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nor even of their faith, necessary as these were to the accomplishment of the divine purpose. T he C ompelling S ervant There is another at work, the Compelling Servant of Luke 14:22, who gives effect to the message even as He gives strength and wisdom to the messenger—the Holy Spirit who has sanctified the offering. There is a close correspondence between the language of the Apostle here and that he had used earlier in 2 Thess. 2 :13, “God chose you as firstfruits unto salvation in sanctification o f the Spirit and belief o f the truth,” and also that of Peter in the opening of his first Epistle, “elect . . . according to the foreknow ledge o f God the Father, in sanctification o f the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling o f the blood o f Jesus Christ.” In the latter statement, which amplifies the former, the “sanctification o f the Spirit” is the connecting link between the electing foreknowledge of God the Fa ther and that obedience to the Gospel which brings the sinner who hears and responds to it, under the shelter of “the blood o f sprinkling” (Heb. 12:24). In its inception and execution—in the first communication of the Gospel, in the New Birth, in winning the redeemed and regenerate soul to a growing love for the will of God and the like ness of Christ, in strengthening him for the warfare, in setting him “fr e e from the law o f sin and death” (Rom. 8 :2 ), in all that makes for that day of consummation when the Lord Jesus appears in glory amidst the “many brethren,” “to be marvelled at in all them that believed” (2 Thess. 1 :10), the effectual worker is God by His Holy Spirit. “0 the depth o f the riches both o f the wisdom and knowledge o f God! H ow unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past tracing out! . . . F o r o f him, and through him, and unto him are all things. To him be the glory fo r ever” (Rom. 1 1 :33, 36). H? What God Requires of the Flock S HEPHERDS lead, but the flock must follow, if the kingdom of God is to prosper here below. There are two sets of responsibilities, one on the part of the shep herds and another on the part of the flock. Well may the writer of this epistle address himself to the flock and say, “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the Word o f God, whose faith follow .” It is a very timely reminder to the members of the Church today. There are faithful shepherds who have been feed ing their flocks with the true and heavenly bread. They have been preaching Christ and Him crucified and have pointed out the way of life through Him. But who does not know how little room is found even in Christian hearts to receive that Word and make it a power in life? There is many a pastor who feels that much of his work is in vain. He looks down from his pulpit into many empty, or half-empty pews. He enters the homes of many of his flock to find them little different from the homes of those who are strangers to the Church. He has much reason to fear that many of his members do not conduct their business in any wise different from those who doubt whether strict honesty is indeed the best policy. He sees how many of his people are chasing the will-o’-the-wisp of inordinate, if not sensual, pleasure. Even many who hold religiously to the forms of religion give evidence that they have lost its power. Of them it must be said that “the cares o f the world and deceitfulness o f riches choke the Word” (which they hear preached) and pre vent it from bearing fruit. Great is the need of God’s grace to work within us all a willingness to do His will. —The Methodist Protestant.
Prayer Prayer opens heavy doors all hinged with unbe- lie f; Prayer sheds a scented balm to assuage an aching g rief: Prayer knows no coward fear, Notes every falling tear, Counts every blessing here, Knows life is brief. Prayer storms the hostile camps o f sin and doubt and care, Wrestling the whole night through, alive to do and dare:
Prayer meets Thee fa ce to face, Sensing Thy throne o f grace, Makes trial a hallowed place, I f Thou art there. —Ruth Salwey.
P aul B ut A n I nstrument Though the priestly service of which the Apostle speaks was, of course, a present activity with him, yet here, as so often, his eye is upon the future. His desire is that the Gentiles who " offer themselves, willingly” now, may be acceptable when Christ takes His people hence. He was jealous over the Corinthians that he might pre sent them unblemished to Christ. His habitual ministry was that of “admonishing every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom,” that he might “present every man perfect in Christ” (2 Cor. 11 :2; Col. 1 :28). Even so, he well knew, and gloried in the knowledge, that he was but the instrumental agent, that the ultimate presentation pf the redeemed to God must be by Him of the travail of whose soul they are the fruit. In that day Christ will set the Church beside Himself, in the presence of God, “holy and without blemish and unreprovable b efore him” (Eph. 5 :27 ; Col. 1:22). Then the confidence in things hoped for carries the Apostle within the veil behind which is hidden the mys tery of the counsels of God. Some years before in the very city, Corinth, in which he dictated to Tertius the letter to the Romans, in the midst of the oppositions and blasphemies of the Jews, fresh courage had been brought to him by a voice which spoke to him in the night by a vision: “B e not afraid . . . I have much people in this city” (Acts 18:9, 10). The knowledge of the electing love of God in “calling out” from among the Gentiles, a people for His name, far from paralyzing Paul’s evangel izing zeal, acted as a tonic, nerving him to “endure all things fo r the e le c fs sake, that they also might obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesu s with eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2 :1 0 ). Just as the salvation that he preached was not post mortem merely, though it was certainly that, but a present deliverance from the dominion of sin, so to him election was not to a destination, as heaven or hell, but to a destiny, a character, “to be conformed to the image o f H is [God’s] Son,” in whom “he chose us before the foun dation o f the world, that w e should be holy and without blemish before h im ; having in love foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself” (Rom. 8 :2 9 ; Eph. 1 :4, 5 ). The work of God in those to whom he spoke did not begin with his speaking; their acceptance with God was not the effect of his preaching,
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