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Post by Admin on Aug 7, 2024 10:34:02 GMT -5
By Abraham Kuyper
When in holy ecstasy the Psalmist sings: "I love the Lord, because He hath heard my voice and my supplication, He pours out his whole soul in this song, but no one can analyze that love.
To have love for God is something altogether different and something far weaker than to be able to say: "I love God".
You have love for your native land, You have love for the beauty and grandeur of nature,
You have love for the creations of art, from the sense of compassion you have love for suffering humanity, You are conscious of love for what is noble, true and of good report, and thus in all honesty, almost every man can say that he also has love for God and that his love for God even exceeds all other loves Since all good that inspires love is from God, and most every man can say that he also has love for God, and that his love is for God even exceeds all other loves, since all good that inspires love is from God, and God himself is the Highest good.
And yet while this love for God can be a lofty sentiment, can be deeply serious, and can even be able to ignite a spark of enthusiasm, the soul may have no fellowship with the Eternal, and have no knowledge of the secret walk with God; the Great God may not have become his God, and the soul may never have exclaimed in passionate delight: "I love God!
Love for God, taken in general, is still largely love for the idea of God, love for the Fountain of Life for the Source of all good, for the Watcher of Israel who never slumbers, for the One Who, whatever changes, eternally abides.
But when there echoes in the soul of the words "I love God!" then the idea, the sense of the reality of the Eternal Being becomes personified. Then God becomes a Shepherd who leads us, a Father who spiritually begat us, a Covenant- God with whom we are in league, A Friend who offers us His friendship, a Lord in Whose service we stand, the God of our confidence, Who is no longer merely God but our God
Thus, for many years you may have had a general love for God and yet have never come to know God.
This knowledge of God only comes when love for Him begins to take on a personal character; when on the pathway of life for the first time, you have met Him; when the Lord has become a Personal Presence by the side of your own self; when God and you have entered into a conscious, vital, personal, particular relationship -He is your Father, You are his child.
Not merely one of his children, no, but His child and an individual way, and a personal relation different from that of other children of God, the most intimate fellowship conceivable in heaven and on earth. He is your Father, your Shepherd, your bosom friend and your God!
He who has not come to this, does not understand this. It goes too deep for him. And yet if he is religiously inclined, when he hears others talk about it, he senses he could attain to such love, for his own love would be more tender than now he feels it to be.
This tells him that as yet he misses something. It may awaken in him a longing for it; a craving in him that which would be so beautiful to possess.
This craving can prepare the way for higher things, For when it comes to a meeting with God, the action proceeds from both sides. God comes to him, and he comes to God. First from afar, then even closer, until at length all distance falls away and the meeting takes place- a moment of such blessedness as can never be expressed in words.
Then, and only then comes the "nearness" For everything hinges on the nearness, on that feeling. "it is good for me to be near unto God".
He also, who has not entered into the secret, may say with others.
"it is good for me to be near unto God" Psalm 73:27. but He does not grasp it. He says it without thought. He thinks it means a pious frame of mind, but feels no slightest burning of a spark of the mystical, most intimate and personal love in his own heart.
Adoration, worship, prayer for grace are there, but no attachment yet of love.
To be "near" is to be so close to God that your eye sees, your heart is aware of, and your ear hears Him, and every cause of separation has been removed; near in one of two ways: either that you feel yourself, as it were, drawn up into heaven, or that God has come down from heaven to you, and seeks you out in your loneliness, and that which constitutes your particular cross, or in that joy that falls to your lot.
The word "near" implies that there is, Oh! so much that makes separation between you and your God: so much that makes you stand alone, feel desolate and forsaken, because either God is away from you or you are away from Him, so that it leaves you no rest, and you cannot endure it.
Then everything within you draws you to Him again, until that which made separation falls away.
And then there follows the meeting; then He is near you, and you know once more that you are near Him.
Then there is blessedness again; Blessedness that exceeds everything that can be imagined. Then it is good, Oh! so good- above all things else- to be near again to your God.
But this blessedness may be tasted only at rare moments in this life. Then there remains the blessedness in the life that is eternal.
When that nearness to your God shall continue forever. Eternally near him In the Father's house
Cruel is the way in which the world thwarts you in this.
To escape from the world in Hermitage ie,[being a hermit] or cell was not the solution, but you can understand what went on in the souls of those who, for the sake of unbroken fellowship with God, took this course.
It might have been the solution if those who went out from the world have been able to leave the world behind. But we carry the world in our heart.
It goes with us because no hermit is so well fortified and no retreating in forests so distant, but Satan finds means to reach it. Moreover, to shut oneself out from the world in order to be near unto God is to claim for oneself here on earth, but can only be our portion in the Father's house. It is true that in seclusion, one escapes a great deal. Much vanity the eye no longer sees But existence becomes abnormal. Life becomes narrow. The "human" is reduced to small dimensions. There is no task; no more calling; no more exertion of all one's powers. The conflict is avoided, and therefore victory in the. struggle tarries.
Nearness unto God here on Earth yields its sweetest blessedness when it is cultivated in the face of sin and the world, as an oasis in the wilderness of life. And they against whom the world has turned most cruelly in order to turn them away from God, have attained the highest and the best, when in spite of every obstacle and in the face of worldly opposition, they have continued to hold tryst with God- like Jacob at Penuel, Moses in Mount Horeb, David when Shimei cursed him. And Paul, when the people rose up in uproar against him.
In the midst of the conflict, to be near unto God is blessed, and also apart from the conflict of the world, or sin, or Satan, when clouds gather over your head, when adversity, loss and grief inflict wound upon wound in your heart, when the fig tree does not blossom, and the vine will yield no fruit, then with Habakkuk to rejoice in God, because His blessed nearness has enjoyed more and sorrow than in gladness, this has been the lesson of history in at all times.
Not when in luxury and plenty David pleased himself, but when Saul persecuted him unto his death, did he sing the sweetest song for God yet.
Yet the world continued to be cruel. Its cruelty may assume an even finer form, but in its refinement it becomes even more painful.
In former times there were many things that reminded people of the sanctities of life, which of themselves provoked thought of higher interest and called eternity to mind.
All this is different now. In common life there is almost nothing that helps to retain the memory and the soul of the high, the holy, and the eternal. In public life, every reflection of Heaven is extinguished. No more days of fasting and prayer are appointed. No one may speak anymore of God.
No memento mori now reminds you of your death. Cemeteries are turned into parks, sacred things are held up to ridicule. In conversation and in writing the dominant note is that heaven reaches no father than the stars, that death ends all, and that life without God thrives as well, if not better, than life in the fear of the Lord.
And this discounting of God in public life throws itself as a stream between your God and your God -fearing heart. Your faith is strained in the measure in which you try, against the current of the stream, to hold yourself fast by God.
Especially to our young people, and to our dear children, this modern cruelty of the world is unspeakably dangerous.
But be of good courage.
God knows it, and his eternal compassion He will come nearer, closer, and even more quickly to you and to your dear ones, in order that even amidst this trying conditions of modern life, you and they may be near unto Him. But then there must be no peace by compromise, or more than ever will a vague love for a far distant God desert you.
That which alone can save is taking part in that life of secret fellowship, which enables you to say "I love God", and then you will not remain suffering afar off, but press on to an ever closer nearness to God, in the personal meeting of your soul with the eternal.
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Post by Admin on Aug 7, 2024 11:44:37 GMT -5
Shall Be continually With Thee...pg350
You may sit close to some person in the same room without having any fellowship with him, without engaging in a word of conversation, or, for one moment, making approach with your spirit to his spirit. Especially on long railway journeys you may be enclosed within a comparatively narrow space for a whole day and more, with others whose names you do not know, or whose lives you have no knowledge, and with whom you do not exchange a word.
But, on the other hand, you may be miles away from someone so that you see nothing of him, observe nothing of him, can cause no sound to enter his ear or catch any sound from his lips, and yet, you are continually busy with him, think of almost nothing else than of him, and in your spirit, enjoy closest fellowship with his spirit. It may sound strange, but it is true that a mother who has lost her darling child may never have been so close with a soul to the soul of a child, as in the first hours after its death, when that dear child went endlessly away from her.
Local and physical presence can greatly aid to fellowship of soul with soul by the expression of the face, especially by the speaking of the eye, by the exchange of mutual thoughts; but our fellowship with some one's heart is not bound by this local presence.
It is the very intimate fellowship of soul that makes us long for the presence of our friend.
Our human nature is soul and body, and therefore only finds full satisfaction in the fellowship of soul, which at the same time enjoys the bodily presence. Even in the realm of glory our fellowship with God's saints will only find its blessed consummation in the seeing of one another in the glorified body. The fellowship of the blest in the Father's house above, until the resurrection of the dead, bears merely a provisional character and awaits the completion in Jesus' return.
But however great the significance is which must be attached to a bodily presence and sight, the presence of our soul close by another's soul does not depend on it. God created us so that when separated, we can have intimate fellowship, one with another; fellowship by means of writing or direct communication by telephone; but also, fellowship without the aid of any of these means, purely spiritual, purely in the feeling, in perceptions, and the thoughts and in the imagination.
Fellowship purely through bodily presence is no human fellowship.
Fellowship of person with person must always be as from spirit to spirit, from soul to soul, from heart to heart. And the question whether we live nearby a person or far away from him, or whether we are strangers to him, is one that is not decided by distance or presence, but exclusively by spiritual nearness or spiritual estrangement.
At a departure for long years, yea, at a last farewell. before dying, one can say:
"I shall continually be with you;" and more than one mother with respect to her deceased child, more than one widow with respect to the husband whom she lost, has literally fulfilled this.
That child and that husband, were gone from the earth, but the fellowship remained -awaiting the reunion hence in Asaph's Psalm 73:23 it reads. I shall then continually be with thee Psalm 73:23 This must only be taken in a sense of the spiritual fellowship.
Of course locally we are never separated from God; we can never be anywhere where God is not near us. He besets us behind and before. Whither shall we go from his Spirit, wither shall we fly from from his presence? We cannot escape the presence of God .
"If I make my bed in hell," says David in Psalm 139, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me."
God is never away from us. He can not be away from us, and we cannot be away from Him. For he is the omnipresent One. And, every moment, His Almighty power is operative in and with us; in every throb of the blood, and every quiver of our nerve, and every breath we draw.
But this omnipresence of God does not create, as yet, fellowship of our spirit with the Spirit of God.
Two things are required for this.
First, that God approaches our spirit, and in our soul and in our heart makes known the signs of his Holy Presence; and, secondly, that our spirit opens itself to the Spirit of God, lets Him in, moves itself towards Him, and seeking Him, rests not till it finds Him.
This first part, this approach of God's Spirit to our spirit, can make nothing more than a superficial impression and in this sense there is scarcely any who does not now and then, become aware in his soul of a certain impulse on the part of God, whether through the conscience or in connection with striking events in his life . Even in the midst of our sins we have been aware of this.
But this becomes something altogether different when God discovers Himself to us, makes Himself known to us, takes up His abode in our soul, and announces Himself to us as the secret Friend of our heart.
Then only, the possibility is given for the hidden walk, and God remains sovereign Lord, either to grant His fellowship to our soul or to withhold it. Only let him who receives it, take thought that thereby a privilege is granted him above all privileges, a heavenly, a royal, a Divine grace of highest worth.
And we that appreciate this blessedness at his high estimate will be shown by whether we, too, from our side, open to our heart to God, and not merely once in a while, but as a steady grace of life continuously seek and enjoy this intimate, this hidden fellowship with Him.
In Asaph's song: "I shall then continually be with thee," The word "continually" must not be interpreted to mean "from time to time" "occasionally", "once in a while", but "constantly",
"all the time", and "unceasingly".
He had tasted and enjoyed the blessedness of God's fellowship, but only at intervals, now and then. Now he was near unto God, and then again he was away from God, and thereby his soul had erred. He felt that with his spirit, he had wandered off and that he had been at the point of becoming unfaithful to God's children; and from this maelstrom he had come back only after he went into the sanctuary of God and opened his soul again to fellowship with Him. And now, directed by his bitter experiences of soul, he makes in his soul this high resolve, that he will do differently from before; not merely as heretofore, in the midst of all sorts of distractions once to seek God's fellowship and then again to wander off from Him, but that from now on he would be with it his God all the time, without break, without ceasing. That is what continually means.
This declaration does not mean to say that from now on he would be absorbed in holy meditation, in order through the play of the imagination, deeply, mystically to lose himself in fellowship with the Divine Being.
Provided it is indulged in with the utmost carefulness, such losing of one's self in the spiritual vision of the Infinite, as a result of private prayer, can have a value of its own.
But this is not what to be continually near to God means.
It can not mean this, because that with such holy mystical meditation all of the working of spirit is at rest. This would bring it about, and we would stand helpless before our task in the world and the fulfilling of God's will would henceforth be no longer possible.
No, the fellowship of being near unto God must become reality, in the full and vigorous prosecution of our life. It must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking.
It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence. This is not possible with the fellowship we have with any human person, but it is possible with the fellowship we have with our God, because in God, from God, and through God are all the issues of all holy and all creaturely utterances of life.
Therefore inactive pondering is not what Asaph wanted, but a key-note, a fundamental temper of mind and heart, which, continually gives thanks, lifts itself worshipfully directs itself to God. An ejaculatory prayer is not enough. This proceeds only occasionally from the soul.
What is required is that at times at all times and in all things are expect expectation be from God, and that continually we give Him thanks for everything. It is to let God inspire us.
It is so to company with our faithful Father, that we never know a moment in which it would affect us strangely if He were to appear to us.
Even as we have our own self ever with us and bring it into every interest of life, so also let the thought of God, the lifting up of the soul to God, the faith on God, the love for God continually operate in and with everything. That is what prevents estrangement, the straying away,
and accustoms our soul to be continually near God.
This is more strongly evident in this, that he who so lives, feels an aching void the moment he wanders away from God, and therefore, takes note no rest, till he entered again into fellowship with him.
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Post by Admin on Aug 7, 2024 12:09:04 GMT -5
My solitary one.
Solitude is something that is to be reckoned with when you consider the effect it has upon the mind.
This is most evident with a little child who in solitude becomes afraid and begins to cry. If less striking, yet this impulse to seek a shunned solitude marks itself with adults with sufficient clearness, for us to infer from it something about their character.
Some people, whenever possible, escape from their busier surroundings in order to bury themselves in solitude; while others, when left alone, feel oppressed, and only find themselves again in the company of others.
This poor itself in a threefold way.
The most striking example may be borrowed from the choice that the heart has made at the cross-road of good and evil. In order to do wrong, one hides and conceals oneself. Evil works by night, but when the wrong is done and the conscience is awakened, solitude becomes oppressive and diversion is sought in other's company.
Less striking, yet sufficiently evident is the way the liking for, or dislike of solitude shows itself respectively and the more meditative or more active disposition.
One lives more within himself, thinks and ponders and feels deeply and lives in externals, runs and slaves, and likes to make a show of his activities. Even among nations, this difference is apparent. One people lives within doors, another whenever possible, is in the street.
A difference for the most part, determined by climate and nature.
And in the third place, the seeking or shunning of solitude finds its cause in the consciousness of power or the or the lack of it. Diffident, awkward, and inwardly cowardly natures are almost afraid of company, and draw back with downcast eyes; while he who is clever, energetic and courageous, mingles freely among all sorts of people.
There is more to it than this. Solitude is loved by the man of study. It affects the old man more than one who was in the strength of his years; in feeble health, with weakened nerves, people shrink from too much excitement. These causes, however, are accidental, and are no index of character; but in connection with them is striking that the Psalmist twice calls his soul "a solitary one". Once in the passion psalm, prophetic of Golgotha Psa. 22:20 Deliver my soul from the sword, my solitary one, from the power of the dog; and again in Psalm 35:17. Rescue my soul from their destructions. My solitary one from the young lions His soul is your solitary one This expresses its preciousness to parents that have but one child this solitary child is more precious than the seven of which another may boast.
If this solitary child dies, the generation dies, and the lifeline of those parents is cut off. Applied to the soul, your soul, stands apart from your property and your body. However much you are attached to your goods, if they are lost, other goods can replace them, and though once your body shall be lowered in the grave, presently you will rise in a glorified body
But such is not the case with your soul. Your soul is your solitary one. It cannot be replaced. If lost, it is lost forever. For this reason Jesus warns us so solemnly; Fear not then that could kill the body, but rather fear him who can destroy your soul. Yes, I say unto you fear him. Luke 12:4,5. All loss can be made good except the loss of your "solitary one".
And therefore here the consciousness of your self separates itself from your soul. You, who view yourself, who think about yourself, find a busy, active round about you, and see yourselves in a decadent, visible body that grows and flourishes or is sick and pines away. But you have still something else within you, hidden in your inward being, and that hidden something that "solitary one" within you is your soul, which you must love, and which at your death, You must return to your God in honor and holiness. because from Him and from Him alone, you received it. from this comes the sense that the soul within you dwells alone.
Truly, your soul can approach the world, and the world can approach your soul.
God endowed you with senses which, like so many windows, enable you to look out upon the world and communicate with it. God has endowed you with feelings and fellow feeling, whereby, though others may be far away, yet you could sympathize with them, rejoice with them, and suffer on account of their sorrows. God has endowed you with the gift of speech, whereby your soul can express itself and the soul of another can speak in your ear. Speech has been committed to writing, and thanks to this glorious invention, which likewise has been given us of God, your soul can have fellowship with preceding generations, or with contemporaries whom you have never met. And not least, you have a sense and knowledge of a higher world above and it is as though angels of God descended upon you, and from you ascended again. And best of all, in your heart, you have a gate that opens into your soul through which God can approach your soul, and your soul can go out to God.
But in the face of all of this, your soul itself maintains remains distinct from the world, from that nature, from those angels and from God, and in a sense separated. And so, taken by itself, your soul within you is your solitary one, that is something that has something which is purely and solely is its own, and remains its own, with respect to which the loneliness which can never be broken.
One of two things happens.
Either the soul is too lonely, or you yourself have too little knowledge of the soul in its loneliness.
The soul is too lonely within you when you are bereft of what supported you and gave you companionship. This is the loneliness of sorrow and of the forsakenness which oppresses and makes you afraid.
Your soul is disposed to sympathy, to society, to give and win confidence, to be man among men and to spread wings and spheres of peace and happiness.
And when these do not fall to your portion, when hate repels and slander follows you, where love should attract and sympathy refresh you, then shy and shrinking your soul draws back within itself. It cannot unburden itself, nor express what it feels. Shut up within itself. It points away in sadness and grief.
Or, when the joy of life takes flight and care makes a heavy heart and sorrows come upon sorrow, and the outlook darkens and the star of hope recedes behind ever thickening clouds- then in oppressive isolation the soul is thrown back upon itself in pants for air, while Satan sometimes steals in with the suggestion of suicide.
But as. the soul can be troubled and oppressed by too great solitude, it can also suffer loss when you do not fully appreciate the significance of its solitariness. This is the common result of a superficial, thoughtless existence that is weaned of all seriousness.
Then the soul is not understood, nor honored in its own solitary independent existence. Then there is the chase after diversion, an endless recreation; with never a turning in upon itself, never the collecting of the soul for the sake of quiet thought, never a seeking after the soul, for a soul's on sake, while the soul itself continues always haunted, always a slave to its environment, never coming to rest inward peace and self examination.
And so you see people in the world go out in two directions. On one side, the wretched and distressed, pining away an inner solitariness; on the other side, the laughing, always busy, hurried and self externalizing crowd, which neither ever seeks solitude, nor harbors a thought about its own solitary soul.
Against this giving way too much to solitude, and this not entering far enough into the appreciation of the souls solitariness, one remedy alone is offered unto us, and that is the coming into the loneliness of our soul of the fellowship of our God.
In our soul, there is a holy of holies, a holy place and an outer court.
The world makes no closer approach to our soul than the outer court. There it remains, and neither observes nor understands anything of the deeper secrets of the soul.
Intimate spiritual friendship makes a closer approach; a small circle of individuals about us who understands us better, who sees through us more clearly, and thereby are able so much more tenderly to sustain and comfort us, enter the holy place. But even they do not enter the Holy of Holies. There is always a deep background where they cannot enter in, and where the utter solitude of the soul abides.
There is only One Who can enter into this holiest and most intimate recess of our soul, and He is God, the Lord by his Holy Spirit.
And therefore He alone can break through the souls loneliness, and comfort him was caught in the snares of death and saved the soul of him who diverted himself in the interest of pleasures and the world.
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Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2024 16:19:10 GMT -5
"WHATSOEVER YE DO, DO IT HEARTILY, AS TO THE LORD."
God, in his word, opposes every tendency and every effort to break up life into two parts; one for ourselves and one for God. He allows no division, no separation; no six days of the week for us and Sunday for God. No unconsecrated life interspersed with consecrated moments. No unhallowed existence through which at distances a sacred thread is interwoven. No life apart from religion marked here and there with piety. No, the claim of Scripture on this point is absolute, and though it seems strange to us, the claim remains: ""Pray without ceasing;" in everything give thanks; rejoice in God always; and: "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord" (Col. 3:23).
To Thessalonica Paul writes: "Pray without ceasing. Rejoice evermore. In everything give thanks" (I Thess. 5 : 16, 17, 18) . To the Philippians: "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Phil. 4:4). And to those at Colosse: '"Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord" (Col. 3:23). There is no respite given. No compact made with you. God takes no pleasure with anything less than all of your life. Where faith becomes the rule of life, its dominion aims to be absolute. No finds, no excuses, no half-measures are tolerated. He who would live this life as a child of God, as a servant of Jesus Christ, inspired by the Holy Ghost, must be led and carried in everything by faith. He who divides and makes distinctions robs God of a part that is God's. If you would love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength, every subterfuge is closed off, and the all-claiming and all-demanding character of faith is founded in Love itself.
Every division works injury to your life, and to your religion. He who makes division here, and does too much for religion, neglects his family or his calling. And he who divides and is not pious, gives the lion-share to the world, and with an avaricious heart deducts from what he pretends to set aside for God in strength, time and money. He who would have the blessing of nearness unto God and of going through life in secret fellowship with God, can not cultivate it spasmodically. With him God must be known in everything he undertakes to do. God must be the sole end and aim, God must be entreated and given thanks. This can not be done in a formal way with closing of eyes and folding of hands and muttering of words, but in the inmost chamber of the heart and in that hidden recess of self-consciousness whence are the issues of life as well as of prayer.
This is opposed by the idea that a clergyman can continually turn this fellowship with God into a reality in life, but not a business man; that the man or woman who is zealous for missions, philanthropy or evangelization, stands in holy service before God, but not the father and mother in the family. The work of a clergyman, missionary or nurse is then called consecrated labor, and the work performed by the gardener, merchant or seamstress is said to be secular. This false representation of the matter has worked much injury to piety and to vital godliness.
It goes without saying that he who ministers in the sanctuary is of itself more closely engaged with holy things, and enjoys an uncommon privilege, of which he shall give an account before God. Nor can it be denied that at the exchange and in the shop it takes more effort and victory over self to continue in everything near unto God. This is a greater struggle in which God knows what we are made of, and is mindful that we are dust. But by the side of this stands the fact that ministering in the sanctuary brings with it in no small measure the danger of becoming accustomed to holy things, and of handling the same more and more with unholy hands, whereby judgment is made so much the heavier. In best churches and in most excellent missions also evil times returned again and again, in which priests and priestesses profaned the sanctuary, and when not from among them, but from among plain patrons and working people and shop-keepers and merchants the new action arose, which restored the holy to honor. A pious preacher, a godly missionary, a consecrated nurse, and likewise a truly godly warden, elder or deacon, represents a glorious power. But it is a mistake to think that of itself the more consecrated calling brings true godliness with it. Young preachers of tender consciences, have frequently been bound to confess that they were put to shame by the godliness of many a plain member of their congregation.
Moreover, it must be granted that in our extremely defective condition certain definite and special consecration of a part of our life, of our strength and of our money to religious activities and interests is necessary. You can not serve God all the days of your life in such a way but that the day of rest retains its supreme significance. You can not continue near unto God in everything you do in such a way, but that the particular moments of direct prayer, of worship in the Word, and of thanksgiving and praise continue to be a need of the heart. Neither can you practice justice and compassion in everything in such a way, but that setting apart of special gifts for the service of God is appreciated by you as a sacred duty.
In the Jerusalem above this duality also shall fall away. The church triumphant in heaven shall not stand in, nor by the side of, the life of glory, but shall be that life itself. But such it is not as yet here. It can not be otherwise but that here this duality continues. The church is something else than the family or the shop. The mighty antithesis between things of this world and things of the Kingdom demands this. But this may never allow religion, piety or godliness so to withdraw itself within the sacred domain as to become a churchly life with godliness by the side of a life in the world without godliness. Godliness may find a more exalted utterance within the sacred domain, and impart strength for daily life, but to be true and genuine, it must be a golden thread that maintains its glistening brightness throughout all of life.
It all depends on whether you truly believe that God is almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth. Whether you believe and consider that every material you handle is his creature; that every article of food and drink on your table is his creature and his gift; that your body and all your senses are his embroidery; that every force of nature with which you come in contact, is his omnipresent working; that every circumstance you encounter has been appointed you by God; that every relation in which you are placed by blood, by marriage, by appointment or choice, has come to you under and by his providential plan; that your every exigency and difficulty has been put in your way by God; that every task or duty to which you are called comes to you from God and has a definite significance in his government; that you can not think of anything so high or so low on earth but it all forms a link, great or small, in the chain of his dispositions; that no joy is enjoyed and no suffering suffered, but God measures it out to you; in brief, that nothing can be thought of in heaven or on earth, and nothing can exist, but God, who created heaven and earth, maintains and governs it, has a holy purpose with it all, in everything is God who disposes and ordains, and who in all things uses his people, which includes you, to carry out his counsel. To make an exception of anything whatever with reference to this, is unbelief.
When, therefore, the Apostle says: "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord," he says nothing but what immediately flows from your confession that you believe in God the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth. For then there is nothing in your personal life, or in your family life, or in your study and work, or in anything you do, that would separate you from God, and that should not rather, provided it is rightly interpreted, lead you to God. You can, indeed not sin as to the Lord. Sin separates, breaks fellowship and throws you back upon yourself. But for the rest, whether you stand behind the counter or work at your trade; whether you sit in your office; whether you lose yourself in study or devote yourself to art; whether you are at home or in other company--it all can and must be one working, one activity with strength imparted of God, in things Divinely created, for a purpose which God has ordained.
Hence the question is whether your faith, not in the mysteries of salvation, no, but your faith first of all in God as Creator of heaven and earth floats with you as a drop of oil on the waters, or whether it permeates all of your life and is applied by you to everything. In case of the latter there is no division anywhere, and the man who plows and sows, the carpenter at the bench or the stone layer, the mother who cares for her children and her home, in brief, every man and woman, in any position of life whatsoever, never labor apart from God, but always in his creation and in his service.
Then to be near unto God, the fellowship with the Eternal, the secret walk with him who knoweth the heart, is no sweet-smelling savor by the side of life, but the breath of life itself, spreading its sweet perfume upon your whole existence. Then in everything you are glad, because the majesty and the grace of God breathes upon you from everything and in everything. Then, in everything, you pray, not with the lips, but in the heart, because, in whatsoever you do, you feel your deep dependence upon his Almighty power. Then in everything you give thanks, because all trouble is outcome of his grace. And every adversity is intended to stimulate you, with the aid of ever more grace, to greater exertion of strength. Then everything will be done heartily, i. e., not mechanically, not slavishly, not of necessity, but willingly and gladly, because in this way you are permitted to do it in his service. And thus you attain that high level of existence where godliness and fulfillment of duty are one, because whatsoever you do, in quiet and restful nearness unto God, you are permitted to do as to the Lord.
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Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2024 16:21:48 GMT -5
"THOU TRIEST MINE HEART, THAT IT IS WITH THEE."
Many causes can interrupt the secret walk with God. The most mysterious to the pious mind is, that God withdraws his face, in order, by the want of it, to make you thirst more strongly after it. The most common is, that earthly interests so engage the attention and keep it absorbed that the soul is ensnared by them. And the most offensive to the soul is that actual sin came in the way, which not only broke your fellowship with God, but continued to prevent the return to the nearness of the Holy One.
Actual sin alone has mention here. A word, a deed, of which you felt, when you faced it, that it would be a sin to you, and which you failed to evade. A sinful tendency, a sinful mood, especially a sinful desire, can seriously affect the fellowship with God, but the working of it is different. For on this side of the grave this sinful inclination will stay by us, but provided it is not cherished, this by itself will not prevent the secret walk with God. The secret walk with God is always in Christ, from which it is evident that we do not come to God as one who is holy, but as one who in himself is a sinner. But it is different with a sin that has been committed. Then there was consent, permission and the doing of it. Then at once the light of God's benign countenance was gone. Then on the side of God it become dark, and the inclination to flee from God was stronger than to be near unto God.
We perceive this change in our spiritual attitude clearly, at once and in the most painful way, when it was a sin that tempted us; a sin which, once committed, startled us, and for which we would give anything if the stain of it could immediately be removed from our soul. When, if we may say it in an ordinary way, it was a bad sin. For nothing shows our low moral viewpoint so sadly as our general ignorance of our minor daily sins, neglected duties, unlovelinesses, expressions of egotism, pride and vanity; small untruths, little dishonesties, and much more of the same kind.
This is still entirely different from what David calls "secret faults." They are faults which may stain the garment, but so little as to escape our notice. This refers to unknown sins, and which only with later development of soul, will be recognized by us as such. But we know the sins which we say are "not so bad." We have become accustomed to them and therefore they have ceased to trouble us. Our soul no more reacts on them. And of this sort of sins it is certainly true, that they hinder the secret walk with God, but do not prevent it. They do not break what once existed. But they affect the hidden walk with God to this extent, that it becomes sporadic, remains fellowship from a distance, and that we fail of the fuller enjoyment of the same.
Interruptions by sin in fellowship with God are only possible when, as a rule, you are near unto
God, when you know him in all your ways, and have been initiated into the secret of salvation, and then commit a sin which startles and frightens you, and brings a dark cloud to your sky, and you are thrown back upon yourself, and you feel that you have no more part in the lovely walk with God.
In Psalm 32 David speaks of such a break, and frankly confesses that this condition was continued because he kept silence. "When I kept silence thy hand was heavy upon me day and night." But at length he broke this silence, "I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord." And when he has done it, the break is at once removed. Now he seeks and finds God again, and so he sings: "For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found. Thou compassest me with joyful songs of deliverance." Yea, now he meets with God again, and God does not repel him nor hold him back. But he hears it sweetly whispered in his soul: "I will instruct thee; I will guide thee with mine eye."
And in this Davidic experience of soul lies the only true diagnosis, and the only effective medicine. When we were so weak, nay so wicked, as willingly and knowingly to commit a sin, the first impression which it made on us was that we wanted to hide from God, that we were afraid of appearing again before his presence, and that with the bitter remembrance of our sin we drew back within ourselves. Not from enmity, but from fear. Not from lack of will, but from shame. We well knew that we must get back to God, but we postponed it. We wanted to pray, but we allowed time to intervene. We kept silent. And in this oppressive silence, which so sorely weighed upon the soul, we got farther and farther away from God.
This is the diagnosis, i. e., the explanation of the wound from which at such a moment the soul bleeds. The only true medicine is immediately to break your silence, seek solitude, kneel down, and without sparing yourself confess plainly and candidly your sin before God, call upon him for forgiveness, yea, implore him that he take not his Holy Spirit from you.
This takes pains. At such a time you must do violence to yourself. You feel the sharpness of God's anger, and back of it you must grasp his mercy. But the outcome of this is always surprising. It is just as David said. It breaks at once the ban which sin put upon the heart. Something in the soul gives way, and liberation follows, deliverance, reconciliation, and God comes near in faithfulness as Jesus pictured it in the shepherd with the lost sheep. It seems as though in such a moment God draws nearer than ever to convince you of his infinite compassion.
Satan whispered within: "Stay away from God," but your Father in heaven called out to you: "No, come unto me, my child." In this approach of your sin-confessing heart to God, and of God to your soul, the interruption falls away, and it is good for you, unspeakably good, to be near again unto God.
And what is the secret of this healing work of the soul? Is it not stated in Jeremiah's words: "Lord, thou knowest me, thou seest me, thou triest mine heart that it is with thee" (Jer. 12:3 Dutch version). That which makes the utterances of Psalmist and prophet so striking is, that they interpret all of life within the scope of battle for or against God. Battle against God on the part of Satan. Battle against God on the part of unholy, worldly powers. Battle against God's holiness on the part of every sin. They do not speak the weak, cowardly language of a self-developing and degenerating moral life, but they relate every thing to God, as the center of all things. It is all a battle of sin and unrighteousness against God, and a battle of God against all unrighteousness and sin. It is an age-long battle, from the days of paradise on, which will not cease until the end of the ages, when God in Christ shall triumph over the last enemy. And we are all involved in this conflict, and have our part in it. When we sin, it is on the side of Satan against God. When we live by faith, it is on the side of God against Satan.
This is the interpretation of life as given by prophets and apostles. And this should be the profound and striking interpretation of life on the part of all God's children. And what is a sin which we commit? Even this: that in an evil moment we strengthen the forces of evil against
God, and that in co-operation with Satan we oppose God. And if this be the case what is it to make confession of sin, save that so soon as you realize this, you at once step out from among the ranks of Satan and return to the battle lines of God, imploring mercy, that you may be counted worthy again to fight under his banner, and again to join forces with him?
And now the heart appeals to the omniscience of the God of all compassions. Did you mean to desert the ranks of God and to join the forces of Satan? No, no; and once again, No. You did not mean to do it. The thought of such an evil did not rise from within yourself. You allowed yourself to be taken unawares. You slipped without realizing the dreadful wickedness of your deed. And now as you perceive that this is the sin that you committed, you appeal to God. In the inmost recess of your heart there was no desire to desert God. And your sorrow of soul, your remorse, your self-reproach is, that in the face of it, you have incurred the guilt of an act of enmity against God. And, therefore, you plead with him and ask him, the all-knowing, whether as he tries your heart, he does not see, and does not know, that in its deepest depths, as against Satan, it is with him.
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Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2024 16:36:58 GMT -5
"GET THEE BEHIND ME, SATAN!"
It can not be denied, that in former times, especially in the middle ages, too much was made
of Satan by dragging him, as it were, rightly or wrongly, into everything. But does it not seem that now we rather incline to the other extreme, and forget, if not deny, the very existence of the Evil One? With this denial, self-conceited freedom in matters of belief makes singular shifts with the Gospel of our Lord. For then it is said that one frees himself from the Old Testament, but for this very reason adheres the more closely to the Gospel. These wavering spirits are not concerned with Moses but with Jesus, and frequently do not hesitate to criticize you, who hold to the whole Scripture, as being too Old-Testamentish and consequently only half Christian.
But see how these people, who are so loud in their praises of the Gospel, themselves deal with it. It is true that Satan has almost no mention in the Old Testament, and that he is broadly dealt with in the Gospel. And not this alone, but in his words as well as in his works, Jesus continually shows that he reckons with Satan. Only think of the temptation in the wilderness, of the constant casting out of devils, of the great conflict of evil spirits against the Savior, how he understood that all his sufferings and death was a struggle with this Prince, and how, without multiplying instances, in the short "Our Father" he added the petition as a final prayer for all his people: "Deliver us from the Evil."
All this, however, will not do. The half friends who have put the Old Testament aside, in order to adhere solely to Jesus and his Gospel, do not hesitate to dismiss this whole matter of Satan's influences, part and parcel, from their Gospel. And with respect to this it is evident again, that every such effort aims not at forming the mind and thought after the Gospel, but at moulding the Gospel after their own world of thought.
With respect to this they who, while more faithful to the Gospel do not deny but forget the real workings of Satan, are not free from guilt. Or is it not extremely rare, that in spoken or written address, in psychology or in revelations of the inner life, the Evil One is reckoned with as a real factor? It should be carefully observed, that like a thief, Satan is most pleased when his presence and his work are not noticed. In circles where his existence is denied or ridiculed, his hands are altogether free to murder souls according to his liking. But that he can be so strangely forgotten by those who are more inclined to believe the Gospel, offers him the finest chances to poison souls. We may be sure that in all this denial and in all this forgetting of the actual existence of Satan, a trick of Satan himself operates. When the mighty spirit of Christ moved the waves of the sea of life in Palestine, Satan did not succeed with this for a moment, and Jesus compelled him to show himself. But now he succeeds in keeping himself in hiding, and unseen and unnoticed, from the ambush, to inwork his character, and consequently with better effect.
How the working of Satan proceeds is not revealed unto us in its particulars. We only know
that the world of men is not the only world of conscious beings. There are myriads of other spiritual beings who are known as spirits, angels, cherubim, seraphim, etc. It is also certain that this world of spirits is not separated from our world of men, that it exists by the side of it, and is in all sorts of ways related with it and inworks upon it. And in the second place it is additionally revealed, that in this world of spirits the antithesis between holy and unholy has broken out, even earlier than here on earth, and that from this world of spirits it has entered into our world of men.
Hence there is a certain alliance between good spirits and good men, and also a conspiracy between unholy spirits in the invisible world and unholy spirits in the visible world. Joy among good angels of God over one sinner that repenteth, and smiles of derision among evil spirits when the effort to bring about the fall of a lost man meets with success. It is all one conflict, one warfare, one struggle with Christ as the Head of holy spirits here on earth and outside of this world against Satan, who is the head of all unholy spirits among men and among devils.
All this is clearly, broadly and exhaustively set forth in the Gospels, Epistles and in Revelation. We know this, we believe this, and are obliged to direct our doings and non-doings in accordance with this. But how these workings of unholy spirits upon the world of men proceeds, is wrapt in shadows, so that only some vague features give direction to our thoughts. This much, however, is certain, that a threefold working severally delineates itself with sufficient clearness. There are workings from the unholy spirit world, which, without definite attack, of themselves find a vehicle observable by us, in public opinion, customs and habits of life, and sinful human nature. This is the common, the everyday recurring, the ever continuing process which, as it were, is in the very air, and of which we all undergo a certain influence. There is a second working which is better defined when one of the many evil spirits makes itself master of the spirit of a given company of people or of the spirit of a given individual. Sometimes several wicked spirits do this at once. Bring to mind the parable of Jesus (Matt. 12:45). And, then, there is a third, still more definite, yea, even the most definite working, when Satan does not employ the agency of one of his adherents, but when he prepares himself for battle, in order to make a leading assault in the world of spirits.
In accordance with the spirit of the times, and of persons, the first, second or third working appears more conspicuously in the foreground. This is seen in the days of Jesus. The main dispute had then to be settled, and all three of these workings were strongly evident. Satan himself, in array against Jesus and his apostles, evil spirits arrayed against chosen victims, and the ordinary workings among the rank and file of the people. Escape there was none. Hiding would not do. The conflict was in the open. Altogether different from now.
Even in those days, however, Satan tried to hide himself. We refer to this for our instruction. Peter, with his sensitive nature and excitable mind, was used as instrument. "His Jesus to die on the Cross! Never!" Love for Jesus was the motive of antagonizing this dreadful thought in Jesus. And so we read: "Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, 'Have pity on thyself! This shall not be unto thee!'" (Matt. 16:22). The working of Satan was concealed in this. Peter did not realize it. But Jesus saw through it at once, and in turn rebuked the disciple, who was adrift on his feelings instead of resting on the prophesied plan regarding the man of sorrows. "Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of man." Thus Satan did not gain a hair's breadth. Jesus unmasked him at once. Even with his attack from the ambush he could make no advance against Jesus.
But this event is of infinite value to us. It shows that a direct attack of Satan can lurk in loveliest forms of devotion, when apparently no evil intent is at play, even when we have the impression of walking very tender ways. This does not say, that Satan ever attacked you personally. It is very possible that he confined himself in this to the use of one of his subordinate spirits. It is even possible that as yet he has never influenced you otherwise than by his general workings in the spiritual atmosphere. But the incident with Peter shows that you might be mistaken. That there might have been an attack of Satan when you did not in the least suspect it. And in any case, that the daily prayer: "Deliver us from the Evil!" is no superfluous wealth for anyone of us.
Thinking of a temptation that was endured, the question sometimes rises long afterward, entirely objectively: Was not this a direct attack of Satan on my heart, and was it not God who delivered and saved and preserved me? It is not always in the temptation to some particular great sin. See it in the case of St. Peter. He deemed rather that he was doing good. But this is certain, that the greatest obstacle in the way of the world of evil spirits is your seeking and striving to be near unto God, to live in his secret fellowship, to choose your path in life and to follow it unto the end, in conscious communion with God.
And for you, on the other hand, there is no safer stronghold in which to hide and safeguard yourself against these unholy influences than in being much in close nearness unto God. For this reason Satan is ever on the alert to interrupt this fellowship with God in your heart. That you seriously seek this hidden walk with God, is reason enough for Satan to venture an attack on you in a particular way, by no means always to allure you into a great sin, but very frequently, as in the case of Peter, by imparting unto you diverting workings of the affections.
Be, therefore, on your guard. As soon as you become aware of spiritual coolness, as soon as you perceive that this, that or the other thing renders it difficult or prevents you from being, and continuing, near unto God, then consider what influences you are becoming subject to, what unnoticed inworkings take place in your soul. Shake yourself free from them all. And do not rest until you have found your hiding place close by the heart of God. Hesitation, procrastination will not do. Jesus broke the spell immediately, and at once repulsed Peter with the words: "Get thee behind me, Satan!" Brief, forceful and aggressive! Thus only the snare breaks, and you can escape.
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Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2024 16:46:44 GMT -5
"WITH ALL SAINTS."
In your most pious frame of mind, and urgent longing of soul to be near unto God you may not claim the Lord your God for yourself alone. This is a sinful abuse which is readily committed by passionate devotion. In the "Our Father" a plural is used, where we, when left to our own impulse, would readily use a singular. It does not say: "My Father," but "Our Father," who art in heaven, and the plural "us" is used in the Lord's prayer to the end. This does not mean that we may not use the singular in our devotions. In the "Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani" Jesus quoted Psalm 22 and of itself there could be no plural used whenever the Son of God practiced fellowship with the Father. Jesus as such stood entirely alone, in holy isolation. And though it may not be in that exalted and peculiar sense, in which it was the case with Jesus, yet with us also conditions arise and experiences of soul, which isolate us, and of which at least we do not know that we have them in common with others. Then it is a personal condition, from which we call upon God, and it is natural that we use the singular and say: "My God" and "my Father."
This, however, should not be the rule, it should not be the common tenor of our prayer. Of itself this is not so when we pray together. But it must not be so in our quiet, solitary and personal prayer. In case of common need, even when we pray alone, we feel instinctively that this is not permissible. In times of shipwreck this has spontaneously shown itself. If among the more than one thousand miners who perished at Courrieres, there were those in that dreadful subteranean hell who knew how to pray, it probably was not thought otherwise. And when recently Vesuvius vomited fire and sulphur, they who were devout did not remain at home to pray each by himself, but all gathered together for prayer in the churches.
Such is the case with all men before God, in the common need of sin and misery. This common need may assume a special form in each individual case. Sin may bear a special character and the misery of life may make itself known in a particular way to each of us. This, however, does not take away the fact that all sin and misery flows from one common source, that it makes us sharers of a common lot, and that it should move us unitedly to call upon God for redemption and deliverance.
If such is the case with our supplication from the midst of danger, it is the same with respect to our thanksgiving for grace received and with our prayer for safe-keeping by this grace. Every one's salvation and deliverance is from Bethlehem and Golgotha and the opened grave. One and the selfsame Satan seeks to work harm into the grace of all, and the safe-keeping of all by the grace of God proceeds from the inworking in our hearts of the same Holy Spirit and from the same glorious government of Christ as our King. If thus in sin and misery we share a common lot with all mankind, in the sphere of grace we share a common lot with all those whom the Father has given to Christ. Our spiritual attitude in holy things therefore neither can nor should be any other save that we know and feel that we approach God "with all saints" and that with all the saints together we stand before our God.
Consider that the Apostle says: "With all saints" (Eph. 3:18). Some godly people well know fellowship with the godly in their own town, but they forget that the godly and the saints are not the same, and this they leave out of account. This does not say that it is not good and excellent
to be daily in spiritual touch with such in one's town, in order to strengthen the faith and in behalf of mutual edification. Only, common fellowship with the godly is altogether different from the sense of sharing a common lot "with all saints." With "the saints" the Scripture does not speak of subjective, personal piety, but of objective sanctification through and in Christ. "The saints" are the redeemed, they who have been drawn unto eternal life. Not your choice, but the choice of God here counts. Not a fellowship with those whom you think are godly, but sharers in a common lot with those who have been effectively called of God.
Thus the circle of the saints is not narrow, not provisional, not local, but it is a multitude which no one can number, in all parts of the world, here and up yonder, from the days of Paradise until now, and from now on to all eternity. As we sing in the Te Deum: "The holy church throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee."
Hence, "with all saints" means fellowship with all those who have been and will be redeemed by the blood of Christ in your immediate surroundings, in your whole land, in your church, in other churches, in other lands, both in the present, in the past and in the future. It is the whole "body of Christ" with all its members, not one excepted. With the patriarchs and prophets, the apostles and martyrs from of old, with your redeemed relatives and family members and acquaintances, who have gone before into eternity, with those who still continue with you, with those who grow up from among the children of the church, and those who are still hidden in the seed of the church, or who are brought into the church from without. No one whom God has included, may we exclude. And that this refers not merely to your salvation, but also to your fellowship with the Triune God, and to your being near unto God, clearly appears from what the apostle writes so enthusiastically, that "with all saints" ye may be able to comprehend what is the breadth, and length, and depth and height in the mystery of the grace of God.
This exposition of the sense of your sacred fellowship is deeply significant with respect to practical ends. When you accustom yourself to reduce the multitude, which no one can number, to the few Christian people whom you personally know as members of your own church, your sacred horizon becomes very small and narrow. Then the people of God slink away to a few hundreds, and all the rest of the world appears to you like lost masses. If, on the other hand, you think of the wide circle of all God's saints, those at hand and those afar off, of the present and of the past, of those on earth and of those in heaven, and of those who are yet to be born, then all the saints of the old Covenant at once come nearer, then there is life in fellowship with apostles and martyrs, then there is an innumerable multitude of brothers and sisters above, and from the rising generation and from those that will come after them, we look for a continuous increase of the body of Christ.
Then discouragement and depression give place to a feeling of triumph and of endless glory. Your case then stands no more alone and by itself, but thousands have shared it with you, and still other thousands have been far worse conditioned than you, who nevertheless have entered upon eternal life. You experience also the glorious effect of the magnitude of the work of grace. You do not belong to an insignificant, forgotten society, but to a multitude without end, a vast company which no one can number, which now already stands before God, or is on the way to the Fatherhouse, or presently is to be born from the almightiness of God. Then God and the work of his grace assume proportions of infinite greatness to the eye of the soul. Everything little and circumscribed falls away, and the pilgrim journey is continued, not with sighings and with complaints, but jubilantly in the salvation of God and even here with the standing of the feet in the gate of the heavenly Jerusalem.
And this is the frame of mind that prepares you for the secret walk with God, and causes you to be near unto God. As long as it is only a personal dealing with God, as though you together with a few other Christian souls sought a hiding place with God, the majesty of the work of grace is lost to you, and with it the majesty of his Divine Being. The straits of your own soul's condition and of the outward needs limit also the length and breadth, the height and depth of the majestic doings of God. Thus your own insignificance is readily transferred to the Eternal. But when you feel that you are a living member of the whole living body of Christ, that you are one of the multitude that can not be numbered, that you are related to all the saints above, to all God's saints in the whole earth, and to all the saints among the children, and among your children's children, then the pinnings of the sacred tent are put out widely, your outlook is enlarged, your love is extended to thousands upon thousands, your faith is deepened and your hope begins to glisten with all the radiancy of glorious victory.
The heart of our God is so wide of conception, that nothing estranges you farther from this Fatherheart than your own narrow-heartedness. In the Te Deum it is sung:
"The glorious company of the apostles praise thee,
The noble army of martyrs praise thee."
Sometimes the desire comes upon one that he might have lived in the days of Isaiah, and that he might have accompanied with St. John, and might have witnessed the heroism of martyrs in the face of death. And then one thinks that all this is lost in an unapproachable past. Then, live in the sense of communion "with all saints," and they all will come nearer to you. They all are your brothers, with whom you are included in the one body of Christ. And the nearer you come to this company of God's saints above, the nearer you will feel yourself in the presence of God, who hath included you "with all saints" in the self-same bundle of life.
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Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2024 16:50:09 GMT -5
"THE GRACE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST,AND THE LOVE OF GOD, AND THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE HOLY GHOST
BE WITH YOU ALL."
The apostle from whose hand the richest epistolary legacy has come to us, was in the habit of opening and closing his epistles with a blessing. The one he used in opening was almost always: "Grace be with you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ." And the prayer with which he closed mostly read: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." It was truly exceptional, when at the close of his second epistle to the Corinthians he so far departed from his usual way, that he expanded his prayer, and said: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you all." This closing prayer is particularly noteworthy, because the church of Christ almost everywhere has used it as the apostolic benediction at the close of public worship. Millions upon millions of times these sacred words, so rich of content and so tender of purport, have been repeated, after the departure of Paul, and it is for a large part now that congregations of believers return home from the place of worship under the impression of these words.
In this habit of St. Paul of opening and closing his epistles with a benediction one can observe the aftermath of the manner of the East, and on this ground take it merely as a phrase, and merely as a formula of good breeding, which as such has no spiritual significance, at least to us. But is not this unspeakably superficial? Is it true that from of old, and even to this day, it is customary with people in the East, in meeting and in taking leave of one another, to use fairly lengthy formulas of salutation, and this salutation and farewell consists mostly of prayers for blessings from on high. But how can it follow from this, that such prayers are nothing but empty phrases? Is not throughout the whole Scripture the selfsame use in application? Did not our Lord himself appear to his disciples with the salutation of blessing: "Peace be unto you!" And again has not this constant use in the apostolic writings given rise to the adoption of this ancient custom as a true integral part in mutual Christian fellowship? Adopted not merely in the church of the East, but transferred to the church of the West, and there also consecrated by the usage of nearly twenty centuries? And if, moreover, as for instance in Jacob's blessings of his sons, even prophetic revelation has employed this benediction, by which to throw a beam of light upon the future, is it not superficial and thoughtless, to see in such a prayer for Divine favor, nothing but words and sounds, and to deny it all real significance?
By the side of blessing stands the curse, and this also in Scripture is deeply significant. Not in
every case. Not the curse of hated and anger. Not base meanness, which uses the curse as a poisoned weapon to wound. But the curse of him who is authorized to pronounce it, the curse of a father, or of a mother, or of one who is clothed with spiritual authority. Such a curse was valid as spoken under supreme responsibility, under inspiration from above. And such a curse came true. And where by the side of the curse there stands an equally sharply outlined address of blessing, which also derives its words and significance from the person, from the position and the occasion whereby and under which it took place, it is evident, that in this most noteworthy phenomenon of blessing and of curse, there hides a spiritual utterance for which in our Western lands and in our unspiritual times appreciation and receptivity have all too far been lost. Of the curse there is almost nothing left among us, save the blasphemous language of profane persons who abuse the holy name of the Lord as expletive and as an expression of anger. And of the prayer of blessing little else remains than good wishes at New Year, at a birthday, or at the solemnizing of marriage.
But in this mighty difference between a wish and the ancient address of blessing the weakened and abated character-trait of our utterance of life delineates itself. Even upon the deathbed little more is heard of such blessing of one's children. At present the only particular of a death that is mentioned is, that the patient passed away quietly and calmly, i. e., without any perceptible death struggle. In most cases nothing more is heard.
In the face of all this the church usage has stood firm, and the congregation of God gathers in the sanctuary with the holy salutation and returns homeward with the address of blessing from the Lord. For this closing benediction the congregation even stands, or kneels, and reverently bows the head, and in quiet seriousness listens to the words of blessing, presently closed with the Amen. This is most encouraging, and the minister of the Word will do well to heighten this last act of dismissal by restful, calm and solemn tone. The preceding utterance of the words: "And now, receive the blessing of the Lord," is an introduction which tunes the heart and mind and consecrates and exalts. For what else utters itself in this salutation and final benediction than the glorious perception that the church of the living God stands in living contact with an higher order of things from what this world offers, and with him who has founded his throne in it. He who stands in the faith knows that he lives in a twofold world. In the common world together with unbelievers, and in the higher world with the saints around God's throne, with the good angels, with his Savior and King, and in Christ with his Father and his God.
These two worlds are dove-tailed into one another. From the higher order, grace, peace and life, power and might have come down into this visible world; they have attached themselves, and now cleave in Christian lands to all sorts of Christian ordinances and usages. But the real meeting of these two spheres takes place only in believers, who still live in this visible world, and yet carry the higher world in their heart; the latter expressing itself in their communion with the Holy Ghost. And as often as this preponderance of the holy in believers comes to a clear expression through the word, there is the holy salutation, and presently at parting, the address of blessing.
But this gives rise in life to a twofold sphere. The sphere of the unbelieving world, and the sphere that is breathed upon from the higher order of things. You are at once aware of this by the difference in your feelings as you move among children of God, or among children of the world. In both circles, in both spheres a different tone prevails, different language, different love. With the children of the world the flower of one's inner nature inclines to close itself up; with the children of God this calix opens itself. This is no reason that one should withdraw himself from the visible world. On the contrary, God has given us here our calling and our work. We should even be on our guard, not to lift ourselves up in spiritual pride before the children of the world. What better are you than they, and what is your higher life other than pure grace? You should never be unmindful even to give yourself to this world, like your Savior to serve it, to bless it with your love, and to work for its good.
But our spiritual saving of life is always to be fully aware of the antithesis between the world and the higher order of things, and always to foster fellowship with that higher order of things, to strengthen it, to feed it, and to remove everything that might hinder or weaken it out of the way. This power and ability does not come to us from ourselves, and not from one another, but solely and alone from God. That which maintains our vital connection with that higher world is exclusively the grace of Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost. And for this reason, as often as the congregation assembles, the minister of the Word salutes it with this assurance, and at the close dismisses it with the same in the name of the Lord.
To be near unto God is the vital strength of all believers. That alone and nothing else. He who wanders away from God, and becomes estranged from him, weakens himself, disturbs his inner life, and is lost again in the world. On the other hand he who continues to be near unto God and lives in secret fellowship with God, drinks in the powers of the kingdom each morning anew, lives in spiritual realities, and is breathed upon from on high. And this salutation of blessing and this dismissal with blessing is the constantly repeated assurance from the Triune God that his grace, his love and his fellowship continue to incline toward you: that God will be near unto you, in order that you may be near unto him, and that it is your sin alone that deprives you of this blessed communion.
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Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2024 17:02:15 GMT -5
"I, THE LORD THY GOD, AM A JEALOUS GOD"
Say to my people," said the Lord to Ezekiel: I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them" (Ezekiel 11:5). Hence also he knows what should, but does not, come into it. Neither the all-seeing eye nor the all-hearing ear of the Holy One of Israel are ever impeded. The sight of that eye penetrates into everything, and no vibration escapes the hearing of that ear. In one of the marble tombs at Syracuse the tyrant Dionysius was able to build a wondrously far-carrying echo, that he might overhear the conversations of his captured opponents. Even now this echo clearly returns the crackling of a sheet of paper at a distance of several hundred feet, and as the story runs, nothing kept these prisoners in check like this so-called "ear of Dionysius." They could not put it out of mind. They thought of it with every word. It ruled their spirit and their life.
This is what these wretched prisoners did for the sake of the ear of a man. And what do we do about the holy ear of the all-hearing God? What do we do for him who does not only see and see through everything we do, but to whom also every word is known before it passes over our lips. Yea, who moreover scans the thoughts, which we will never put into words, and who is aware of every impulse, every motion every vibration, which will never crystallize itself within us into a thought, but which nevertheless comes into our mind. He who does not believe, experiences no impression, no influence, no governing power of that all-knowing and all-hearing character of the perceptions of God. He acts, speaks, thinks and allows his inner life to operate as though there were no God who watches him, who overhears him, and whose eye inwardly searches him.
He who believes can not act thus. With him the fear of the Lord is identified with every awakening in the life of his soul; and when he thinks of God. he refrains from the evil deed for the sake of God's holy will; he shrinks from the unbecoming word, suppresses the unholy thought, and represses everything sinful or demoniac that would enter into his spirit. But alas, his soul is far from being always as fully awake as this. During long periods of his life, his faith, as it were, slumbers. Then he does not think of God. He does not concern himself about God. And he is almost indifferent to what God observes in his inmost life, of his doings and of his omissions, and all this leads to sin, until the conscience begins again to operate, and God awakens him. Is, then, our life of faith from fear only? No, it is through that fear from love. From Horeb it was announced to the people of God: "I, the Lord thy God, am a zealous, i. e., a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children" (Exodus 20:5).
It is our blessed privilege, that we may be near unto God that we may enjoy his presence and his fellowship, and that we may taste his secret walk. But to our spiritual perception responds a perception from the side of God. To him who loves us more tenderly than a father, it is a Divine d
thinks of him, goes out to him, and seeks his holy fellowship. On the other hand God's love is wounded when his child can forget him, and not think of him, and be engaged in mind with everything save him; when, as far as it depends on us, he is the forsaken one. For, in order deeply and strongly to impress upon the heart the outgoing of the Fatherheart of God after love's fellowship with his child, God in his word does not shrink from representing this love to us in the image of conjugal affection.
In the description of connubial love in Ezekiel 16 it is constantly declared that God hath betrothed himself unto Israel. In the image of the church as bride, the passionate love which unfolds in the relation of husband and wife, is repeatedly applied to God and his people. As a bride lives solely and alone for her bridegroom so must God's people live solely and alone for God. And as desertion on the part of the bride or wife deeply offends the heart of the bridegroom or husband, wounds and bruises it, so that envy arises irresistibly, even jealousy burning like fire so the Lord our God declares that he is moved by holy envy when his people can forget him when his redeemed ones can wander away and desert him in his love. Yea, then, even the anger of quick jealousy can not be restrained. "Who visiteth the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation."
Thus to be near unto God has its terrible other side He who is not near unto God, is near unto something else, inclines his heart to something else gives his love to something else. And this provokes Divine jealousy. Whether in that case you pawn away your love to your own self, or to a man as your idol, to the world, or to demoniac spirits, the Scripture always and unconditionally condemns this as a drawing away of self from God, as a violation of faithfulness to God, as a wandering away from the Holy One, and as a desertion from him who alone is worthy of all love. There is here no neutral ground. It is always engaging the heart with something, surrendering the heart to something, or a coming into the mind of something which does not reach out after God, but after God's creaturely competitor, and which within the sacred domain of Divine love is on this account an enemy and an opponent.
And this arouses holy jealousy. Not, indeed, as though there were passion in God, but in place of it there is sensitiveness in God, which with respect to power of operation, far exceeds all human passion. With conjugal love only what is known and observed offends, but there is so much that is not known and that consequently does not offend. With wedded love there is also misleading and deception. But even this does not offend so long as it is not known. No bridegroom on earth can scan his bride to the roots of her inner life. This leaves a wide margin which is not taken into account.
But all this is unthinkable in the case of the Lord your God. In all you do and leave undone, in all your thoughts and speech, in all your inner ponderings and perceptions, nothing escapes him. He enters, restlessly, more deeply into your inner most being than the brightest beam of light into the bedding of the stream. And here no misleading avails, no presentation of self other than you are, and no hypocrisy. His all-penetrating glance puts every cover aside. And these two taken together account for the fact, that sensitiveness in Divine love is far more strongly moved to jealousy, than strongest human passion can ever arouse brooding envy.
When we are not remembered by our friends it troubles us. But it troubles the bridegroom far more grievously when he perceives that his bride is filled with other thoughts than of him. Tenderest love demands that we are continually engaged with one another, that during temporary separation we live together in thought, and that while the separation lasts, we cherish no other desire than to meet one another again, to be near one another again, and in each other's company to feel rich and happy and blessed. Apply this to your love for God, to your confession that it is good for you to be near unto God. For this love, too, is unique. It is no love by the side of another love, but one which far excels, and is bound to govern every other attachment, every other affection, every other union of soul. It is not loving wife, child, church, country and God, but it is loving God alone, and from this love have the cherishing affections flow forth, with which you also love your wife and child, your church and native land.
And is it then too much for God to ask, that you will always be engaged with him, that you will always think of him, will always let the heart go out to him. and that you will repress everything that enters into your mind to lead you away from him and to induce you to forsake him? Is it not God's jealousy of your love, your honor, your highness and your glory? And is it no violation of yourself and of your God when you discard this holy urgency of love, and play with it, and for the sake of religious recreation spasmodically return to it, only to withdraw yourself presently from it again, that in your innermost soul you may engage yourself with all sorts of things except God?
The wound which this inflicts upon his holy love would not be so grievous if God could forget you for a time, even as you forsake him. But God can not do this. Before there is yet a word in your lips, behold, he knows it altogether. As God himself declares: "I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them." Thus, also, let us repeat it: does he know every one of the things that ought, but do not come into it. He knows and mourns every moment that you do not think of him, that you are not engaged with him, that you do not seek him, do not desire his nearness, and shamefully live apart from his secret walk. And when in spite of all this you still sing with the multitude: "But it is good for me to be near unto God!" is there then not something of a provocation on your part which offends and which is bound to wound God?
And if this is the reverse of what it is to desire to be near unto God, confess, does there not spring from this an entirely unthought of new impulse to make your seeking after God's nearness an ever deeper reality in your life? As long as you view nearness unto God from your side alone, you can comfort yourself for any temporal loss of it by considering the compensating, unspeakable riches of the single moments of its enjoyment. But when you consider nearness unto God, thinking of God, being engaged with God, from the side of God who loves you, an entirely different note mingles itself in this love-song. Then you can not and will not grieve the Holy spirit. Then it is not your soul alone which seeks God, but far more yet, it is God who awaits the love of your soul. It is your God who with holy jealousy is angry every moment that you withdraw yourself from his seeking love.
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Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2024 17:04:56 GMT -5
"THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES."
Times differ. They are not age upon age, one monotonous sameness. They are rather continuous succession and restless change. And even of a century, which has just closed, and which as "the nineteenth century" almost imagined itself to have been the discoverer of the abiding light, it can be said in the words of the Psalmist (Ps. 102:26): "It shall wax old as doth a garment, and shall be changed." From this difference follows the "difference of signs," not unlike the difference in weather. Sea- and landman, who are both dependent on the weather for sailing and agriculture, have learned from their youth up how to observe these signs. Not as wonderful signs that had never been seen before. But even as the preacher at Jerusalem taught: "That which has been is now; and that which is to be hath already been" (Eccl. 3:15).
For the most part these "signs of the times" show themselves even as the signs in weather, solely in different degrees of strength with which ordinary phenomena appear, and consequently in their mutual relation. Whether in the evening the sky shows itself bright or dull red, depends upon the greater or lesser density with which mists or vapors place themselves between our eye and the red glow of the setting sun. And so in the world of spirits, an entirely distinct constellation exhibits itself, according as the cloud of religion pervades life with full weight or remains suspended, light and extremely transparent, over the waters of life.
The difference in this respect between age and age is evident. In the age of the Reformation the vast plea of religion filled almost all of life. In the court room, in the cabinet of princes, in public opinion, in the pulpit, in the market place and especially in the family, religion was more than anything else the decisive factor. From every side it appeared in the heavens clear, fiery red. Now compare with, this the eighteenth century. How dull its red was then. All its brightness had waned, all warmth of religion was withdrawn to a single mystical group, and in public life religion was debased to trivial reasoning, to ignorant self-conceit, laughter and scorn. Then came the nineteenth century, brought to higher seriousness by revolution and Napoleonic wars, and in the religious domain it furnished us three signs: 1°, in the Christian domain and in a very limited circle the Reveille; 2°, as a new find the quickly exhausted modern theology, and 3°, by the side and on account of this, in the broad domain of science, endless doubt and proud materialism, and among the upper classes, cold unbelief, a break with all religion.
In our twentieth century, however, the table turns again. There is once more a reveille, but not in the Christian domain. It is far more a reveille of mystic, religious feeling, entirely independent of Christianity, for the most part rejecting the way of truth and seeking ways of its own, and thus of itself falling back into ways which man had discovered in earlier times. Spiritism, theosophy, Buddhism are now the desired articles. A few, though these are exceptions, even turn to the Crescent again. What is not observed, is return on a broad scale to the Man of Sorrows. People want to become religious, but they must be allowed to remain anticlerical. In the eighteenth century the slumbering. In the nineteenth the pouring out of the spirit of deep sleep. In the twentieth century a gradual awakening of religion, but still dozing in false, mystical dreams. The Christ and his Cross are passed by.
The Pharisee does not observe such "signs of the times" (see Matthew 16:3). He thinks and continues to think that everything within his narrower circle is good and sound, and everything outside of it evil and unholy. And he does not surmise even from afar the influence which the change in the spirit of the times exerts upon him and upon his circle. The true disciples of Jesus do not do so. They know better. They feel and understand that in the spiritual domain also the waters of life continually merge into one another. They notice it in themselves and in their families and in their associates; they see how the general conditions of spirits work effects on every side. And with every new change they ask themselves what criticism this demands at their hands, and what duty this lays upon them.
They maintain their stand. They do this by the grace that is within, and by the spiritual impulse that operates in them. Though they should have to die for Jesus, they can not forsake his Cross. With ties that can not be loosed the Cross lies bound on their heart. They feel themselves as in an oasis, around which as far as eye can see grins the grey spiritual barrenness of the desert. In this oasis they rejoice. There they drink from the fountain of life and enjoy the bread, and shade of palm trees. They make their children enjoy it with them. They give thanks, they glory, they jubilate. But nothing in them makes them boast of it. God Almighty has brought them to this oasis. Not because of any good there was in them. They know themselves in no particular better than anyone else. Each day, rather, they dress again the bleeding wound of their own heart. It is grace and nothing but grace. Grace, which in its entirety, never was anything but grace.
But the desert, round about this oasis, still concerns them. The sand waves from it fly upward. The hot wind travels through it. And they who wander in this desert, are they not in many instances their fellow countrymen, not infrequently of their own family? Sometimes their own friends. And apart from this, what talent, what civic virtue, what noble sense glistens among these wanderers. Much that is low, much that is common, much that is rough, it is true. Such are the masses, but all are not such. And prayer in behalf of these wanderers, involuntarily, ascends from their troubled hearts.
Even in the deepest parts of their inward life they undergo the noticeable influence of this change in the signs of the times. To be near unto God and to continue there is far easier when everything around you warmly calls for the honor of God, than when the spirit of the times opposes everything holy. This was the holy secret of a long period in the middle ages, the secret also of the fifteenth and a part of the sixteenth century. Almost everything pressed after God's nearness. Religion was the atmosphere which was breathed of itself. Hence the overpious traditions from both these periods. But the thermometer has since gone down. First it became cool, then cold, then shivery. Everything broke down, everything obstructed the way when the soul went out to seek God's nearness. O, so much that blossomed before, now froze. Hence the search after God and approach to his nearness demanded effort before unknown. It became a struggle. A climbing with hands and feet in order to ascend the holy mountain. And in addition to this, what mists still intervene that cut off the outlook, what effort it still takes to keep oneself standing above it. And above all, what painful distance extends between this high mountain top and the world below at the foot, which is still your world, and into which your daily task calls you.
True, there is gain. That which results from this continuous, serious, and holy effort, goes deeper, is more enjoyable, and affords tenderer blessedness. He who in spite of current and storm drops anchor in the harbor, has higher joy than he who has drifted with weather and wind and tide. But it brings weariness. It wears on the mind. And the aftermath of this exhaustion involves the danger that the spirit of the world outwits you, and makes you dread still more a new course, which is attended with danger, perhaps of death. If, then, forsooth, being near unto God at such times is more blessed, the joy of it is less permanent. And more times follow of wandering away and of estrangement in between.
This unfavorable change in the signs of the times also brings new duties. The captain who safely made the harbor through current and storm, can not be indifferent to the other sailors, who, less fortunate than himself, outside still struggle with death. Or, he who has reached the oasis, and quenches thirst and feasts, should not be indifferent to the long caravan that still wanders amid mortal dangers in the desert. And you, who by grace, and nothing but grace, refresh yourself in the nearness of God, you should not, can not, if rightly disposed, be selfishly indifferent to the thousands and thousands who, lost in byways, do not know Christ, do not understand the cross, and therefore live without God in the world. No hardness therefore for them, but Divine pity of soul. No pity that spitefully scorns and repels, but pity that by courage invites, and as a sacred magnet attracts. Never hide nor cloak your religion. Never indulge in guilty silence or behavior as though you were one of them. Never practice cowardice that deems itself love. But understand them. Enter into their condition. Show them not your own wisdom, but your heart.
Always let them feel that you care for their eternal welfare.
In order that you may do this, do not separate yourself, but take part in actual life. Be at home in what the things of the world, under God's providence, provide of interest and beauty. Always keep open a space where you can meet worldly people, discover yourself to them, and talk with them. Truly, their estrangement can become ill will and resistance. A moment may come, when, by forgetting yourself, you might turn the holy into ridicule. And then breaking away may become duty. But even as on the way to the cross your Savior ever had his eye on the world, and on the cross still prayed for forgiveness for those who knew not what they did, so should the eye of your seeking love be upon, and your prayer continue in behalf of, those who have wandered from the fold of God. In this seeking love and in this prayer you will have the surest sign that you are not mistaken, but that you yourself in all reality are near unto your God.
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Post by Admin on Aug 13, 2024 11:38:58 GMT -5
"WHOM HAVE I IN HEAVEN BUTTHEE?"
Refreshment of grace is particularly rich when also in departing from this world the soul is privileged to be near unto God. On the death-bed highest bliss has often been enjoyed. Many have departed, not only strong in faith and in higher clearness of mind, but also with the foretaste of heavenly joy. No rule can be made for this. A blessed death-bed is not always the reward of holier-mindedness and of deeper spirituality. A death bed that enhances the glory of God has not infrequently been the portion of one who in life had wandered far away from his Lord. And on the other hand painful distress has been witnessed on the part of those who for many years had known the secret walk with God.
As a rule this depends upon all sorts of things that have nothing to do with a devout frame of mind and heart. First upon age, temperament, the nature of disease, degree of weakness, state of nerves, freedom of speech or diffidence, and upon the longer or shorter period of dying. In part, it also depends upon the physician. Whether he conceals the certainty, or at least the probability of the approaching end, or whether frankly and honestly he acquaints the patient with the exact state of things. Again it depends upon family and friends, and upon those who care for the sick, whether they are spiritually inclined, and assist the patient in holy meditations, or whether they provide so-called diversion and vex him with multifarious earthly concerns.
If it happens that all this co-operates for good, and that he who is about to appear before God lies for a few days at least with a waiting heart at the gate of eternity, watching for its opening unto him, and meanwhile bearing witness to the power of everlasting life, sometimes in terms which far excel ordinary speech--then special grace operates in such a dying person. The Lord truly imparts this special grace to comfort his dying saint, but mostly to glorify himself, and to cause a testimony of striking power to go out from so glorious a death-bed.
The desire to pose as a saint is a sin which in its more refined forms cleaves to all religion. It has even been observed in martyrs. This desire would be more generally in evidence if the Lord God did not prevent it by weakness and disease. And in this prevention of making a show of one's piety we are bound to appreciate grace. But sometimes dying grace shows itself in a higher form, when something of almost prophetic inspiration takes hold of a dying saint. This was strongly
evident in the case of Jacob the patriarch. But though in lesser measure, occasionally such higher inspiration is still witnessed among us when it is not merely a dying in faith, not merely a falling asleep in Jesus, but when fully awake and with open eye it is a triumphant passing through the gate of eternity. In such a case there is clear consciousness, and from it a holy testimony, because he who dies knows and feels until his latest breath, that he is near unto God.
But from this it may not be inferred that a less triumphant death implies that the soul was deprived of God's nearness. Bodily weakness all too often affects the mind, so that little is observed from without of what inwardly takes place in the spirit. God is able to do, O, so much in and for the soul of which a third person can have no knowledge. When an infant is carried from the cradle to the grave, no one can say that God was not able to minister grace to him. But no one saw anything of it. The little one himself knew nothing about it. The same can take place in sleep. Would anyone say, that while we sleep, God's ministry is excluded for seven or eight hours from our heart? In great sickness sometimes one can be unconscious for several days together. Would God, then, all those days stand powerless before this disabled soul? The point in case of the infant, in sleep or in sickness is, that gracious ministry can take place on the part of the Holy Ghost, which through physical causes can not be observed from without, but remains concealed within.
This physical hindrance occurs in most cases by far when the end draws near. Most strongly in
the case of those who die unconsciously in a swoon; sometimes very strongly with the sick, whose pulse is almost gone, and whose breath can scarcely be felt. And of these no one may say that, on account of this, their soul passed away in secret, and was estranged from God. Omnipotence and grace are able to do in holy secrecy what can not be observed by human eye or ear. The consciousness of him who died depended from the nature of the case upon the strength that still operated in his brain. But suppose the brain refused, should the inner life of the soul on this account be deprived of grace? Presently the brain shall refuse to function altogether, when without a clouded mind the soul shall know and glorify God. "To be near unto God" in dying, even if not discerned by any outside person is nothing else than already an entrance here in part upon that which after death becomes altogether and wholly so; the beginning of the new condition, when separated from the body, entirely incorporeal, our person is and companies with God.
But apart from this, while we continue our pilgrim journey on earth, the Divine ministries in behalf of the dying are deeply significant to us as a memento mori. This is what Asaph's message implied: "Whom have I in heaven but Thee?" (Ps.73:25). By itself this means to know nothing in heaven but God. which is quite the same as to love God with all the mind and soul and heart. But Asaph's question puts the matter still more clearly before us. The struggle of our heart on earth is, that it goes out after all sorts of things, including God. This struggle is laid upon us, inasmuch as God himself has related our heart to all sorts of persons on earth, and has endowed it with powers to appreciate the glories of nature, and has imparted all sorts of inclinations and callings to us, which go out after visible things. The Stylist who withdraws his eyes from all earthly things, so that with nothing about him but air he might seek after God, evades the struggle and becomes unnatural. The holy art of the child of God is to possess things that are seen and handled in such a way, that he can truly say, that nothing on earth pleases him but God. This only means to say, that he only regards all visible things as things which are of God, and exist for the sake of God, and must serve God. Thus his pleasure in God embraces and includes all these other things. But in such a way that they are only considered insofar as they are subjected to God, and as they reveal his Divine power.
Whether in deed and in truth this is the case with us, becomes evident only in dying. For then all these things fall away from us, and God alone remains. It has been tried to transfer earthly desires into heaven, by picturing all sorts of other persons and means of enjoyment there by the side of God. Mohammedans go farthest in this. But among Christians not a few regard heaven first of all in connection with their own dead, that there they might resume with them the former life. Thus even in heaven they imagine a whole world again by the side of God. This confuses the spirits. For he alone who in dying expects nothing in heaven but God, shall also find in the Fatherhouse, through and under God, that other holy fellowship. But this shall have no
other purport than the better to glorify the God and Father of all in Christ.
This same thing must here be applied to our secret walk with God. We must frequently ask ourselves: If you had nothing, absolutely nothing aside from God, would your soul be perfectly satisfied? When you seek and endeavor and strive to be near unto God, is it that you might rest in him with all your heart, or is it perhaps merely that you might find in him the helper, who can give you all sorts of other desired things after which your heart goes out really the more strongly? Let no one complain that he who has God and him alone, has nothing but God. For he who has God in him has everything. But that you might test the sincerity of your own personal piety, you should know for yourself whether you are so concerned about God, that though all other things are added, you are intent upon him alone. Or, whether your heart really seeks the other things, and in addition to them God, through whose help you might obtain them the more surely. Or finally, whether you want to become a partaker of God and with him of the other things?
And in behalf of this test, anticipation of the hour of death has uncommon value. That you imagine to yourself the moment when everything on earth shall fall away from you, and as far as you are concerned, shall cease to exist. That whether, when you enter upon the thought that you will have nothing in heaven forever but the Triune God, it lifts your heart up to the highest foretaste of holy joy, in the sense that in all honesty you can say that it is good for you "to be near unto God," because you have nothing beside him in heaven, and because you desire nothing beside him on earth, all the days of your pilgrim journey that still remain.
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Post by Admin on Aug 13, 2024 11:42:04 GMT -5
"DYING HE WORSHIPPED."
In connection with the knowledge of what lies beyond the grave the moment of dying is deeply significant. The way in which we see others die, and in which we die ourselves, contributes to our knowledge of God. In this hour many things that stood between God and the soul fall away. We then stand on the threshold of the unseen life, and the words of the Psalmist: "Our feet stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem," are applicable to the entering in through the gates of the new Jerusalem.
Let us take dying in this connection in its real true sense. Dying is an act. In our natural
birth we are passive. Life then only begins. But when God has privileged us to reach the years of maturity, and the end has come, the servants and handmaidens of the Lord should not be dragged out by death against their will, but of themselves they should face it with a will. And by the way in which they do this, they should reveal the fruit of their labors of faith. The first Christians sang hymns of praise as they carried out their dead. And St. Paul said: "For me to die is gain, for to be with Christ is by far the best." Thus dying was the last struggle, but not of one who defends his life against the waylayer. It was much rather the struggle of the hero, who bravely went ahead, in order jubilantly to come to God.
Indeed, we may not court death. It is our bounden duty to guard our life unto the end. Suicide is no dying, but self-destruction. Dying is an exhibition of courage. Suicide is cowardice. It is failure. It is lack of daring to continue the battle of life. It is desertion from the ranks. But though until the end, as long as there is hope and chance, nothing must be left untried to continue God's service on earth until he issues forth the
call,--when it comes, the smile of sacred joy is more in place than the heaving of a sigh. He who believes has always confessed that he does not belong here, but that his home is above. Dying must make this real. In dying the seal must be put upon all our life of faith. Dying is nothing to a child of God save the entrance into an eternal life. And this it can not be, unless it is an act. We must not be overtaken, lifted up and carried off. We must hear the call, and answer in reply: "Behold, here I am, Lord," and then bravely enter the valley of the shadow of death and go through it, knowing that the Lord awaits our coming, and that by his hand he leads us through this darkness to the light.
Let it be said at once that such ideal dying is rare. The woes and sorrows of death often rob dying of its ideal, exalted and sacred character. A state of coma not infrequently prevents conscious and willing dying as an act of the soul. It even happens, alas, that a narcotic potion is administered, whereby dying is degenerated into a sleeping of oneself away. As long however as the person himself is irresponsible in this matter, let not such an impossibility of dying manfully in the faith on the part of a child of God be turned into reproach. In this matter also God is sovereign. As a matter of fact, the Lord frequently withholds heroic dying in the full consciousness of faith.
Care however should be taken not to condone too much along this line. The Scripture always avoids sentimentalism. It rarely pictures a deathbed scene. In fact it only outlines the death of Christ on Golgotha, and that of Jacob. Of the latter we are told that when he felt the end draw near, he strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed, and leaning upon the top of his staff, worshipped, and blessed his sons (Heb. 11:21).
Jacob strengthened himself, that is to say, he did not allow himself to be overcome by weakness and regret, but struggled against it, took hold of himself, and gathered together the last of his
waning strength, in order that in dying he might glorify his God. He had no thought of caring for himself, of being concerned about his own spiritual estate, or about breathing forth his latest breath. And when he blesses his sons, it is no family affair, but an holy prophesying that through his sons, as founders of the tribes of Israel, the kingdom of God should come and flourish, and the Messiah would arise. "Until Shiloh come!" this was the zenith of his prophecy. He blesses his sons, but in and through them his prophecy points to the coming of the Kingdom of heaven. Hence the Epistle to the Hebrews describes this as his greatest act of faith. "By faith, Jacob when he was dying, blessed his sons and worshipped" (Heb. 11:21).
We do not deny that in dying, darkness can overtake the soul. Satan can be let loose to harrass our latest hour. But as a rule, we may say that life is given us for the purpose of making sure our faith, and that in dying the results of this assurance must be shown to the glory of the Lord. And therefore we should not allow ourselves in dying passively to be overcome by weakness and grief. In the article of death the will, the courage and the elasticity of faith must still struggle against the weakness of the flesh. In this holy moment, the spirit, and not the flesh should conquer. Such was the case with Jacob. He strengthened himself in order to be able to die in a godly manner. Had he not done so, in all probability he too might have passed away in a semiconscious state. But this he did not do. His mighty spirit shook itself awake. In dying he glorified God. In doing this he left a shining example for every Christian to imitate.
There is a meeting with God in such dying, which enriches Divine knowledge, both in the one who is about to depart and in those who watch at the bedside. It is generally reported, as a most desirable way of dying, that one quietly and peaceably fell asleep. This almost always means that without giving any further signs of life, the patient passed away in an unconscious state of mind. This may very well be the case with unbelievers also. Of those who die without Christ it is continually said, that they died equally quietly and calmly; even perhaps with less per turbation of mind, than many a child of God that is harrassed by anxiety and doubt. Nothing of a serious nature was said to them. They themselves made no reference to anything. The physician assured them that there was no need of alarm. And so the patient passed quietly away, without having known any terror of death. And others, seeing this, were impressed that there is really nothing to dying; it was all so quiet and gentle. Then came flowers to cover the bier. Visits of condolence are no longer paid. In this way nothing connected with death is spoken of. And when the funeral is over, ordinary matters form the topic of conversation, but not the things that are eternal. And thus the mighty lesson of dying is lost. Death ceases to be preacher of deeper seriousness. And the Lord of life and of death is not remembered.
We, Christians, should not encourage this evil practice. And yet, we do it, when imitating the way of the world we say of such dead that they "peaceably passed away." Not calmly and peacefully, but fighting and conquering in the Savior, should be the dying bed in the Christian family. He who has not the heart for this, but is careful to spare the patient all serious and disquieting thought, is not merciful, but through unbelief he is cruel.
In dying Jacob has worshipped. On the death bed one can pray. One can pray for help in the last struggle. Intercession can be made for those that are to be left behind, and for the Kingdom of God. By itself such prayer is beautiful. On one's deathbed to appear before the face of God. This last prayer on earth, when every veil drops away, and the latest supplication is addressed to God, who awaits us in the courts of everlasting light. Such prayer teaches those, who stand by, to pray. Such prayer exerts an overwhelming, fascinating influence.
But Jacob did more. In dying he worshipped. In dying he felt impelled to offer unto God the sacrifice of Worship, and to render unto him praise and thanksgiving and honor; to lose himself in the greatness and majesty, in the grace and mercy of God; and thus to offer him the fruit of the lips, better than he had been able to do in life. Such solemn worship on the deathbed is the summary of the worship which we have offered unto God in life; except that now it is felt more deeply, more intensely, immediately preceding the moment, in which among angels and saints above, we shall bring God the honor of his Name.
All the knowledge of God that has been acquired before concentrates itself in such deathbed worship, and in that moment it is wonderfully illumined, enriched and deepened. Now the dying saint knows God more clearly than he ever did before. He almost sees God face to face.
This worship also bears fruit in behalf of those who watch and minister at the bedside. At a deathbed, love is strongly aroused. The beginnings of mourning already struggle in the heart. This makes it more receptive than ever, and the impression which it receives at such a time is overwhelming. Ordinarily it is taken for granted that one believes. But frequently no indications of it are seen. The contrary rather is suggested by narrow-mindedness and sin. But when the moment of dying has come, and children see it of their father, a husband of his beloved wife, that in this affecting hour the faith does not fail, but is maintained; that at the gate of eternity its language becomes more animated and forceful, and it seems that one hears an utterance of the soul after God, then the prayer of worship from the lips of the dying brings you as it were in the very presence of God, and makes you feel that he is nearer at hand than you ever knew before.
Much dying would be far different than it now is, had life been different; if in dying, faith would waken up more fully; and if God's child would understand that even in dying he has to fulfil a duty, which he owes to God and to his fellowmen. Then dying would be far more than now a preaching of sacred reality, and the results of it would be effective in life to the honor of God.
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