May 1930
273
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K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
O thou child of the King, has He fallen on thee? Does He reign in thy soul, so that all men may see The dear Saviour’s blest image reflected in thee? O the Spirit-filled life may be thine, may be thine, In the soul evermore the Shekinah may shine; It is thine to live with the tempests all stilled, It is thine with the blessed Holy Ghost to, be filled; It is thine, even thine, for the Lord hath so willed. —o— May 8 —“And Ja co b was le ft alon e; and there w restled a man with him . . . And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow o f his thigh. . . And he said, I w ill not let thee go, except thou bless me" (Genesis 32:24, 25, 26). Professor Ellis J. Beecher has pointed out that Jacob’s new blessing and change of name came only after he had yielded to God and ceased to resist and struggle against Him. He had now, for the first time, acknowledged Esau as his superior; and he evidently gave up the wrestling- match after he went down in a helpless heap before that fiery touch on his thigh. His “prevailing” was in fact that he held on after he had yielded and surrendered, and insisted on claiming the blessing that God has for those who, go down in confessed helplessness b e f o r e Him. Praise God for such times of solitary wrestling, surrender, and blessing! They mark great mountain-peak times in our spiritual life, when our very name and being is changed in Christ. I f you are conscious of the lack of some great spir itual blessing, is it because you have not wrestled your problem through to the fin ish of complete surrender and then confi dently claimed the blessing of the one who prevails with God by giving up all to God? —M essages fo r the Morning Watch. At Thy feet I fall, Yield Thee up my all, To suffer, live or die For my Lord crucified. —o— May 9 —“H e that goeth aside to sit quietly in the secret place with the Most H igh, w ill find H im com ing over so close that this man shall be lodging under the very shadow o f the Almighty" (Psalm 91:1, Free Trans.). Some years ago we often sang a hymn, “Take Time to be Holy.” I wish we sang it more in these days. It takes time to be holy; one cannot be in a hurry; and much of the time that it takes to be holy must go into secret prayer. Some people express surprise that professing Chris tians today are so little like their Lord, but when I stop to think how little time the average Christian today puts into se cret prayer, the thing that astonishes me is, not that we are so little like the Lord, but that we are as much like the Lord as we are, when we take so little time for secret prayer.— R. A. Torrey. Come ye apart from all the world holds dear, For converse.,which the w o r l d has never knofcvn.
works that the Holy Spirit can use us. When we have allowed Him to subdue us,-and find that, not in our frantic ef forts, but that “in quietness and in con fidence is our strength,” then the deep, still river of God will flow into our whole being, making an ever-deepening channel for His working. What lessons I learned of abundance as I watched the river, always flowing yet always fu ll! The very word that is so frequently used by our Lord and by the Apostle Paul—“abun dant”—is very suggestive. It comes from the Latin words ab unda, and means wave upon wave. What possibilities o f service open to us as we think of the Master’s words: “From within him shall flow riv ers of living water.”— Rev. J . Gregory Mantle. May 12 —“Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee "' (Luke 8:39). This is the witness which today is de manded more than anything else. It is not spectacular beacons that we need; it is just ordinary street lamps. We want the transfigured presence in the common lot. We need lamps of the Lord to light up inconspicuous spheres and bring some thing of heavenly radiance into the work shop and the home. And especially we want the witness of men and women who have been renewed by Jesus, and who take an absolutely new spirit into places where hitherto they have been a burden or a nuisance.—/. H . Jow ett. Trim your feeble lamp, my brother, Some poor sailor tempest-tossed, Trying now to make the harbor, In the darkness may be lost. Let the lower lights be burning, Send a beam across the wave, Some poor, fainting, struggling seaman, You may rescue, you may save. May 13 —“T ake the shield o f faith. . . Praying always. . . . With all persever ance" (Eph. 6:16-18). Persevering faith! “That thy faith fail not” ! Jesus prayed for Peter and He prays for us, that we may go on and grow in such confidence that whatsoever we ask Him, He will give it us. “Ask," “S eek," “Knock." All the promises are “Yea and in him, Amen,” to those who call upon God. Don’t fail in getting what God has promised. Perhaps He seems a
Alone with Me, and with My Father here, With Me and with My Father not alone, Come, tell Me all that ye have said and done. Your victories and failures, hopes and fears, I know how hardly souls are wooed and won: My choicest wreaths are always wet with tears. Then fresh from converse with your Lord return, And work till daylight softens into even: The brief hours are not lost in which ye learn More of your Master and His rest in heaven. May 10 —“That the trial o f your faith, being much m ore precious than o f gold that perisheth, though it be tried w ith fire, might be found unto praise and hon our and. glory at the appearing o f Jesu s Christ" (1 Peter 1 :7 ). God puts every blessing He give us, and every gift He bestows upon us, to a test. He does it to prove us, to see if He can trust us. “The trial o f your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and hon our and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” To every child of God the test is of a different nature. What would try one does'not try another. Job had his test. He passed through the deep waters of affliction. He says of himself, “When He hath tried me I shall come forth as gold.” Joseph also was tried: “whose feet they hurt with fetters” ; the iron entered into his soul. “Until the time that His word came [namely, deliverance] the Word o f the L ord tried him." And do we think w e are to escape? There must be a proof of our faith; it must be tried with fire. I f we fail in the day of adversity, it is a sign that not only is our strength small, but that we are wanting in that one prin cipal ingredient which mixes up our whole spiritual character into a “perfect man” and proves the truth of a perfect Saviour. Dear reader, do you feel you are about the most afflicted of any of God’s saints? Just consider, and understand, that you can and will “come forth as gold” if you endure, patiently and cheer fully, all the whole will of God. — Faith. How often, when the cares and anx ieties of business pressed upon me, has the restfulness of the river been com municated Jo my own disturbed heart. The shallow brook babbles, brawls, and fusses because of its very shallowness. If you, too, would be restful, let your life be deep. The Holy Spirit will not abide in His fulness where there is superficial ity with its consequent restlessness. He is a gentle Spirit, and, like the dew, never falls when the atmosphere is stormy and unsettled. A great teacher has said: “God has many hearts in which He can work, but few in which He can rest.” I f there is nothing but strain and fleshly. energy, you have yet to learn the deep lesson that it is only as we cease from our own May 11 —“Then had thy peace been as a river" (Isa. 48:18).
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