August 1927
487
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
touched the tassel at the end of His cloak. “I will be healed,” she thought, “if all tales are true, and I ’ll slip away home and say nothing. There is no need to arouse the antagonism of these Jews.” Jesus, prevented; He turned around, and when He turns around, friend, you’re in front. He requires a complete breaking away from what other folks will say and all that stuff. Some say, “Oh, Mr. McNeill! If you only knew who I am, and what some people would say if I got con verted !” Forget it. You are only a poor blighted soul. The Lord will see to it that it comes abroad, if you get saved. Up the middle of the King’s highway you will have to go, if you are properly saved. You are making too rfluch of yourself. Suppose you did come out clean and clear! Los Angeles would soon get over it. You are too big in your own eyes. Your “witheredness” is your pride and cowardice. “I f I come out in the open,” you say, “people would scoff.” Your psychology is all wrong. Instead of scoff ing, most of those who know you would say they were very glad you were converted, for it was high time! Jesus knows how to handle every case. You are not to talk back to Him. He calls you into the open. The man arose and stood forth—“Well begun, half done.” It cost him something. I see the sweat breaking out on his forehead. Salvation may be free, but it is not dirt cheap. Don’t forget it cost Jesus something to win it for you. Think of the reproaches He bore for you. He endured the cross, despising the shame. S tretch F orth T h y H and He rose. He is out now. What next? “Stretch forth thy hand.” Again, was it easy? Maybe he had a feeling of disappointment. “Why doesn’t He take me aside, and ask me the history of my case ? I ’d like to tell Him how it came on, the pains I have had, and the different things I have tried.” No. Jesus knew all that. He says, “Stretch it out.” The man might have said, “If I could stretch it out, there would be nothing wrong with it.” Had he looked at his hand, he might have been looking yet. He looked across to Jesus. Man, look right over your sins, and help lessness, to Jesus, and you will be saved. Stop mourning and lamenting yourself. Begin listening to Jesus and looking to Him. This man felt that he could do the im possible when he looked away to Jesus. The hand came out before he knew it. With his eyes on Jesus, there were liberty and power. The act of faith means pulling yourself together and focusing on Jesus as a present Saviour. It is ceasing from your own struggles and strivings. When at last you come to it, you’ll find it the most effortless thing you ever did. Sometimes it takes years to come to it, but when you come—my, how simple! You say you might have done that long ago. This man simply trusted Jesus. Trust and obey; there’s no other way, from conversion to glory. Look to Jesus right out of your sinfulness, and that moment your soul will burst the bondage of corruption and pass into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. A S ensation C reated Imagine this man after he was healed! The Lord went on with the service and pronounced the benediction. The stone mason went on his way home. You will prob ably not be whisked away to heaven, all at once. The Lord kept him here to prove the reality of His work. He gets home and goes in. His sad-eyed wife lifts her eyes. She take§ a second look and a third. They meet in the middle
of -the floor. He puts out two whole hands, draws her face to his own, and kisses her. “Who? How? When? What? Where?”—you know the twenty questions a woman asks all at once, and expects no answer to any of them. One word would answer all her questions— “Jesuslg. “Some, say He is an impostor,” said the hus band, “but He told me to stand up. I felt I could do anything He asked me to do.” “I f Jesus did it,” says the wife, “then blessed be the name of Jesus in this house forevermore.” Wouldn’t you have liked to hear them sing, had it been possible— “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds, In a believer’s ear; It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, And drives away his fear.” What are you saying for Him out of a heart that He has utterly changed? What do your children say? Have they noticed the change? I see this man at the stone bank the next day. Two whole hands, are chiseling away. Another fellow opens up on him. “I hear there was a sensational incident up at the synagogue yesterday. I wasn’t there myself; but they tell me a man of our trade, whose hand was withered, got healed, in a moment, by Jesus. But I don’t believe it.” (O f course you don’t, you fathead.) “I am the man,” says his companion, and he tells him the story. Furthermore, he began to make the stone chips fly. “Is there any hypocrisy or mere ex citement about that?” he asks. “Is that a good hand?” “I could knock you down with it and pick you up again!” Oh! the Lord’s work stands'the test of the day’s work, doesn’t it? Oh, man! I f you are saved you’ll not be ashamed of Him, will you? It is a wonder that Jesus puts up with so many who seem ashamed of Him. We ought to be ashamed of our Shame. Confess Him. Say to your fel low-man: “Yes, I ’m saved. I ’m trusting Him. I f you won’t come with me, don’t hinder me.” You will never know how real the change is until you confess it to others when they challenge you. Take a word from an old Psalm, as I hope that healed stone-cutter did, applying it to himself: “I f I forget Thee, O Jesus, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth! May my right hand forget its cunning!” Christ’s Choices O NE wonders why Jesus didn’t choose as His disciples, men of position, learning or intellectual power. It would be no small task to lay the foundations of the king dom of Cod. Couldn’t He have done better than to select unlearned, hardened fishermen? Who of us couldn’t pick out a better twelve? There was a man like Nico- demus, for instance, or Jairus or the rich young ruler. After all, the best witnesses to facts are plain, prac tical, unimaginative men. These hardened fishermen would not be easily carried away by fancies or theories. When once they were convinced of a fact, they would risk their lives on the truth of it. What shall we say to those skeptical theories about the resurrection? Some tell us the witnesses were visionaries who in rapt devotion imagined these seances with the risen Lord. But the witnesses were unemotional, prac tical, hard-headed men, who in their common-place life washed nets, dared the storms and packed fish for market. Visionaries don’t come out of such environment. These were the men Jesus wanted for witnesses.
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker