at the right hand of God, waiting from henceforth until His enemies are made His footstool (x:12). Such and much more is His “to-day.” All power in heaven and on earth is given to Him.

His “forever” will begin when He leaves the Father’s throne and when He is brought into the world again, when all things are to be subjected under His feet and He will be in the fullest exercise of His Melchisedec priesthood, a priest upon His throne. And in all, yesterday, in the days of His humiliation, to-day upon the Father’s throne as our advocate and priest, in His glorious future, upon His own throne He is the same, the mighty Jehovah, who changeth not, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last. He is the unmovable rock, no storms, no changes can move the rock upon which we stand, and though heaven and earth pass away neither He, the living, eternal Word, nor His written Word will change.

His power, His grace, His love, His patience, is kindness, His sympathy is ever the same towards His own beloved people, who have trusted in Him and share His life. Having loved His own, who are in the world, and loved them to the end (John xiii:1); and that end is eternity. In the beginning of the last book of the Bible, we hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in the church, worshipping Him, in that matchless outburst “Unto Him that loved us and has washed us from our sins in His own blood.” But it does not say “loved,” but it reads “Unto Him that loveth us.” The love He has for His own is an abiding, an unchanging love. Oh to think more of that love, that changeless love, which passeth knowledge! And how true it is what a saint has sung long ago:

And yet how often we doubt that love and by fear, when we have come short or fallen in sin, insult that mighty changeless love. How often, too, when trials are upon us and we suffer, we lose sight of Him, the unchanging One, who loves His own to the end, and deep down in the heart there is unrest, anxiety, as if some evil could come upon us. Our weakness, our imperfections, our failures and our sins do not change His love and His grace.

As He was yesterday with His own and kept them, carried them, was their strength, their help, their refuge and their safe hiding place, their peace and their comfort, so is He to-day, so will He be forever. And in faith we can bring it stiller nearer to our hearts. He is for each the same loving, sympathizing, caring, interested Saviour, Friend and Lord. He who helped you yesterday, whose love was about you in the past, who has not left you since He found you for a single moment, is the same to-day, and will never be anything less. He will keep each member of His body, He will carry, He will lead onward, and with His unchanging love and power deal with each, as it pleases Him. Oh that we might cast ourselves more upon Him and spend the remainder of our days here (how few indeed!) in a more utter dependence upon Him, trusting Him, the changeless One. Oh for a closer walk with Him in these evil days and to taste more of His love, His unchanging love. How happy, restful, without care and anxiety God's people might be if only their hearts were fixed upon Him who is the same yesterday, to-day and forever. Alas! how often the things seen are more real to us as the real things, the things unseen. What a joy it ought to be to our hearts to follow Him now, to learn over and over again that He is the same, who changeth not, to find His power and strength as of old manifested in behalf of His beloved people.

Be of Good Cheer.

“BE of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid” (Matthew xiv:27).

“Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God believe also in Me. In my father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John xiv:1-3).

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John xiv:27).

“In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John xvi:33).

“Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am” (John xvii:24).

“Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age” (Matthew xxviii:20).

“He hath said I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews xiii:5).

“Fear not, I am the first and the last; I am He that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive forevermore, amen; and I have the keys of hades and of death” (Rev. i:17, 18).

“Behold I come quickly; hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown” (Rev. iii:11).

“Surely I come quickly. Amen” (Rev. xxii.20).

These precious words of comfort and cheer came from His loving heart and lips. May we take hold of them. How well it is to remember His words and Himself. How worthy He is; the mighty, the loving, the adorable Lord! How He loveth us His own, how He careth for us, is mindful of us and carrieth us, no heart can fully understand, no pen describe. How He came from heaven’s glory long ago, how He the One, who was rich, became poor for our sakes and died on the cross, that we might share eternal riches and glory with Him, is the old story, which never grows old. It is as fresh and new to the believing heart as it ever has been. And He who bought us with His own blood, loveth and carrieth us His poor, weak and sinning people with such love and infinite patience. The past years of our Christian lives, so all of us must confess, have been filled with many failures. But as we come to Him with our failures, our sins, our burdens, we find Him the same loving, tender Saviour. Ah! who can measure the depths of His love! He will never cease loving those, who have accepted him as their Saviour and whom He has accepted as His own. In His gracious hands we are and all His people. The hands which were pierced for us on the cross are over us and about us. They carry us, guide us, hold us and keep us. We are His and nothing can separate us from Him in time and in eternity. With a joyful heart we can say “I am my Beloved’s and His desire is toward me.”

Oh, dear Christian readers, how happy we might be if only all this were constantly real to our hearts and our minds were occupied with that blessed, glorious One. What joy and blessing we will have, if we walk closer with the Lord and live that life to which we have been called, live by the faith of the Son of God.

And the words He left us are just like Himself, Love, Hope and Comfort. There is nothing to fear for one who is in Him. He would have His beloved people free from all fear, anxiety and care. Twice He has told us “Let not your heart be troubled.” “Fear not!” “Be not afraid!” How much these words mean if we consider Him who spoke them. They must calm every fear and lift the trusting child of God over all the dark and difficult things on the way. The blessed words we have quoted are the never failing comfort for His people till they are gathered in His own presence.

The greatest anodyne, however, He has given to us, the anodyne for all pains and sorrows, griefs and perplexities is the blessed Hope. “I will come again and receive you unto myself” was spoken long ago, and yet it is still unfulfilled. Almost the last petition of His great high-priestly prayer is the petition to have His own with Himself in the Father’s house. “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am.” This prayer is still unanswered. “Behold I come quickly” are His own words in the third chapter of Revelation, words so full of meaning for us, exhorting us to hold fast what we have. And in the very end of the Book, almost the last word of the Bible is the last word He ever spoke. “Surely I come quickly. Amen.” He has not spoken again after this last utterance, so full of assurance. The next time His blessed voice will speak will be when He comes into the air and gives the mighty shout (1 Thess. iv:16) which will call the saints from their graves and ourselves from earth’s sorrow together with them to meet Him in the air. That blessed Hope is the great anodyne, the soothing as well as inspiring truth of the Bible, which stands next to and in closest relation with the Gospel. That blessed Hope is an imminent Hope. How cheerless it would be to think that the Lord cannot come for many years, that He cannot fulfill His blessed promise. How cheerless, yea, how depressing and discouraging it would be if it were true that the true believers must pass through the great tribulation, suffer under Antichrist, taste of the wrath, which will then be poured out. Such an expectation would not be a blessed Hope, but a depressing outlook. But blessed be God this is not the teaching of the Word, but only the invention of man. We are not to wait for the apostasy, the great tribulation, great earthquakes and disasters, but for Himself. He may come at any time and call us into His presence. To wait daily for Him is the true Christian attitude, which is a mighty power in the Christian life, walk and service. How we shall be weaned away from the passing things of this age, how we shall look upon all in its true light and be faithful witnesses for our Lord, if we walk in this daily expectation of meeting Him. And this we need. The Lord Jesus Christ must become more real to our hearts. Our fellowship with Him, our trust in Him, our walk in Him, our waiting for Him, all must become more real. The Holy Spirit in His power will accomplish this in our lives. In the awful darkness, which is settling upon this age, only such can abide faithful who cling closer to the Lord and who wait for His coming. The Lord grant this to all His people.

Make Haste.

THE little book called Solomon’s Song, in the Hebrew “the Song of Songs,” because it exalts and describes the Bridegroom, closes with that longing cry, “Make Haste my Beloved.” How this applies dispensationally we do not follow here. It is the same desire for Himself, which is found almost the last thing in the Bible, the great prayer, “Even so come Lord Jesus.” The soul which knows Him, follows closely after Him, and gets daily more of Himself will ever long for Him and for His Coming. The desire and prayer will arise many times each day from such a heart, “Make Haste my Beloved”—“Even so, come Lord Jesus.” The Holy Spirit ungrieved and unhindered in the believer will not alone produce this desire, but keep it alive in the soul and make it more intense. One may hold the Second Coming of Christ in a mere intellectual way; there is no profit in that. The blessed Hope must have its seat in the heart and affection. It is therefore a good test of our spiritual state. If our hearts are crying more for Him, longing to be with the Beloved, and we daily sigh for Himself to come and take us home, we are then certainly walking in the Spirit. Such a desire will also lead us into holiness of life and true service for Him. And as we look about us at the condition of things, surely only the Coming of our Lord appears to be the remedy. Nothing less than that event can arrest the dreadful conditions and bring the long promised deliverance. “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of the body” (Rom. viii:22-23). What a day it will be when at last He descends into the air to call His own, His Beloved together! What a day it will be when together with those who are raised from their graves we shall be caught up in clouds to meet HIM in the sky! What a day when He purges the earth by fire and comes with all His Saints to reign. Make haste! Even so, come Lord Jesus!

---