"Abide in Me" (John xv. 4).

  
Days of Heaven Upon Earth

      "Abide in Me" (John xv. 4).     
      Christianity may mean nothing more than a religious system. Christian life may mean nothing more than an earnest and honest attempt to follow and imitate Christ.
     
      Christ life is more than these, and expresses our actual union with the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is undoubtedly in us as the life and source of all our experience and work.
     
      This conception of the highest Christian life is at once simpler and sublimer than any other. We do not teach in these pages, that the purpose of Christ's redemption is to restore us to Adamic perfection, for if we had it we should lose it to-morrow; but rather to unite us with the Second Adam, and lift us up to a higher plane than our first parents ever knew.
     
      This is the only thing that can reconcile the warring elements of diverse schools of teaching with respect to Christian life.
     
      The Spirit of God will lead us to have no controversy respecting mere theories, but simply hold to the person and life of Jesus Christ Himself, and the privilege of being united to Him, and living in constant dependence upon His keeping power and grace.

"These were the potters, and those that dwelt among plants and hedges: there they dwelt with the king for his work" (1 Chron. 4:23).

  
Streams in the Desert

      Unadorned Life    

      "These were the potters, and those that dwelt among plants and hedges: there they dwelt with the king for his work" (1 Chron. 4:23).
    
      Anywhere and everywhere we may dwell "with the king for his work." We may be in a very unlikely and unfavorable place for this; it may be in a literal country life, with little enough to be seen of the "goings" of the King around us; it may be among the hedges of all sorts, hindrances in all directions; it may be furthermore, with our hands full of all manner of pottery for our daily task.
    
      No matter! The King who placed us "there" will come and dwell there with us; the hedges are right, or He would soon do away with them. And it does not follow that what seems to hinder our way may not be for its very protection; and as for the pottery, why, that is just exactly what He has seen fit to put into our hands, and therefore it is, for the present, "His work." --Frances Ridley Havergal
    
      "Go back to thy garden-plot, sweetheart!
      Go back till the evening falls,
      And bind thy lilies and train thy vines,
      Till for thee the Master calls.
    
      "Go make thy garden fair as thou canst,
      Thou workest never alone;
      Perhaps he whose plot is next to thine
      Will see it and mend his own."
    
      The colored sunsets and starry heavens, the beautiful mountains and the shining seas, the fragrant woods and painted flowers, are not half so beautiful as a soul that is serving Jesus out of love, in the wear and tear of common, unpoetic life. --Faber
    
      The most saintly spirits are often existing in those who have never distinguished themselves as authors, or left any memorial of themselves to be the theme of the world's talk; but who have led an interior angelic life, having borne their sweet blossoms unseen like the young lily in a sequestered vale on the bank of a limpid stream. --Kenelm Digby

Without Axe or Hammer

Making the Most of Life: Chapter 13 - Without Axe or Hammer

By J.R. Miller


"Souls are built as temples are,--
Based on truth's eternal law,
Sure and steadfast, without flaw,
Through the sunshine, through the snows,
Up and on the building goes;
Every fair thing finds its place,
Every hard thing lends a grace,
Every hand may make or mar."


We read of the temple of Solomon, when it was in building, that it was built of stone made ready in the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it went up.


"No workman's steel, no ponderous axes rung;
Like some tall palm, the noiseless fabric sprung."


So it is that the great work of spiritual temple-building goes on continually in this world. We are all really silent builders. The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. The divine Spirit works in silence, changing men's hearts, transforming lives, comforting sorrow, kindling hope in darkened bosoms, washing scarlet souls white as snow. The preacher may speak with the voice of a Boanerges, but the power that reaches hearts is not the preacher's noise; silently the divine voice whispers in the soul its secret of conviction, or of hope, or of strength. The Lord is not in the storm, in the earthquake, in the fire, but in the sound of gentleness, the spirit's whisper, that breathes through the soul.

Perhaps the best work any of us do in this world is that which we do without noise. Words give forth sound, but it is not the sounds that do good, that brighten sad faces as people listen, that change tears to laughter, that stimulate hope, that put courage into fainting hearts,--it is not the noise of our words, but the thoughts which the words carry. Words are but the chattering messengers that bear the sealed messages; and it is the messages that help and comfort. We may make noise as we work, but it is not our noise that builds up what we leave in beauty behind us. It is life that builds, and life is silent. The force that works in our homes is a silent force,--mother-love, father-love, patience, gentleness, prayer, truth, the influences of divine grace.

It is the same in the building up of personal character in each of us. There may be a great deal of noise all about us, but it is in silence that we grow from a thousand sources come the little blocks that are laid upon the walls,--the lessons we get from others, the influences friends exert upon us, the truths our reading puts into our minds, the impressions life leaves upon us, the inspirations we receive from the divine Spirit--ever the builders are at work on these characters of ours, but they work silently, without noise of hammer or axe.

There is another suggestion. Down in the dark quarries, under the city, the men wrought, cutting, hewing, polishing, the stones. They hung their little lamps on the walls, and with their hammers and chisels they hewed away at the great blocks. Months and years passed; then one day there was a grand dedication, and there in the glorious sunshine all the secret, obscure work of those years was seen in its final beauty, amid the joy of a nation. If the men who had wrought in the quarries were present that day, what a joy it must have been to them to think of their work in preparing the great stones for their place in the magnificent building!

Here is a parable. This world is the quarry. We are toiling away in the darkness. We cannot see what good is ever to come out of our lonely, painful, obscure toil. Yet some day our quarry-work will be manifested in the glory of heaven. We are preparing materials now and here for the temple of the great King, which in heaven is slowly rising through the ages. No noise of hammer or axe is heard in all that wondrous building, because the stones are all shaped and polished and made entirely ready in this world.

The Incense-Bearer

The Incense-Bearer 
by T. Austin-Sparks

"...and by me sends forth the knowledge of Him, a stream of fragrant incense, throughout the world. For Christ's is the fragrance which I offer up to God, whether among those in the way of salvation, or among those in the way of perdition; but to these it is an odour of death, to those of life." (2 Corinthians 2:14-16, CONYBEARE.)

The Minister and His Ministry

The Apostle Paul is setting forth one of his conceptions of what the minister of Christ is, and then what the effect of the ministry. He is thinking here of the minister of Christ as an incense bearer. The picture at the background of these verses is one with which we are well-acquainted. Verse 14 of 2 Corinthians 2 brings into view the triumphal procession of the victorious warlord as he moves from place to place with his captives behind him, celebrating at many points his victory, and using them for the purpose of evidence as to his victory. But also in the procession there are those who carry vessels of incense, and the incense being diffused everywhere speaks in two ways, to two different classes of people.

There are some who are going to celebrate this day of victory by being slain. It was a custom to hold certain notorious or distinguished captives in bondage until the day of the great celebration of the victory, and then that day was marked by their being slain. On the other hand, there were those who were appointed to be released as a distinguishing mark of the day. To the one the incense brought death near, and made them know that their hour had come. To the other the same incense made known that the hour of emancipation, of liberation, was drawing near. The same incense proclaimed death and life, life and death.

In the second part of the picture the Apostle himself passes from the first, where he has been viewing himself as one of those prisoners, led in the triumphal procession, as an object of public exhibition as to the triumph of the great Warrior. He has seen himself as in the train of the triumph of the Lord, being on full view as a demonstration of the greatness of that victory. Now he passes himself into the second part, and takes the place of an incense bearer in the procession, and says that he passes on through the world bearing incense, and that incense is saying two things, having two effects, speaking to two different classes of people. It relates to life and death.

But the Apostle carries that thing inward, and he does not regard himself as simply carrying a censor of incense. He regards himself as that vessel, and as - in a strange, deep, inward way, so as to become a very part of his own being - the incense itself. He thinks of himself as being, not only the giver forth of the sweet savour, but that sweet savour itself; that he is the means by which this effect is registered upon these two different classes of people.

In that presentation of the servant of the Lord there is a deep, strong and solemn word for all of us who stand in that position as the Lord's servants. The thing which is going forth from us, the thing which is the effect of our lives, according to these words, is the knowledge of Christ. Everywhere, not just by us, but because of us, men are coming to a knowledge of Christ. The very object of our being is that Christ should be known because of us. The Divinely appointed way of men coming to know Christ is by our being here, moving amongst men.

The Vital Element in Ministry

That is simple, and perhaps we recognize and accept it, but the extra point which has to be noticed is this, that it is something more than our giving out knowledge concerning Christ; it is that we are to men the knowledge of Christ. There is a very big difference between giving out the truth concerning the Lord Jesus - even in large measure, in a great fullness, truth which cannot be denied because it is the truth - and that strange, deep, indispensable element that we are that truth, that that truth itself takes its power, its strength from the fact that here are those who are the living expression of it; who have gone through the depths, been tested, been tried, been taken from place to place, been subjected to experiences of intense severity, and in the fires have learned Christ, and are therefore themselves the embodiment of the knowledge of Christ. Wherever they go it is not that they have truth to give, but it is that men and women learn Christ because of them, and of them it can be said: It is not what they say only; there is something coming from them. There is an indescribable "something" which is an extra element to what they say. That thing has its reality in their being, and you feel that it is not only the words but the very virtue that comes out when they speak, or by reason of their presence. It is that of which the Apostle is speaking.

That is the real value of any knowledge of Christ which we can give, which others may come to possess by us. It is not that they come through us to know more about Christ, but that there is a ministration of Christ. That is the thing for which we should seek the Lord very earnestly.

The Costliness of True Ministry

We should recognize that this represents the costliness of ministry. Ministry of this kind is an intensely costly thing. It is so different from being a preacher as a preacher. There may be a glamour about preaching, a fascination about gripping a congregation, and all that sort of thing, which is not costly but gratifying to the flesh; the snare of the limelight, the snare of publicity, the snare of that satisfaction, feeling power over other people, which has robbed preaching of that essential blood, and passion, and anguish. Paul was not a preacher of that kind. It is all very well to talk about Paul as the great preacher and orator, and to try to be another Paul along that line. But to be a Paul is a desperately costly thing, and to minister Christ is a thing into which our very blood will be poured.

This kind of ministry can bring no satisfaction to the flesh. This kind of ministry is not something for which to reach out for ourselves. This kind of ministry is something that we should plead to be delivered from unless our life and heart passion is that Christ Himself - not ourselves, but Christ Himself - should be known. Suffer that word thus to you who minister in the Name of the Lord.

That is the true value of ministry. It is indeed a costly thing, it is a thing of suffering, but it is the thing which goes beyond words, far beyond clever thinking and clever expressing, far beyond that acute needle-like brain that grasps truth and then begins to give it out. It is something which is an extra factor, without which the very best equipment in nature will fail to reach the Divine end. It is, in a word, Christ ministered, not Christ ministered about, but Christ ministered. Paul saw that there was no doubt about it, that this ministry was effective, although effective in two directions. Not always did it result in people leaping into life, but it always resulted in something. If it plunged some people more deeply into death it was a proof that it was effective. If it brought death home to some consciences, that proved its power. To have real spiritual effect demands that this shall be the kind of ministers that we are.

The living knowledge of Christ brought near to us in vessels which have been shaped and wrought through the fires will, in the first place, discover our state and then intensify our state. It is bound to do those two things. The two states are here presented as: In the way of life, and, In the way of death.

The Effects of this Ministry

1. From Death unto Death

(a) As to the Unsaved.

After God's Silence - What?

By Oswald Chambers

      'When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He abode two days in the same place where he was.'
      John 11:6

      Has God trusted you with a silence - a silence that is big with meaning? God's silences are His answers. Think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything analogous to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking for a visible answer? God will give you the blessings you ask if you will not go any further without them; but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into a marvellous understanding of Himself. 

Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? You will find that God has trusted you in the most intimate way possible, with an absolute silence, not of despair, but of pleasure, because He saw that you could stand a bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, praise Him, He is bringing you into the great run of His purposes. The manifestation of the answer in time is a matter of God's sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a while you said - "I asked God to give me bread, and He gave me a stone." He did not, and to-day you find He gave you the bread of life.

      A wonderful thing about God's silence is that the contagion of His stillness gets into you and you become perfectly confident - "I know God has heard me." His silence is the proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, He will give you the first sign of His intimacy - silence.

The Ark

By Robert Murray McCheyne

      It is a wonderful fact of human nature that we learn far more easily from example than we do in any other way. Now, you have in this passage an example of a sinner saved by faith. It shows you how a sinner is saved. And as Noah fled into the ark which he had prepared, so should you. You too, have an ark provided; and just as Noah thereby condemned the world - that is, shewed that the world was righteously condemned so will you; if you enter in, you will show by your faith that its condemnation is just.


      Let us go over these things and see:


      First, Noah's warning: "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house." We have an account given us of the warning of Noah in the 6th chapter of Genesis:


      And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth ... that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years; verses 1-3.


      That was the first warning.


      And the LORD said, I will destroy man, whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man and beast and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them; verse 7.


      This is the second warning. That was the warning which God gave Noah; he told him that the Holy Spirit would not always strive with man, and then he told him that he would destroy man whom he had created. Now, if Noah had been like some of you, he might have said, God is a merciful God - he will not destroy the souls that he has made. Or, like some of you, he might have said, O! it is a long time yet; it will be time enough to turn to God a year before the flood comes. But, no; "Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house."


      Now, brethren, if you would be like Noah, you should be moved with fear. God has warned you, not once, nor twice, but a hundred times. God warns you in the Bible that "his wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" - Romans 1:18. It says, "Except ye be converted ... ye shall not enter the kingdom of God" - Matthew 18:3; it says, that if you commit such things you shall die; it says that if you do not believe you shall be damned - Mark 16:16; it says that if you are not converted and become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of God - Matthew 18:3. Ah, then, man, have you ever trembled at the warning of God? No; then you are not like Noah; you are not like him, for he believed God. I tell you, you could not live on as you do, if you believe God's Word; it is because you are infidel at heart - that is the reason why you do not tremble at his Word: "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house."


      Again, you are warned by ministers. We are to receive the word at God's mouth, and warn the people; and if we do not warn you, God says he will require it at the watchman's hands. This is one of the chief parts of a minister's duty - to warn the unconverted. This is what I have done, both in public and in private. I have warned you, and how have you received it? O, you say, do you think I would be afraid of the word of a man? Well, if so, I tell you that it is not our word, it is the Word of God; and, oh! if you do not take the Word of God, spoken through the minister, you are not like Noah.


      Again, you are warned by providence. Some of you have seen souls cut down, and yet you are left. Some of you have seen those whom you led into sin taken away, and yet you are left. Ah, brethren, can you say that you have not been warned? and how have you taken it? Some of you have gone deeper into sin. Ah! you are not like Noah. But some of you will make this objection. I do not like to be moved with fear; I like it to be all love. It is quite true that none were ever brought to Christ by fear. We must be brought to Christ by a sight of his love. But then, it is quite as true that you will never be brought out of your security but by fear: you must be drawn out by fear, and drawn in by love.

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS

PAUL'S SONG OF SONGS A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans by John MacDuff, 1891 The following pages were specially composed during hours of leisure in the quiet of the study. Their design is to unfold and illustrate, however inadequately, one of the most precious portions of Holy Scripture. The writer fulfills a long cherished desire to awake a few slumbering chords of this New Testament "SONG OF SONGS." In entering on the exposition of the eighth chapter of Romans, we listen to the music of the greatest of the Church's prose-minstrels. It is a Gospel enshrined in the most precious of the Epistles--an epitome of divine truth. Though blended with other chords, let it be noted at the outset, that the Love of God, and the Security of the Believer, constitute the special dual strain intoned by our Apostle in his sublime Canticle. "The Eighth Chapter of Romans is the Masterpiece of the New Testament."--Luther. 1. Keynote of the Song 2. Song of Victory 3. Dual Strains4. I shall rise again 5. the Child-song and its Lullaby 6. A Song in the Night 7. The Dirge of Creation 8. An Elegy; or the Harp on the Willows 9. A Song of Hope 10. Broken Harmonies and the Divine Agent in Their Restoration 11. A Lullaby 12. Anthem of the First-born 13. Songs of Degrees 14. Crescendo 15. Paean of Assured Victory 16. Hallelujah Chorus

The Problem of the Stone

The Problem of the Stone 
by T. Austin-Sparks

Reading: Mark 16:3-6. "They were saying: Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the tomb? ...for it was exceeding great".


This is one of those many human problems which have heavenly solutions. Let us look to see what this stone represented for those concerned.

The Disappointment of Expectations and Hopes

Firstly, it represented the disappointment of all their expectations and hopes. If they had been near when that great stone was rolled into position at the entrance to the tomb and if they had seen (as we are told elsewhere) the seal put upon it, they would have turned away, saying in their hearts, 'That is the end of all our expectations, that is the disappointing of all our hopes'. We know how two of the followers of the Lord went on a journey after that very time, and being interrogated as to the despair upon their faces and in their tones, they said, "We hoped that it was he who should redeem Israel" (Luke 24:21). For them all hopes for the redemption of Israel had gone with the closing of the tomb, and every expectation on which they had set their hearts was finished.

The Power of this World

Again, that stone represented the apparent triumph of the power of this world. The world had concentrated its power upon the One in that tomb and had seemingly triumphed. At that time the world had gained the day; all the evidence declared that its power had conquered.

The Spiritual Problem of Death

But more, that stone represented the terrible spiritual problem of death. Death is a great spiritual problem. I will not dwell upon that now; but in the presence of death you are confronted with tremendous problems, and are always asking all kinds of questions. There is about death such an utterness of helplessness, and demand for something that is beyond our giving. No one has ever come back from death to us personally, literally, to tell us anything of what we want to know. Death is always a tremendous mystery, and it was doubly so for those followers of the Lord; for they were not only perplexed by the general problem but also by the specific problem of His death. You can almost hear them inwardly asking questions. That He should die, that this should have happened to Him! What could it mean?

That stone really was a very great one, viewed from every angle. Indeed, it is true, that "it was exceeding great". And we have to enter as we can into the spirit of what we will call the negative side, the dark side, of its meaning before we can really appreciate the other side - that is, what the stone came to symbolize for them and for us all in Christ.

The Imminence of Another World

In the first place, it symbolized the imminence of another world than this one. That young man in his white robe - we read in another record that there were two in dazzling raiment, but here it says one - was a visitor from another world; and everything associated with this stone and its rolling away, as given in the four records that we have, speaks of the intervention of another world. It declares that this world, after all, is not all that we have to reckon with, or that death or men or our disappointments have to reckon with. There is another world entirely, in close touch with this one, and mightier than it, acting in relation to the purposes of God centred in His Son, and which can never, on any account, be swallowed up in a tomb. That entire other world is interested in this stone, in all the problems that are bound up with it in the hearts of true, sincere, simple, devoted followers of the Lord Jesus. The imminence of that world was gathered into this stone when it was rolled away, declaring that that world is very near and to be counted upon when God's eternal interests in His Son are at issue.

We do not know - for we have no evidence on which to work - but it would not be surprising if from time to time in after years they referred to it. 'You remember our great problem about the stone, how helpless we felt that morning, how utterly impotent, how every hope was gone; that stone represented for us an impasse, an impossible situation. But it was not there when we arrived on the spot! It was as simple as that! It is good to remember that God can do it like that'. There is another world so superior as to make of our problems nothing, as to dismiss the greatest causes of disappointment and despair as simply as though they had never been; to wipe them out so thoroughly that at one time we feel the situation to be utterly impossible and yet when we arrive on the spot there is no situation at all to be faced. Afterward that was how it seemed to those women. God is like that. That is our resource in a day when there is an exceeding great stone. Yes, the imminence of another world.

The Triumphant Power of Life Over Death

Further, that stone became the symbol of the mighty, triumphant power of life over death. We are so familiar with phrases like that that perhaps they have lost their point; but is not God constantly solving our problems along this very line? We are looking for things to happen, and yet all the time the power of His risen life is silently working and solving so many problems. We look back and remember how often we felt that we could not go on any longer, that we could not survive very much more, that we were at the end of our resources - the situation was really beyond us, and some tremendous thing had to happen. The tremendous thing we expected did not happen. The fact is that we are going on today after many such an experience of trial and helplessness; we have quietly been kept going on, and we are going on; we are not yet submerged and overwhelmed and put out. That is the miracle of His Divine life silently solving the problem, dealing with so many things that seem to say, Death, an end! The power of His resurrection is the answer to many of our problems. We look for acts; He proceeds along the silent course of life, the mighty power of life overcoming death. "It was not possible" says the Word, "that he should be holden of it (death)" (Acts 2:24). They were saying, 'It is impossible for us to deal with this stone, this situation!' He was saying, 'It is not possible for death to hold Me'. There are two ways of viewing the impossible. Everything depends upon where you put the impossibility - on the thing or on God. The things which are not possible with men are possible with God (Matt. 19:26). And He answers these impossible things in the normal way - for it is the normal way; the abnormal would be by signs and wonders and extraordinary happenings: demonstrations to our senses; but the normal way in the Christian life is the way of the continuous transcendence of His life over the working of death. That miracle is far more general than we recognize. You have to live your life and do your work in a sphere of spiritual death where everything is against spiritual life, and there is nothing to support you at all, and yet you go on there in the Lord, and are not swallowed up, engulfed and destroyed by that atmosphere and by those conditions. That is the miracle of Divine life working silently. Yours, then, is a life - as is the life of everyone - set in the presence of the great stone of death, spiritual death. We know it, and yet we are preserved alive spiritually and we go on. That is the great miracle. It is the miracle of every day. That is the testimony that God raised Him from the dead.