October, 1945
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EinuiiOiiiiiiiHiiiiHiiniipiiiMiiDiiHiniHjiiiiiiniiiiiiiiHiiiiHiiiiiiiiiiHRiiininiiiiiiimiiMijiiiiiniii I Love’s Ministry 1 Love has a hem of its garment. §f That touches the very dust; g n It can reach the stains 1 Of the streets and the lanes. j m And because it can, it must. 1 | It dares not rest on the mountain; n n It is bound to come to the vale; For it cannot find n Its fulness of mind 1 Till it falls on the lives that fail. m —George Matheson in n "His Love” by B. McCall Barbour BllilIlllllllllilllllllll|l!iill|i;:ili[|||||||||illlllll|liHI||ll|[|||||||l|i;|jHj|||[|llllllillll[li|||||)||||||||ll[lilllHllllilllllllHIHIIHIIlUlltHllMli S Like Paul’s thorn, our troubles may be preventive of such sins as we might be likely to commit (2 Cor. 12:7);. or they may be purifying, as were Job’s, or perfecting, in conformity with Christ (Heb. 2:10); or, punitive, as in the Corinthian church. Whatever may be the reason God permits them to Come to us, we know His love and His wisdom must first pass upon them, and we know that there is always accompanying them a way to escape. Lost and Found ( Continued from Page 370) they should be living on Bible beefsteak. He would set us at leisure from ourselves and put us in the “Lost and Found Department” : “He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” We are to love our neighbors as ourselves so surely God intends that we should have regard for ourselves. We should be at our best for God, keeping our bodies and minds in shape for His service—“our human best filled with His Spirit.” But that self-life that seeks its own ends, self-centered and self-serving, ends with despising itself and everything and everybody else. Nor is it enough merely to lose oneself in a good cause. That indeed does lift one out of himself, making him useful to others, but what we here have in mind is a life lost not in a cause, not even the cause of Christ, but in Christ Himself. One may live and work for Jesus as one might work for prohibition or world peace, but that is not the Christian way to victory. We are identified with Christ Himself and Paul sums it up: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless^I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Spn of God; who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). And again: “For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). It is not living for Christ, or living like Christ; to live is Christ. Christ was Paul’s life, and Paul, like John the Baptist, was ever decreasing that Christ might increase. The W ay of Victory Christ dwells in our hearts by faith if we believe in Him. Then, as we are occupied with Him, trusting and obeying. Him, following and pleasing Him, our old self- life fades out and we become like Him. Self does not die easily, and there will be things that offend, change all our plans and start us up roads we never expected to travel. But it will be like exchanging dirt for diamonds, that foul gutter of self for the mountain peaks of the Spirit. We may seem to have failed in the eyes of men, but we shall have succeeded in the eyes of God. God’s Word tells us that our old self-life is crur.’iied with Christ. We are to reckon it to be true, to count it real because God says it is so. Then we are to yield ourselves unto God and obey Him (Rom. 6:6, 11, 13). The sixth chapter of Romans is a Magna Charta of liberty and its secret is Reckon, Yield, Obey. It is the passport into the "Lost and Found Department” of those who have lost their lives to find them in Christ Jesus.
A W ay To Escape ( Continued from Previous Page)
cerning them, we bear fruit for God. We emerge with stronger and deeper faith because of the ordeal through which we have passed. Finally, suffering may be for our eternal well being. "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him” (2 Tim. 2:12). The First Epistle of Peter is devoted to a consideration of the sufferings of Christ and His people, and the glory which shall follow. We are called to suffer (2:21); there by we cease from sin (4:1). Exceeding joy awaits us in Heaven because of this (4:13), for we suffer "according to the will of God” (4:19). Similar striking comparisons appear in Paul’s epistles. I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). They are but “light af flictions” after all, which actually work for us by pro ducing an “eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17), so long as we have our eyes fixed on eternal verities (v. 18). A second element in the way to escape has to do with prayer. We may avoid impending trials by remem bering to pray, as Christ taught, "Lead us not into temptation,” Knowing our own weakness, and the power of the enemies of our souls, we are to ask that God will so deal with us in grace that we shall not have to endure testings. “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into tempta tion” (Matt. 26:41). Likewise, in the midst of affliction, the way of deliverance through prayer is still open. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). One other aspect of the way provided for escape from the trials of life remains to be noticed. In the early church, some were weak and sickly, and some slept, be cause they failed to obey the Word in regard to the death of Christ (1 Cor. 11:30). A sin unto death is mentioned in 1 John 5:16. There can be no doubt that many Chris tians today suffer as the result o f disobedience. It is a solemn thing to bear the Name of Christ before the world; we,must not bear it in vain (Ex. 20:7), or in such a man ner as to bring reproach upon that blessed Name. If we would know the blessing of escape from need less affliction, we must be doers of the Word, and not hearers only (Jas. 1:22-25). As we read the Bible, it lays bare our failures and sins, but it also becomes aTaver for our cleansing (Eph. 5:26). The Word has power to sanc tify (John 17:17), when we lay it away in our hearts and obey it (Psa. 119:9, 11). Even in Ezekiel’s day, God said of some, "they hear thy words, but they will not do them” (Ezek. 33:31). The promise is clear, “If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be con demned with the world” (1 Cor. 11:31, 32). When we take the Word seriously, giving up what it designates as sin, and doing what it calls upon us to do, we escape chastisement. If we refuse thus to judge ourselves, it is certain that we shall feel the chastening hand of God upon us. It does not by any means follow, that affliction is always the result of disobedience to the Word. After Paul had obeyed the heavenly vision of Acts 16:9, he found himself beaten with many stripes and cast into a dungeon in Philippi. That suffering became the means of blessing to the jailer, and to multitudes of the unsaved since then. It was because he was counted worthy to re ceive such revelations as never man had seen before, that Paul was given his thorn in the flesh, a physical affliction carried throughout his life.
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