THE K I NG ' S B U S I N E S S the world and help to fashion its idols. Only here and there do we see a Joshua who will abide in his place till his leader appears. As to watching, this is rarer, than wait ing. The fact is, even the better sort of believers who wait for his coming, as all the ten virgins did, nevertheless do not watch. Even the best sort of the waiters slumbered and slept. You are waiting, but you are sleeping! This is a mournful business. A man who is asleep cannot be said to look; and yet it is “unto them th a t look for him” that the Lord comes with salvation. We must be wide-awake to look. We ought to go up to the watch-tower every morning, and look toward the sun-rising, to see whether he is coming. Surely our last act at night should be to look out for his star, and say, “Is he coming?” It ought to be a daily disappointment when our Lord does not come; instead of being, as I fear it is, a kind of foregone conclusion th at he will not come ju st yet. . The Two Clouds Many professing Christians forget Christ’s second coming altogether; others drop a smile when we speak about it, as though it belonged only to fanatics and dreamers. But ye, beloved, I tru st are not Of th at kind. As ye believe really in the first coming and the one great sacrifice, so believe really in the second coming without a sin-offering unto the climax of your salvation. Standing be tween the cross and the crown, between the cloud th at received him out of our sight, and the clouds with which he will come with ten thousands of his saints to judge the quick and the dead, let us live as men who are not of this world, strangers in this age which darkly lies between two bright appearings, happy beings saved by a mystery accomplished, and soon to be glorified by another mys tery which is hasting on. Now all this must be strange talk to some of you. I wish it would alarm those of you who once made a profession of
1239 true religion, and have gone back to the world’s falsehood. How will you face him, you backsliders, in th a t day when he shall appear' and all else shall vanish in the blaze of his light, as stars when the sun shines out? What will you do when your treachery shall be made clear to your consciences by his appearing? What will you do, who have sold your Master, and given up your Lord, who was and is your only hope for the putting away of your sins? Oh! I pray you, as you love yourselves, go to him as he appears in his first coming; and then, washed in his blood, go forward to meet him in his second coming for salvation. .God bless you, and by his Son and Spirit make you ready for th a t g reat day which cometh on apace! To ask in th e name of anyone is to use his name as a plea. It is to sink personal claims and to advance the claims and m erits of another. Christ lends us His name, all His personal in fluence w ith the F ather. But in order to use this name, we must be idehtified ourselves w ith th e sp irit and interests of Christ. We must depart from all th a t grieves His h ea rt or hinders His purpose, and must be as sensitive as Christ Himself to all th a t affects the honor of H is name. W e may ask all th a t is in Him. We may w ith full as surance ask God to give us Christ’s purity, meekness, sympathy, faith, vic tory over th e world. B u t God has not promised everything th a t we choose to ask. If Christ be the measure of prayer, can we pray to be relieved from what He had to bear, or to be endowed w ith possessions and com forts which were never His portion? If only Christ H im self were to become th e burden of our prayers, then we should have all that we can receive or God can bestow. — J, Sloan. ASKING IN HIS NAME “W h a ts o e v e r y e s h a ll a s k in My n am e, t h a t w ill I do” (J o h n 14:13). .
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