September, 1937
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
333
be ours. Yet, there is a sense in which we must follow Him to Gethsemane, with its submission to the will of God no matter what that will may mean. It is a very costly thing indeed to discover the will of God for our lives and to fulfill that will. T o C alvary From Gethsemane, we go to Calvary, and Calvary stands for death to self. We know that Jesus Christ, the Sinless One, died for sin, and that is the supreme and the central thought of Calvary. But He also died to self. He who had lived utterly for others and for the glory of His Father faced the supreme test on the cross. Said those who taunted Him: “ Save thyself, and come down from the cross.” But because He was unwilling to save Himself, He stayed there. The cross means that for each one of us in spiritual experience. Said Jesus to His disciples: “ If any man will come after mej let him . . . take up his cross, and follow me.” We cannot be His disciples unless we take up the cross. Often we misrepresent the cross to which our Lord referred. If we have some disap pointment, some adversity, some form of sickness, we say, “Well, I suppose this is my cross and I ' must carry it.” But that is not the cross our Lord had in mind when He told His disciples to take up the cross and follow Him. At the cross there was the denial of self. “ If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” Have we a Calvary? Do we know what it is to die to all self-dependence and,self pride and self-vanity and self-importance? Do we know what it is to reckon ourselves dead indeed unto self as well as unto sin? Are we truly crucified with Christ? Some Christians are very often cross, but cross Christians and Christians of the cross are totally different.. T o the M ount of O lives Then, from Calvary we go to the Mount of Olives. Now the Mount of Olives can stand for many things when you think of our Blessed Lord. First of all, the Mount of Olives stood for solitude. We read that the people retired to their comfortable homes at eventide, but no one had decency enough to offer the Lord Jesus a bed. “The Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” He retired to the Mount of Olives, and with the darkness of the night as His covering, [Continued on page 366]
meant rejection. We see Him there in the so-called Holy City, weeping over the sins of the people, for “He beheld the city, and wept.” He was wounded in the house of His friends. His deepest sorrow came to Him from the Holy City and from the people therein who were religious. Often the worst foes of our spirituality are religious people, carnally minded people, who have little desire for the deep things of life. Jesus came to Jerusalem. Do you find yourself at Jerusalem in spiritual experience? Is it your desire to follow the Lord and to be obedient to the heavenly vision? You discover that the people who grieve and wound you most are those who carry the name of the Lord. T o B ethany Leaving Jerusalem, we find Him journey ing to Bethany, and Bethany in our Lord’s life stands for fellowship. It was the one oasis in His desert. After our Lord turned His back upon His home, we do not read of His ever returning to it. When He wanted spiritual fellowship, a time of rest ing, we discover Him journeying to Bethany to the home of Martha and Mary and Lazarus. There in that home He seemed to find the sympathy and compassion for which His heart hungered. My friend, if God gives you a Jerusalem —and if you are true to Him you will have one—alongside of the Jerusalem experience, there is always the Bethany. There may be those who stab us in the back and who, although they may be religious, reject us because of our allegiance to the Lord; but, thank God, we always have a Bethany to which we can retreat and find the fellow ship for which our hearts yearn. Let us praise Him for the Bethanys we discover amid the rejection that our witness occasions. T o G ethsemane Follow His steps! From Bethany, we journey with Him to Gethsemane, and Gethsemane represents His agony and sub mission to the will of God. The word “ Geth semane” simply means “olive press,” and it was there that our Lord was pressed, even as the olives were crushed. It was there that He came to face the will of God. And He did not accept the will of God reluctantly; we read that He delighted in the will of His Father, although He knew that that will was the cross with all its anguish and shame. Of course, Christ’s Gethsemane will never
I nto the W ilderness From Jordan, we follow the Lord Jesus into the wilderness, which stands for testing and for victory. We would have thought that our Lord would have gone from Jordan into Galilee, there to exercise His miraculous ministry. But no, as we follow His steps, we realize that He went immediately into the wilderness and tarried there for forty days. Was He not about to proclaim deliver ance to captives? Was He not going lo bring, to those who were Satan-possessed, a life of emancipation? If He would deliver men and women out of the snare of the fowler, He must first of all meet the enemy of souls and triumph gloriously over him. So from His Jordan with its enduement, the Lord Jesus went into the wilderness with its testing. You will discover that in spiritual experi ence the wilderness ever comes as a sequence of Jordan. After a time of exalted spiritual privilege, there is often a season of Satanic antagonism. After the dove, the devil; after the benediction of heaven, there comes the battle with evil forces in the wilderness. But our Lord Jesus in the wilderness met the enemy and triumphed and emerged the Con queror. He was willing to be tempted in all points like as we are, and because He won, He is able to make us “more than con querors” in our wilderness.’ T o G alilee From the wilderness, we go to Galilee. He went there, we are told, and the fame of Him spread abroad. There He made manifest His power over sin and power over sickness and power over demons. Galilee stands for service. And will you remember, as you prayerfully seek to emulate the example of the Lord Jesus, that the divine order is never reversed? Jordan— the wilderness—Galilee; the dove—the devil —and then the dynamic. We can never have power in our Galilee unless we know something of the enduement with power at Jordan, and the testing of the wilderness. The word “ Galilee” simply means “circle.” There is a Galilee for each one of us. We each have a Galilee, a circle in which we strive to serve the Lord. And if we would be fruitful there, we must know something of victory over the enemy and the endue ment of the divine Spirit. T o J erusalem From Galilee, we journey with the Lord to Jerusalem. For the Saviour, Jerusalem
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker