The Transfiguration Of Christ By Robert Murray McCheyne

By Robert Murray McCheyne

      
THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST SEEMS ordinarily to be but little understood. It is like Gethsemane, darkness hangs around it. Gethsemane showed the deepness of his sorrow; mount Tabor showed the height of his glory, which passeth knowledge.

      Let us go over the different things mentioned in these words.

      
First, let us observe the favourite three: 'And it came to pass, about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John, and James, and went up into a mountain to pray' (verse 28). It is interesting to notice that these three disciples were often peculiarly favoured of the Lord. Christ seems to have exercised peculiar sovereignty to the three.

      The first time that he distinguished them was when he raised the ruler's daughter. 'While he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue's house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead; why troublest thou the Master any farther? ... And he suffered no man to follow him, save Peter, and James, and John the brother of James' (Mark 5:35-37). You will notice that these three were the same three. He took them into the ruler's house and showed them his power to raise the dead.

      The second time that he distinguished them is in the passage before us. A little before he said: 'But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God' (verse 27). And eight days after he took them up to the mount, and gave them a glimpse of the coming glory.

      
The next time was when in the garden of Gethsemane. When he wanted some to be witnesses of his agony, he took with him Peter, James and John. O brethren! it was a great honour to be permitted to see his glory; but oh! it was more glorious to see his agony.

      
There have always been men in the Church greatly honoured by God. Some are not only of the twelve, but of the three. There was a Noah, and there was a Daniel. You remember, God says, ' Daniel, a man greatly beloved' (Daniel 10: 11). And there was an Abraham, who was called 'the friend of God' (James 2:23). There have been many in the Church who have been eminent among the twelve, but it is far better to be among the three.

     
 And this is quite different from worldly covetousness - it is quite different from mere worldly ambition. It is not like the wish of Zebedee's wife for her children; she wanted them to have more worldly honour and glory than the rest. But oh! to covet Christ, to be like Christ - this is to be happy. Mr. Edwards says, 'Suppose there never were to be but one in the world at a time, who is properly a complete Christian, in all respects of a right stamp, having Christianity shining in its true lustre, appearing amiable from whatever part, and under what character so ever viewed. Resolved to act just as I would do, as if I strove with all my might to be that one.'

      
Ah, brethren, resolve to be an eminent Christian. There are not many Christians nowadays that see far into Gethsemane's gloom - they are not many who have glimpses of Tabor's glory. One star of the first magnitude gives more glory to God than a dozen lesser stars do. One eminent minister gives more honour to Christ than a dozen other ministers do. One eminent Christian gives more honour to God than a dozen others. Covet earnestly, brethren, to reflect all Christ's image.

      
The next point to consider is the prayer meeting on the hill. Matthew says, 'He went up into a mountain apart.' Luke says, it was 'to pray'. Christ loved to pray alone. We are told by Mark that he arose a great while before day and went out to pray. We are told by Matthew that after feeding the five thousand, he went up into a mountain apart to pray; and we are told by Luke at another time, when he was beset by his enemies, he went into the wilderness to pray; and we are told at another time by Luke, when he was to ordain apostles, he went out, and continued all night in prayer. This shows that Christ loved secret prayer.

 Ah, you are no Christian, if you do not love secret prayer. O brethren! a prayerless man is an unconverted man. Disguise it as you may; defend it as you can; explain it as you like; but a prayerless man is a Christless man. Christ loved the prayer meeting. We are told in the 18th chapter of Luke, 1st verse, of Christ praying with his disciples. Another example is where we have been reading - the 17th of John. O how wonderful to have heard Christ pray!

FIRE!

By E.M. Bounds


Zeal is a contagious, but not a popular, element. Our fathers took their tea piping hot; we take ours iced. Iced Christianity is more popular and tasteful than iced tea. We can endure in our churches enough warmth to take the chill off, but more than this is offensive. We have added many good elements to our preaching, but these cannot make up for the loss of fervor.

The average mind can only be moved to action by a flame. Some men may pull through to heaven on a cold collar, but they are the exception. A dwindling flame destroys the vital and aggressive forces in church life. God must be represented by a fiery church or he is not truly represented. God is all on fire, and his church, if it be like Him, must also be aflame with the great and eternal interests of religion. Zeal need not be fussy to be consuming and forceful. Christ was as far removed as possible from nervous excitability, the very opposite of intolerant or clamorous zeal, and yet the zeal of God's house consumed him.

The lack of ardor in Christian profession or action is a sure sign of the want of depth and intensity. The lack of fire is the sure sign of the lack of God's presence. To abate fervor is to retire God. God can tolerate many things in the way of infirmity or error. He can pardon much when one is repentant, but two things are intolerable to Him, insincerity and lukewarmness. Lack of heart and lack of heat are the things that He loathes. "I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth," is God's judgment on our lack of fire in the Church. Fire is the motor that moves the Christian life. Christian principles that are not aflame have neither force nor perfume. Flame is the wing by which faith ascends, and fervency is the soul of prayer. Love is kindled in a flame, and fire is the air that true religion breathes. It feeds on fire. Christianity can stand anything better than a feeble flame.

Christian character needs to be set on fire. Lack of heat makes more infidels than lack of faith. Not to be in fiery earnest about the things of heaven is not to be about them at all. The fiery souls are the ones that win in the heavenly fight. Nothing short of red hot can keep the glow of heaven in these chilly times. We must grasp the live coal and covet the consuming flame.

The Coming of the Kingdom in Power

By T. Austin-Sparks

      Reading: Matt. 16:28; 17:1-7.

      Though we are familiar with this incident of the transfiguration of Jesus, I have always had a feeling that we have not really grasped strongly enough the significance of it. We view it objectively as something that happened in the life of our Lord here, perhaps the most wonderful thing, and we leave it there and fail to realize that there is a tremendous challenge in it, and that it means something of very great importance and significance in the economy of God. Furthermore, we fail to realize that this is the focal point of all the Scriptures. From the beginning of the Bible up to this point, and from this point onwards, everything past and future meets here, is focused upon this, and this therefore contains that which is of tremendous account. The Lord Jesus said with emphasis, "There are some of them that stand here, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." Pentecost was the fulfilment of that, but the transfiguration was the meaning and nature of that. The two go together -- the transfiguration and the coming of the Holy Spirit as He came on the day of Pentecost.

      A Kingdom Trio

      Now, in order to get right to the meaning of this, let us note that it says -- and Jesus was always very deliberate and quite calculated in what He did, there was nothing casual about Him in word or in deed -- "Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart." Peter and James and John more than any others of the disciples of our Lord were those who had the great Kingdom complex. They were looking for the coming of the Kingdom. They had all the Jewish concept of the Kingdom and all the Jewish expectation of the Kingdom, and from various ejaculations of theirs it is quite clear that they were thinking in terms of the Israelitish kingdom coming in relation to Jesus. "Lord, dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6). 

That is their mentality, their expectation, their hope. We can say this trio was a Kingdom trio in mentality and concept and expectation. It was as though all this system of truth or teaching about the Kingdom was focused upon and gathered up into those three men.

      An Object Lesson of the Kingdom

      And Jesus took them deliberately apart up into the high mountain and was transfigured before them. They were the spectators of this. They were the ones who had this unique experience. Jesus was giving them an object lesson of the Kingdom. If you look at all the features you will see how truly that was so. Jesus had said -- "the Son of man coming in his kingdom". That is the first significant thing. "The Son of man in his kingdom". That is relationship to man, that is man being brought in according to God. This Kingdom is the Kingdom which God intended man to have, to be man's Kingdom. It is the Kingdom of the Son of man as representing man according to God's mind.

      The Kingdom for Man

      And so at once we are taken right back to the beginning of the Bible, and we see what God intended regarding the first man -- to give him the Kingdom. "Thou makest him to have dominion" (Psa. 8:6). The Kingdom was the great idea in God's mind in the creation of man, that all things should be under his feet. But that first man missed the Kingdom or lost the Kingdom, and it was not only a matter of government. Why he lost the Kingdom was because he became another kind of man, for this Kingdom belongs to a certain kind of man, and Adam, the first for whom it was intended, changed his nature by disobedience, by unbelief, and so he lost it. Another, the last Adam, comes in and recovers what Adam lost or missed -- the Kingdom.

The Moral Perfection of the Kingdom

But He shows what kind of a man is the Kingdom man, and you have two things here in this presentation of the transfigured Son of man. One is moral perfection. Here He is presented in all the purity and perfection of moral victory, tested, proved in every way in which a man can be tested and proved, emerging triumphant after all. There is nothing more really to be done as far as He personally is concerned. If He descends the mountain and goes to the cross, that is not on His own account. That is to bring the other men into the Kingdom, but on His own account all is done. He has reached the point of moral perfection, and so perfection is written large in the very description of Him here: His garments and His face, the picture of moral and spiritual perfection.

      The Glory of the Kingdom

The other thing is glory, and when you put those two things together, you know what the Kingdom is. It is spiritual and moral perfection in manhood issuing in glory. That is a word very difficult to understand. Of course, we usually do associate with the word "glory" the accompaniments of this transfiguration -- bright, glistening, fierce light. That is quite true in this sense -- if you find a person who is really by the grace of God overcoming, they are up against something that calls for much grace, maybe in themselves, some difficulty, some handicap, some discouragement, something that is so calculated to make them anything but triumphant Christians; or it may be in some other person with whom they have to live and work, it may be in the home, it may be in the business, it may be anywhere, and these people are an awful trial to them, but if you see these people triumphant through the grace of God over those trials, you do see something about them that is glorious. You can even see it in their countenance. How different they are from the people who are under their troubles. Their face tells whether they are over or under. There is something you recognize there of glory. It is a very faint illustration of this thing. Jesus has triumphed, reached the point of absolute victory on all matters, and the glory follows. I do believe that when we are glorified together with Him, there will be something very light about us -- I do not mean frivolous. We shall be radiant -- that is the word -- radiant people. Heaven is going to be a glorious place in this sense -- that everybody is going to be so radiant.

      Here is Christ the Son of man radiant, and the basis of His radiance is His spiritual life. That is the Kingdom. It was for that that man was created. It was that which he lost. It is that which the last Adam has recovered in His own Person, and here in the transfiguration He gives these three representatives of the great theory of the Kingdom a real object lesson of what the Kingdom really is. "The Kingdom is not you sitting upon thrones and exercising your importance over other people, ordering them here and there and all that sort of thing. This is the Kingdom: the Kingdom is in terms of spiritual victory resulting in spiritual radiance."

God's Gracious Response

By Robert S. Candlish


"Then said 1, Here am I; send me" (Isa. 6:8).


It is a signal instance of grace on the part of the Lord that I am allowed to be a volunteer. The Lord has a right, a dearly purchased fight, to deal with me very differently He might issue a peremptory command. He might utter his stern voice of authority, and at once order me. But he knows what is in man better than to treat thus the broken and relenting heart of one whom he has smitten by the brightness of his glorious holiness to the ground, and healed by the touch of his everliving sacrifice of blood. 

He is considerate. He is generous. His servant is not coerced or constrained, as with bit and bridle. He has the unspeakable privilege and happiness of giving himself voluntarily and, as it were, ultroneously, to the Lord, who willingly gave himself for him. He simply hears, or overhears, a conversation in heaven; a question asked and waiting to be answered.

My needs — His resources!

(Alexander Smellie, "The Secret Place" 1907)

"Acsah said: 'Let me have another gift. You have already given me land in the South — now please give me springs of wateralso!' So Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs." Judges 1:15

"Also" — the word of Acsah, Caleb's daughter, is the commonest of words in the hungering and thirsting heart, and on the praying lips of the Christian.

God has done much for me. He has given me a south land, where the sun shines, where the fields are broad and rich, where grape-vines and olive trees and fig trees may flourish and yield their harvests.

But I am not yet at the end of my needs — or of His resources. He must give me also springs of water to quicken and revive everything. I have not attained. I am not fully satisfied. As liberal as He has been — He is not wearied in bestowing, nor is His treasury depleted!

Back and back to Him I shall come — with new entreaties and new desires.
Back and back to me He will return — with new endowments and new love.

"Also" — it is both my word and His!

Suppose that I am forgiven — I would have Him also add to His forgiveness, the peace and assurance which it should beget.

Suppose that I am justified in His sight by the infinite meritoriousness of my Lord Jesus Christ — I would also know now what it is to be sanctified and made holy by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

Suppose that I am His redeemed and adopted child, dwelling in the home and atmosphere of His favor — I would also be His consecrated servant and commissioned ambassador, employed to advance His Kingdom.

Suppose that He has given me the south land of His mercifulness and grace — He must also give me the springs of water, that through the whole of the encircling year I may bear much fruit to His glory.

Lord, give me springs of water also!

   ~  ~  ~  ~

The grandest benefactors of the church!

(Charles Spurgeon, "Flowers from a Puritan's Garden" 1883)

"By running and exercising every day, you are the fitter to run in a race. Just so, the oftener you come into God's presence — the greater confidence, and freedom, and enlargement it will bring to your soul."

No doubt by praying we learn to pray; and the more we pray — the oftener we can pray, and the better we can pray. He who prays by fits and starts is never likely to attain to that effectual, fervent prayer which avails much.

Prayer is good,
the habit of prayer is better,
but the spirit of prayer is the best of all.
It is in the spirit of prayer, that we pray without ceasing.

It is astonishing what distances men can run, who have long practiced; and it is equally marvelous for what a length of time they can maintain a high speed after they have once acquired stamina and skill in using their muscles.

Just so, great power in prayer is within our reach, but we must work to obtain it. Let us never imagine that Abraham could have interceded so successfully for Sodom, if he had not been all his lifetime in the practice of communion with God. Jacob's all-night at Peniel was not the first occasion upon which he had met his God. We may even look upon our Lord's most choice and wonderful prayer with His disciples before His Passion, as the flower and fruit of His many nights of devotion, and of His often rising up a great while before day to pray.

A man who becomes a great runner has to put himself in training, and to keep himself in it; and that training consists very much of the exercise of running. Those who have distinguished themselves for speed have not suddenly leaped into eminence, but have long been runners.

Just so, if a man dreams that he can become mighty in prayer just when he pleases, he labors under a great mistake. The prayer of Elijah, which shut up Heaven and afterward opened its floodgates — was one of a long series of mighty prevailings with God. Oh that Christian men would remember this!

Perseverance in prayer is necessary to prevalence in prayer!

Those great intercessors, who are not so often mentioned as they ought to be in connection with confessors and martyrs, were nevertheless the grandest benefactors of the church. But it was only by abiding at the mercy-seat, that they attained to be such channels of mercy to men.

O Jesus, by whom we come to God, seeing You have Yourself trodden the way of prayer, and never turned from it — teach me to remain a suppliant as long as I remain a sinner, and to wrestle in prayer so long as I have to wrestle with the powers of evil. Whatever else I may outgrow, may I never dream that I may relax my supplications.

"Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful." Colossians 4:2

   ~  ~  ~  ~

"Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God."Ecclesiastes 5:2

Lessons for the Christian's Daily Walk
Devotional and Practical Meditations
on the Book of Ecclesiastes

George Mylne, 1859

"Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God."Ecclesiastes 5:2

Of yourself, my soul, you are incapable of prayer. By nature you are far from God, how could you pray? If something must be said, your native powers can furnish words. But if the Spirit does not move you — it is not prayer. None but the Spirit's voice can speak to God. None but the Spirit's mind can reach his ear. "The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will." Romans 8:26-27

Why does the Spirit dwell in you? To be the framer of your thoughts — the organ of your speech — to God: that you in Him, and He in you, might think the thoughts, and think the language of prayer. To pray without the Spirit, is the same as thinking without a mind, or speaking without the power of speech. Bright thoughts; well-rounded sentences; the flow of sentiment, and earthly sympathies — what are they? They come not from the Spirit — and they do not lead you to God.

What has the Spirit thought? What has the Spirit said, within you? Your life, your heart, your thoughts — must be centered in the Spirit. In Him you pray. In Him you praise. In Him alone you are a living thing. Without Him, while you live, you are spiritually dead.

My soul, whence all your waverings in prayer; resolves half formed, and forthwith given up; playing with sacred duties; uttering many things, but feeling not? Whence all your parleyings with conscience; pleading for grace, yet half-afraid to have it; striving against sin, yet longing to indulge it; praying against some idol, yet hugging it all the while. Whence your discomfort after prayer; conscious of not having dealt with God? Is it not this — the mind has thought — the lips have moved — without the Spirit? Why did you speak without Him? Better be silent altogether — than run before his motions.

In private prayer, fret not, though waiting times be long — though often you leave the throne, and not a word be spoken. What could you say? The Spirit spoke not. You could not but be silent.

UNCTION: Heaven's Knighthood

UNCTION: Heaven's Knighthood

By E.M. Bounds

      Unction comes to the preacher, not in the study, but in the closet. It is heaven's distillation in answer to prayer. It is the sweetest exhalation of the Holy Spirit. It impregnates softens, cuts and soothes. It carries the Word like dynamite, like salt, like sugar; makes the hearer a culprit or a saint, makes him weep like a child and live like a giant; opens his heart and his purse as gently, yet as strongly as the spring opens the leaves.

      This unction is not the gift of genius. It is not found in the halls of learning. No eloquence can woo it. No industry can win it. No clergies hands can impart it. It is the gift of God -the signet set to His own messengers. It is Heaven's knighthood given to the chosen true and brave ones who have sought this anointed honor through many an hour of tearful, wrestling prayer.

      Earnestness is good and impressive. Genius is gifted and great. Thought kindles and inspires, but it takes a diviner endowment, a more powerful energy then earnestness or genius or thought - to BREAK the chains of sin, to WIN estranged and depraved hearts to God to repair the breaches, and restore the Church to her old ways of purity and POWER! Nothing but this holy unction can do this. Unction is the anointing of the Holy Ghost, separating unto God's work and qualifying for it. Without this unction there are no true spiritual results accomplished.

      Unction may be simulated. There are many things that look like it, there are many results that resemble its effects; but they are foreign to its results and to its nature. The fervor or softness excited by a pathetic or emotional sermon may look like the movements of the divine unction, but they have no pungent, penetrating, heartbreaking force. No heart-healing balm is there in these surface, sympathetic, emotional movements. They are not radical, neither sin-searching nor sin-curing.

This divine unction is the one distinguishing feature that separates true gospel preaching from all other methods of presenting truth. It backs and interpenetrates the revealed truth with all the force of God. It illumines the Word, and broadens and enriches the intellect, and empowers it to grasp and apprehend the Word. It qualifies the preacher's heart, and brings it to that condition of tenderness, of purity, of force and light that are necessary to secure the highest results. This unction gives to the preacher liberty and enlargement of thought and soul - freedom, fullness, and directness of utterance that can be secured by no other process.

      Without unction on the preacher the gospel has no more power to propagate itself than any other system of truth. This is the seal of its divinity. Unction in the preacher puts God in the gospel. Without the unction, God is absent, and the gospel is left to the low forces that the ingenuity, interest, or talents of men can devise to enforce and project its doctrines.

      It is in this element the pulpit often fails than in any other element. Unction is the consecration force, and its presence the continuous test of consecration. It is this divine anointing on the preacher that secures his consecration. It is this divine anointing on the preacher that secures his consecration to God and his work. Other forces and motives may call him to the work, but this only is consecration. A separation to God's work by the power of the Holy Spirit is the only consecration recognized by God as legitimate.

      The divine unction, this heavenly anointing is what the pulpit needs and must have. This divine and heavenly oil put on it by the imposition of God's hand must soften and lubricate the whole man - heart, head, spirit - until it separates him with a mighty separation from all earthly, secular, worldly, selfish motives and aims, separating him to everything that is pure and Godlike. It is the presence of this unction on the preacher that creates the stir and friction in many a congregation. The same truths have been told in the strictness of the letter, but no ruffle has been seen, no pain or pulsation felt. All is quiet as a graveyard.

Another preacher comes, and this mysterious influence is on him; the letter of the Word has been fired by the Spirit, the throes of a mighty movement are felt. It is this unction that pervades and stirs the conscience and breaks the heart. Unctionless preaching makes everything hard, dry, and, dead. This unction is not a memory or an era of the past only; it is a present, realized, conscious fact. It belongs to the experience of the man as well as to his preaching. It is that which transforms him into the image of his divine Master, as well as that by which he declares the truth of Christ with power. It is so much the power in the ministry as to make all else seem feeble and vain without it, - and by its presence to atone for the absence of all other feebler forces.

      This unction is not an inalienable gift. It is a conditional gift, and its presence is perpetuated and increased by the same process by which it was at first secured; by unceasing prayer to God, by impassioned desires after God, by estimating it, by seeking it with tireless ardor, by deeming all else loss and failure without it.

       EXCERPTED FROM, POWER THROUGH PRAYER

Fainting

Sermons from the Psalms, 5 - Fainting

By Clovis G. Chappell


"I had fainted, unless I had believed." Psalm 27: 13


Clovis G. Chappell: 

HERE is a man who realizes that he has had a very close call. He has just succeeded in traversing a bit of rugged road that threatened to work his ruin. More than once had his knees gone weak. More than once had the whole world seemed to grow black about him. Again and again had he been on the point of toppling over in a dead faint. But when he was reeling in his tracks and ready to fall, there was one firm staff that did not break in the grip of his clutching fingers. There was one solid wall against which he leaned that he found amply able to bear all the weight he could put upon it. That wall was faith. So he won through; but as he looks back over it all he declares with humility: "I had fainted, unless I had believed."


I

Now fainting is one of the most common and deadly foes that you and I have to face. We know from our own experiences what it is and something of the havoc that it works. Sometime ago I was preaching in a church that was greatly overcrowded. Suddenly a gentleman who was standing in the rear of the building toppled over with a dull thud. The moment before he fainted he was, to all appearances, an eager and interested worshiper. He was making a worth-while contribution to the service. But as soon as he had fainted all this was over. There was no use to give him a hymn book; he would not sing. There was no use to pass him the collection plate; he could not give. There was no use to call him to prayer; he could not pray. There was no use to preach to him; he could not listen. Not only so, but four other men who had also been making their contribution to the service had to leave in order to look after him. Thus, by his fainting, he not only ceased to be an asset, but became a positive liability.

But for every one who faints physically there are literally scores who faint spiritually. How many such do we have in all our churches! Once they could be counted upon to be in their places at every service. Once the whole moral tone of the community was purified, in some measure, through their efforts. But all this is passed. The fires of their enthusiasm have gone out. Their interest has become listlessness. They are no longer a help, but a positive hindrance. They are no longer life-giving, they rather lie like huge stones across the mouth of the sepulcher where God is trying to raise some needy Lazarus from the dead. And this is the case, not because they have become openly antagonistic to the Church. It is the case not because they are vicious or flagrantly corrupt. It is rather the case because they have fainted.

A few years ago, over in a staid old city of Virginia, a lovely young couple stood before the altar to be married. They were of sufficient prominence socially for the event to be one of importance, not only to themselves, but to their community. All went well till the minister was about in the middle of the ceremony. Then his voice suddenly faltered, his ritual dropped from his fingers, and he himself toppled over into the palms. And there stood the embarrassed couple only half married. I rejoice to say that this minister was not so far gone that he could not be restored. Friends took him into the open air, and he was at last able to see his task through, "and they lived happily ever after."

But such tragedies do not always end so fortunately. In fact, because of our proneness to faint, our lives and our world are cluttered up with half-finished tasks. There are beautiful pictures that we never quite paint, books that we throw aside when we have written only the preface. There are fine goals from which we turn back when our pursuit has only begun.

Near a certain Southern city there stood for years a very expensive building called "The Pink Palace." It was constructed of beautiful pink marble that had been brought from a distance of hundreds of miles. But in spite of all the wealth and labor that had been expended upon this palace, in spite of the beautiful material of which it was builded, it was not a poem, as it was surely meant to be. It was only a windowless ruin. This was the case because the builder fainted and gave over his task before he brought it to completion.

While I was pastor in Washington, D. C., I was sent one summer to the Panama Canal Zone on a preaching and lecturing tour. Here and there, as we crossed the isthmus, I noticed great heaps of machinery that were slowly sinking into the mud and rusting away. Upon asking about these worthless heaps I was told that they had been left there by the French. Then I remembered that the French had undertaken to dig the canal and join these two seas. To that end they expended much money and not a few lives. But they did not see the task through. This was the case, not because they had proved the enterprise to be either undesirable or impossible, but rather because they fainted before their dream came true.

So we might go on endlessly. For of all cause of failure in every department of life there is none more sure than fainting. No wealth of opportunity, no gift of ability, even to the point of genius, can save us if we yield to this temptation. Had you and I been present when that famous race between the hare and the tortoise was run, who of us would have staked anything on the leaden-footed tortoise? But it was he that won, not because of his fleetness of foot, but because of his staying powers. Much of Thomas Edison's success is no doubt due to his keenness of intellect, but still more is due to his ability to hang on to the track of a dream with the tenacity of a bloodhound till he has made it a reality. If lack of opportunity and lack of ability have slain their thousands, fainting has slain its tens of thousands.

Since this is the case it is not to be wondered at that the writers of the Bible warn against fainting again and again. No more is it a matter of wonder that, when they seek to show us the religious life at its very best, staying power, a stubborn refusal to faint, is one of its prominent characteristics. Possibly the finest word, for instance, that they have to say of Moses is that he endured (Heb. 11:27). There was opposition, there was disappointment, there was bitter heartache, but he endured. Such staunchness, they felt, could only be accounted for in terms of God. So they said: "He endured as seeing him who is invisible."

And they keep looking back to this same sturdy quality in Abraham. He had been lured into the unknown by a great dream that seemed destined never to come true. God had promised him much, but long years had slipped by and nothing had come of it. Springtime had gone, summer had gone, autumn had gone, and the gray days of winter were rapidly flying past. Still the promised heir had not come. But this stanch soul never gave up, never believed for a moment that God was going to let him down. "He staggered not at the promises," (Rom. 4:20) writes Paul with evident admiration. And refusing to faint, he at last realized his dream.

Don’t Get Too Familiar with the Bible

by Peter Krol


EXCERPT


Unexamined familiarity will prevent you from looking at the Book. Because such familiarity crowds out curiosity, it imperceptibly stiffens necks, hardens hearts, and deafens ears. Familiarity may lead us to assume things that are not in the text, and it may blind us to things that are.

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The love of Christ which surpasses knowledge!

(Alexander Smellie, "The Secret Place" 1907)

"The love of Christ which surpasses knowledge!" Ephesians 3:19

No love stoops like Christ's love. It abandoned place and prospects and power — to save me! It traveled from the heights of Heaven, to the depths of sinful earth. God, pure and holy, chose voluntarily to make His home with me a sinner!

The sole qualification I need to commend myself to Him is not my conviction of worth, but my conviction of worthlessness —my knowledge that I am devoid of goodness and holiness! Then, when I confess myself penniless — He will invest me with His treasures. He banishes no self-destroyed and forlorn and penitent man outside the pale of His grace. His love stoops!

No love suffers like Christ's love. The test of affection is its willingness to suffer sacrifice and pain for another. Never has any affection stood the test like the love of Jesus.

"It is certain," one writes, "that not for one hour on earth, was our Lord without the anguish of His passion." And at last He made the supreme offering of His life for me. Such bitterness, such dereliction, such unspeakable sorrow — there were in my Savior's death. For me He bore the hiding of His Father's face on Calvary. It is an unfathomable pre-eminence of grief. It is a horror of great darkness which I may not pierce. His love suffers!

No love gives like Christ's love. Love is always giving. But when was there human love with such wealth to bestow, and such willingness to communicate it — as the love of Christ? In simple fact, He imparts nothing less than Himself to me! The most unholy, the most tempted, the most despairing — cannot desire anything more sufficient. His love gives!

And no love lasts like Christ's love. The truest and tenderest earthly love says farewell to its beloved in death. And too often, even on this side of the grave, doubts insinuate themselves, and suspicions arise, and covenants are snapped and broken. It is not so with the love of Christ. Neither things present nor things to come, the demands of today and the contingencies of tomorrow — chill that great heart of love! Christ's love is like Himself — eternal and unchangeable. His love lasts!

Does not His wondrous love deserve my whole soul and body — all that I have, and all that I am? Nothing is stranger, and nothing more sad, than that, bathed in Christ's love — I should be so indifferent, so forgetful, so cold!

   ~  ~  ~  ~

Don't bite the stick!

(Charles Spurgeon, "Flowers from a Puritan's Garden" 1883) 

"As children will thank the tailor, and think they owe their new clothes to him rather than to their parent's bounty — so we often look to the instrument of blessing, and thank that instead of God."

Second causes must never be made to stand before the First Cause. Friends and helpers are all very well as servants of our Father — but our Father must have all our praise.

There is a similar evil in the matter of trials and afflictions. We are apt to be angry with the instrument of our affliction — instead of seeing the hand of God over all, and meekly bowing before it.

It was a great help to David in bearing with the railing Shimei — when he saw that God had appointed this provocation as a chastisement. He would not allow his hasty captains to take the scoffer's head, but meekly said, "Let him alone, and let him curse, for the Lord has bidden him."

When a dog is struck — he will bite the stick! If he were wise, he would observe that the stick only moves as the hand directs it. Just so, when we discern God in our tribulations, we are helped to be quiet and endure with patience.

Let us not act like silly children, but trace matters to their fountain-head, and act accordingly. May the Spirit of wisdom make us understand.

"He is the LORD; let Him do what is good in His eyes." 1 Samuel 3:18

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away — may the name of the LORD be praised." Job 1:21

"Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" Job 2:10

"When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other." Ecclesiastes 7:14

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He Careth For You

By D.L. Moody

1 Peter 5:7

"All thy griefs by Him are ordered,
Needful is each one for thee,
All thy tears by Him are counted,
One too much there cannot be.

And if, while they fall so quickly,
Thou canst own His way is right,
Then each bitter tear of anguish,
Precious is in Jesus' sight.

Far too well thy Saviour loves thee,
To allow thy life to be,
One long calm unbroken sunbeam,
One unruffled, stormless sea.

He would have thee fondly nestling,
Closer to his gentle breast,
He would have that world seem brighter,
Where alone is perfect rest."

Prayer Tips

By George Mueller

Two "Prayer Tips" from George Müller:

1. Open Bible Before Him, and His Finger Upon That Promise, He would Plead That Promise, and So He Received What He Asked

2. Müller's Discovery Was That After Meditating On Scripture He Was More Able to Experience a Meaningful Prayertime

* * * * *

1. Open Bible Before Him, and His Finger Upon That Promise, He would Plead That Promise, and So He Received What He Asked

One of the mightiest men of prayer of the last generation was George Mueller of Bristol, England, who in the last sixty years of his life (he lived to be ninety-two or ninety-three) obtained the English equivalent of $7,200,000.00 by prayer. But George Mueller never prayed for a thing just because he wanted it, or even just because he felt it was greatly needed for God's work. When it was laid upon George Mueller's heart to pray for anything, he would search the Scriptures to find if there was some promise that covered the case. Sometimes he would search the scriptures for days before he presented his petition to God. And then when he found the promise, with his open Bible before him, and his finger upon that promise, he would plead that promise, and so he received what he asked. He always prayed with an open Bible before him.

-R. A. Torrey on George Müller; "The Power of Prayer," 1924 (P. 81)

* * * * *

Note: R. A. Torrey was selected by Dwight L. Moody be in charge of his Chicago Bible Institute (now known as The Moody Bible Institute). When Dwight Moody died during an evangelistic campaign, R. A. Torrey was chosen to be his replacement, and thereafter had a ministry of Evangelism.

* * * * *

Note: In German, when you cannot write an "umlaut" letter "ü" (for instance, on many of the old-style typewriters), you write "ue" instead. So you may see the name spelled either "Müller," "Mueller," or "Muller" (the latter is an incorrect spelling from the German standpoint, but often English writers use it)."

* * * * *

2. Müller's Discovery Was That After Meditating On Scripture He Was More Able to Experience a Meaningful Prayertime

"Reading without meditation is unfruitful; meditation without reading is hurtful; to meditate and to read without prayer upon both is without blessing."

-William Bridge, Puritan Writer


Christian meditation (thinking deeply on Scripture) is "the missing link between Bible intake and prayer." If there was a "secret" to George Müller's prayer life, it was his discovery of the connection between meditation and prayer. Müller's discovery was that after meditating on Scripture he was more able to experience a meaningful prayertime.

-Donald S. Whitney, "Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life" (partial quote and partial paraphrase).

The clock of Providence!

 (Charles Spurgeon, "Flowers from a Puritan's Garden" 1883) 

"There is a clock with which Providence keeps time and pace — and God Himself sets it!"

Our time is always now, for we are in selfish haste. But everything happens according to God's divine time-table. Our sovereign God is never before His time — and never too late. We may well admire the punctuality of Heaven.

Our trials come in due season — and leave at the appointed moment. Our fretfulness will neither hasten nor delay the purposes of our sovereign God.

We are in hot haste to order all our affairs. But the Lord has the leisure of omnipotence and unerring wisdom — and it will be well for us to learn to wait. The clock will not strike until the hour; but when the instant comes, we shall hear the bell.

My soul, trust in God, and wait patiently when He says, "My time has not yet come — but your time is always here!" John 7:6

           ~  ~  ~  ~

"Strangers have devoured his strength"

By D.L. Moody

      Strangers have devoured his strength - from Hosea 7:9

What gives spiritual weakness like allowed sin? It was so with Israel, it will ever be so with us. Yielding to unhallowed association (with) strangers devour our strength.

If you ever saw a cake not turned, baked only on one side, of what use is it? Of what use is a worldly, backsliding Christian?

     

"Strangers have devoured his strength" tells of the powerlessness of one under sin. The order is, first, at conversion, God takes us up out of this present evil age; and then next, sends us into it. Not to be of it, but to be lights in it, and to take others out of it.

     

 "The friendship of the world is enmity to God." It is like the ivy with the oak (tree), the ivy may give the oak a grand, beautiful appearance, but all the while it is feeding on the vitals.

      

The next image tells of the result. Ephraim is like a silly dove, without heart "some read with but one wing," and so unable to fly. Thus where sin is, there is no power to rise and get out of danger. 

It is proverbial of doves, that when any surprise or sudden alarm comes upon them they are without heart and have no strength so that instead of fleeing from danger, they seem hopelessly to fall into it. - J. D. S.

Consumed with Christ

By David Wilkerson

     

 "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." Luke 14:26

      The Greek word for hate means "to love less by comparison." Jesus is calling us to have a love for Him that is so all-inclusive, fervent and absolute that all our earthly affections cannot come close. If we had that red-hot, all-consuming, intense and joyous love for Christ, we would not need outlines, diagrams and instructions telling us how to pray; we would pray because our hearts would be on fire with love for Him. We would not grow bored trying to fill up an hour praying ambiguously for needs all over the world; Christ would be the object of our prayers, and our prayer time would be precious. We would spend hours behind closed doors, expressing the overflowing admiration and sweet love that flood our hearts for Him. Reading His Word would never be a burden; we wouldn't need formulas on how to finish the Bible in a year.

If we loved Jesus passionately, we would be drawn magnetically to His Word to learn more about Him. And we would not become bogged down with endless genealogies and end-time speculations. We would want only to know Him better-to see more of His beauty and glory so that we could become more like Him. Think about it: Do we know what it is like to come into His sweet presence and ask nothing? To reach out to Him only because we are grateful that He loves us so completely? We have become selfish and self-centered in our prayers: "GIVE US, MEET US, HELP US, BLESS US, USE US, PROTECT US" All this may be scriptural, but the focus remains on us. We go to His Word for answers to our problems, for guidance and comfort, and this also is right and commendable. But where is the love-motivated soul who searches the Scriptures diligently, who wants only to discover more and more about his beloved Lord?

The Belovedness of Christ

The Belovedness of Christ 
by T. Austin-Sparks

Reading: Exodus 32:1-6, 15-29; Malachi 2:4-6; 3:1-3; Numbers 4:1-3; Luke 3:23.

The matter of the priestly service or ministry of the people of God, the service of God in terms of priestliness, is one which has been on my heart for a considerable time now. We will introduce the subject with a very simple consideration of what I am going to call the 'belovedness' of Christ, in this particular connection - His priestly ministry.

In the passages which we have just read, to which a great many more could be added, two things are quite clear. One, that the Lord's people are called to be a priestly people - that is their vocation; two, that in that function they are peculiarly precious to the Lord. You cannot read the many passages in the Scriptures about the Levites without being impressed by that one thing, that they are very precious to the Lord. The last reference to them in the Old Testament, which we have read, indicates that. There is a tone of very real endearment in the words of the Lord about Levi at that point. At the end of the story of the Old Testament, after all that has taken place through the years, the Lord looks right back to that day of which we read in Exodus 32, and speaks of how precious and valuable the Levites became to Him, so much so that He entered into a covenant with them, a covenant of life and peace. "My covenant was with him of life and peace".

THE PRIESTLY MINISTRY OF CHRIST AND THE FATHER'S LOVE

And you will notice the connection between the statement in Numbers 4:3, that the active Levites started their ministry at the age of thirty, and the statement that Jesus was likewise thirty years of age when He began His public ministry; indicating not only in itself, but by other features which we shall notice, that His ministry was essentially a Levitical, that is, a priestly, ministry. We all believe that, and we know how much is made of that, especially in the letter to the Hebrews. But notice that that statement in Luke - 'Jesus...when he began... was about thirty years of age" - follows immediately upon His baptism and the opening of the Heavens, and the Father's voice and attestation: "Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." There is something about the Lord Jesus, just at this point when He takes up His priestly ministry, which draws out the love of the Father for Him in these affectionate expressions. It is true that He was the Son, and therefore He was beloved of God as His Son, but I believe there was a particular connection between His beginning of a priestly ministry, and this expression of the Father's love and appreciation for the preciousness of this upon which He was entering. That is the point of our concentration just now - the 'belovedness' of the Lord Jesus, and so of the Levites, as entering into the meaning of Christ's ministry in terms of priesthood, precious to the Lord.

I suggest to you, dear friends, that the thing that you and I need, and perhaps more than anything else desire, to be assured about, is: What is there, peculiarly precious to the Lord, into which we may be brought, in which we may be found, which may be entrusted to us! What we really are seeking for all the time is: What is it that the Lord wants more than anything else? What is it that is more precious to the Lord than anything else! Can there be something in the life of God's people corresponding to this 'belovedness' of Christ! It is very important to know that. There are many things that may be of value, but they may be of comparative value. What we want to know, what we must know, is: What is that which the Lord really looks upon as most precious to Himself, which will serve Him to the greatest value! The Lord Jesus received the assurance that the Father's love, appreciation and valuation were focused upon Him, just at the point when He stepped out into His public ministry. It is a great thing to start any work or move out into any service on a basis like that, is it not! Just think of what strength there would be if we had absolute assurance that that to which we were committed was something of tremendous value to God!

As we go on in our Christian lives and in our manifold work for the Lord, we find that time is a great sifter. Trial, testing, adversity and suffering, and all the things which come to bear upon us, very often make us raise seriously the question of values. 'Is it worth it! Is it justified! Does this really matter! Is this of such importance!' From time to time we are forced to ask, 'Now, what does it all amount to, after all!', and it is then a great delivering and confirming thing to have the answer: 'This is precious - of very real value - even of supreme importance to the Lord'. It was the starting-point of the Lord Jesus in His life-work - His belovedness to the Father, not only in His Person and Sonship, but in the thing to which He was committing Himself.

It is very important to know, and it is not wrong to say, that we can be brought into that belovedness. The Levites, representing God's thought for all His people, came into that in a very real way. The Lord let it be known right through the centuries that they represented something very valuable, very precious to Himself. "My covenant was with him of life and peace".

AN OPEN HEAVEN
Then you notice that when the Lord Jesus began at the Levitical age of thirty, the one thing that marked that beginning was the opened Heaven. The Heavens were opened. Now look back again at Exodus 32, and you see that that is exactly what is there. Moses, receiving the law and the testimony on Sinai in communion with the Lord, came down from the mount. The Lord had already told him what was happening down below, but Joshua did not know. Joshua was always a man of war, and any noise to him sounded like war, and when he heard the sound from the camp he interpreted it as war. His spirit rose to the occasion for fighting, but Moses said, 'No, that is not war - I know what that is', and he came down and saw, and took it all in.

Moses stood in the gate, and Israel became divided into two parties. On the one side, Heaven was closed. No doubt about it, Heaven was closed to them that day. It was doom, judgment, darkness, exclusion; they were set aside, cast out. Heaven was no longer open. On the other side of Moses were the Levites, and the open Heaven was with them. On the basis of their action, their decision, the open Heaven was their inheritance that day, and from that time onward theirs was the ministry of the open Heaven. Levitical ministry is the ministry of an open Heaven, and the opened Heaven is the sign and seal of the preciousness of that to the Lord. To be living, walking, working, in the good of a Heaven opened, is the mark of preciousness to the Lord. No judgment, no exclusion, no doom, no darkness, no wrath, but an open Heaven - the inheritance of the Levite, and the inheritance of the Lord Jesus, the greatest of the Levites.

Do you grasp the significance and importance of that! We are talking about service. Forget for the moment the terms in which we couch the message - 'levitical' and 'priestly' sound very ecclesiastical, very formal - and just think about the service which is precious to the Lord. That kind of service means the service which corresponds to the Lord Jesus, that pre-eminently marks the Lord Jesus. It has the seal of God upon it, that this is something supremely precious to the Lord; and the seal is that you have an open Heaven. That is, the way between you and God is wide open: there is no shadow, no cloud, no interruption: the course is clear between God and yourself, and yourself and God. If it is not like that, the service will be hard going, always under a sense of Divine reservation, that the Lord is not really with you as you feel He ought to be.

THE MARKS OF THE MINISTRY

An open Heaven, and "My covenant... with him of life and peace". What is the mark of this kind of ministry? What is the mark of a people standing in such a position, such a relationship with the Lord under an open Heaven?

The Turning Again of Peter

By G. Campbell Morgan



From that time began Jesus to show unto His disciples that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up. And Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying, Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall never be unto Thee. Matthew 16:21, 22


Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself and walkedst whither thou wouldst; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldst not. Now this He spake, signifying by what manner of death he should glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He saith unto him, Follow Me.John 21:18,19


Let us read these passages again, omitting all save the actual words of Peter as recorded in the first, and those of Jesus as recorded in the second. "Be it far from Thee, Lord; this shall never be unto Thee." "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldst: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldst not.... Follow Me."

Last Sunday evening I spoke to you on the subject of the sifting of Peter. This evening we turn our attention to our Lord's method in restoring him. Ere we trace the stages in his turning again, I would notice the significance of the two passages we have read. The one reveals the first movement of Peter out of harmony with his Lord, when for the first time Jesus definitely told His disciples that He must needs go to Jerusalem and suffer and be killed, and the third day be raised up. Peter stood in the presence of the announcement astonished and afraid, and instead of following his Lord, though unable to understand Him, he said, "Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall never be unto Thee." The Master immediately rebuked him in the sternest terms, "Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-block unto me: for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men." When I come to the scene at the seashore, and to the final movement in it, I hear Jesus saying to him, "When thou wast young thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldst; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldst not.... Follow Me." Thus Jesus brought Peter back to the cross, to his own cross. Peter failed in following when his Lord's cross was presented to him. He was restored to following when his own cross overshadowed his life. Yet there are many stages between that movement out of fellowship and that perfect restoration. 

This evening, to magnify His grace and to attempt to set forth the patience and persistence of the Lord in seeking after and restoring His wandering ones, I shall ask you to follow me as I attempt to trace the stages of the restoration, for the man turning his back upon the cross is not immediately transformed into a man who consents to the cross and comes presently to glory in the fact that he is counted worthy to suffer shame for his Master's Name. There was much--I speak it very reverently, although the much of human speech is an awkward word to use of the Divine activity--there was very much for the Master to do for this man. While we shall see Peter all through our study tonight, I pray you attempt to fix your eyes, not on him, but on the Lord, marking the method of His mercy and His patience, how He commenced to make a highway home for this Peter, and how He went after Peter persistently until He set his feet once more upon the broad highway of His commandment, and commissioned him to all the toil of the coming years.

Last Sunday evening we were able to trace the downward steps of Peter in the first chapter of Mark 14. In order to follow consecutively the method of the Master's restoration we cannot confine ourselves to one chapter, but shall attempt to follow it by turning to different passages in the Gospel writings. The first to which I shall draw your attention is to be found in Luke 22:31, 32. Here the Master is speaking to Peter, and says to him (and here I very deliberately use the marginal rendering), "Simon, Simon, Satan hath obtained you by asking, that he might sift you as wheat: but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not: and do thou, when once thou hast turned again, stablish thy brethren." That is the first step in Peter's restoration. The "you" is plural and the reference is to all the disciples: "but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not." That is singular and personal and immediate. This does not mean that Jesus did not pray for the rest, but it is a special word for Peter. While He tells Peter that he, in common with all the rest, has been obtained by Satan for sifting, He singles Peter out because he is especially in peril.

The first step our Lord took toward the restoration of this man then was that of storing up in his mind words which would be of service to him in the days to come. In one flash of light He revealed a most startling situation. A human soul stands between two forces, the forces of evil and of good. "Satan hath obtained thee by asking... but I made supplication for thee." Satan has been asking about this man. Jesus has been asking about him. Over against the asking of Satan, Jesus has put His own asking. All that will pay for further consideration, and we postpone it. What I now want you to notice is that Jesus told Peter He had prayed for him that his faith should not fail. Was that prayer answered? Certainly. You say, "But his faith did fail." Never. He denied his Lord. Yes, and believed in Him all the time. What did fail? His courage, his hope, his obedience, not his faith in the Person. The faith of the disciples of Jesus never failed. The two men walking to Emmaus had lost hope and courage and confidence, but not faith in Him. They had lost faith, in the sense of having certain convictions about Him weakened, but they had not lost their faith in Him personally. They thought He had been mistaken. They thought He had failed. They said, "We hoped that it was He which should redeem Israel." Their use of the verb "to hope" was in the past tense. They had lost their hope, but they said He "was a prophet mighty in deed and word," and that suggests that they still believed in Him. 

The faith which saves is not faith in anything heard about Jesus, but faith in Jesus. Peter's faith never failed. His courage failed, his obedience failed, his hope died out; but he never lost his faith in Jesus. I think the hour came when he thought his faith had failed. A great many people come there. But Jesus had prayed for Peter before his denial, before the outward and evident manifestation of the inner heart backsliding. He had taken an advance march against the enemy, had garrisoned the soul of His child against all the sifting of hell. Thank God, that is my Saviour. I hope He is your Saviour, dear heart. So He begins His method of restoration.

In this same 22nd chapter of Luke we find the next step in verse 61. "And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter." Just a look. I cannot interpret it. There was no theology in it. There were tears in it. Have you ever asked yourself quietly when you were alone how Jesus looked at Peter? I think I know how I would have looked at him. I am very much afraid, from what I know of my own heart, that if my bosom friend had denied me in answer to the give and take of a servant girl and the mockery of brutal soldiers just when I most needed him, when my life was being sworn away, my look might have been one of anger. Jesus did not look that way. I know He did not. If there be anything of His grace in my heart I might not have looked in anger, but I think the highest thing that could ever have been said of my looking would be that I looked reproachfully at Peter. Do you think Jesus did that? Do you think that day in the judgment hall He looked back where Peter stood by the fire cursing and swearing, and there was something in his look which said, "Peter, is that you? Can you add to my sorrow? Can you help to break my heart?" I do not think He looked like that. I think He was too selfemptied. I do not think there entered into the thinking of Jesus the sorrow caused to Him by His friend's denial. I think His was a look aflame with the pity of God. I think it was a look ineffable in its tenderness, which said to Peter, not, "What sorrow art thou causing Me," but "What sorrow art thou causing thyself?" I think it was a great look of compassion, full of tenderness divine. Overwhelmed with personal sorrow, He forgot His sorrow in pity for the grief which this foolish man was bringing to his own heart. That interpretation may not be correct. Therefore I simply remind you of what happened and ask you to find out when you are alone what the look meant. Of this at least I am sure, that look broke Peter's heart. I do not think a look of anger would have done that. I almost question whether a look of reproach would have done it. But, oh, the pity of those eyes! The unveiling of God's compassion in those eyes! Peter hurried out into the night. He is coming home. A man is always coming home when he quits the world's fire for the dark night in penitence. There are many tears and sighs and dark hours to go through, but he is coming home. My dear man, are you broken-hearted because you have denied your Lord? Have you quit the world's fires? Are you very dark and desolate and lonely in this house tonight? You are on the way home.