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THE KING’S BUSINESS
conduct, they “shall stand up in the judg ment with this generation, and shall con demn it;” for when Jonah came they re pented, but a far greater than Jonah has come to ús, the risen Lord, and yet Row few repent. Monday, December 20. Luke 11:33-36. What the, eye is to the body the will is to the intellectual and moral being. If the eye is single, the whole body is illuminated, but when the eye itself is darkened the whole body is full of darkness; and just so, if the will is. right and entirely set upon doing the will of God, our whole intel lectual being shalB-be full of light (cf. John 7:17). Nothing so capacitates a man for discerning the truth as a single will, a will entirely surrendered to the will of God. A will surrendered to the will of God, a will entirely set on pleasing God, will .do more to bring a man into the knowl edge .of the saving and eternal truth than a theological education. Each of us, there fore, needs to take heed that the light in us be not darkened, that the will be not divided, that it be not set partly on pleas ing’self, and partly on pleasing God. If it is singly fully devoted to the will of ‘God at any cost, we shall be full of light. Tuesday, December 21. ' Luk e 11:37-44. “A Pharisee asketh Him (that is Jesus) to dine with him.” Why does he ask Him ? The way it is put in the Authorized Version makes, us think the Pharisee was very eager and anxious for Jesus tc^come and dine with him, but Luke does not say so. What Jesus said is correctly trans lated in the Revised Version. Apparently the Pharisee simply wished to investigate Jesus, and he found something to marvel at and criticise. There are many today who are merely investigating Jesus, and oftentimes in the spirit of the Pharisee, and they, too, find things to criticise. But the Pharisee’s criticism did not prove Jesus was wrong, but simply proved that he was wrong, and when one criticises our Lord today it does not prove that óur Lord was defective anywhere in His char-
“all his armour in which he trusted,” and divides his spoils. We need never despair of the rescue of any man, no matter how completely he seems to be in the power of the Devil. But it is not ènough to cast an unclean spirit out of a man, for if that is all that is done he may come back again and find the house that he formerly oc cupied “swept and garnished,” but empty. In that case he will go and take to himself “seven other parties more evil than him self,” and they will enter in and the “last state of that man becometh worse than the first.” In addition to casting the evil spirit out, the good spirit, the Holy Spirit, must come in and fill him (Eph. 5:18-21), then when the evil spirit returns he will find the house not merely “swept and gar nished,” but occupied, and he cannot come in. It is not enough that, a man be con verted, not enough that he quit his mean ness, he must be regenerated and filled Greatly blessed indeed was Mary to be the mother of our Lord; it was a great privilege to bear Him and nourish -Him, but there is something more blessed than that, and a blessedness that is open to each one of us, that is, to “hear the Word of God and keep it” (cf. Mark 3 :31-35). The statement of our Lord found in the 27th and 28th verses is a remarkable one, and shows what a different place His mother, Mary, occupied in His thought from that she occupies in the thought of the Roman Catholic .«church today. To be seeking signs instead of having that openness to the truth that makes one welcome, it even without a sign, is an indication of a wicked heart. The generation in which we live is one which is seeking signs. They are not willing to accept the truth simply because it is true, they want some outward proof, or some ecstacy, but, to the true heart, the truth is its own evidence. We often think that we occupy a position far above the sinners of ancient days; for example, the violent men of Nineveh. But wicked as the men of Nineveh were in their outward with the Holy Spirit. Sunday, December 19. Luke 11 -.27-32.
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