THE KING’S BUSINESS
288
see no beauty in the flowers and hear no music in the song o f the birds; if the life which you pass into when you consent to the crucifixion of self does not open to you the very gates o f God, and make the sing ing of the birds and the blossoming of the flowers infinitely more beautiful, you have never seen Jesus yet. TJIE PURE IN HEART What was His spirituality? The spirit uality o f Jesus Christ was a concrete reali zation of a great truth which He laid down in His own beatitudes. What was that? “ Blest are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Now, the trouble is we have been lifting all the good things o f God and put ting them in heaven. And I don’t wonder that you sing: “My willing soul would stay In such a frame as this, And sit and sing itself away To everlasting bliss.” i No wonder you want to sing yourself away to everlasting bliss, because every thing that is worth having you have put up there. But Jesus said: “Blest are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’’ If you are pure you will see Him everywhere— in the flower that blooms, in the march o f history, in the sorrows o f men, above the darkness o f the darkest cloud.; and you will know that God is in the field when He is most invisible. Secondly, subjection. The next note in the music o f His life is His absolute sub jection to God. You can very often tell the great philosophies which are governing human lives by the little catchwords that slip off men’s tongues: “Well, I thank God I am my own master.” That is your trouble, man. It is because you are your own mas ter that you are in danger of'hell. A man says: “ Can’t I do as I like with my own ?” You have got no “own” to do what you like with. It is because men have forgot ten the covenant o f God, the kingship of God, that we have all the wreckage and ruin that blights this poor earth o f ours. Here is the Man who never forgot it.
ideal in life. He was spiritual in the high, true, full, broad, blest sense o f that word. ~It may be well for a moment to note what spirituality did not mean in the life o f Jesus Christ. It did not mean asceti cism. During all the years of His ministry, during all the years o f His teaching, you never find a single instance in which Jesus Christ made a whip of cords to scourge Himself. And all that business of scouring oneself—an attempt to elevate the spirit by the ruin o f the actual flesh—is absolutely opposed to His view o f life. Jesus Christ did not deny Himself. The fact of His life was this—that He touched everything familiarly. He went to the widow. He took up the children and held them in His arms, and looked into their eyes till heaven wag poured in as1He looked. He didn’t go and get behind walls somewhere. He didn’t get away and say:~ “ Now, if I am going to' get pure I shall do it by shutting men out.” You) remember what the Pharisees said of Him once. They said: “ This man reeeiveth sinners.” You know how they said it.’ They meant to say: “We did hope that we should .make something out o f this new man, but we are quite dis appointed. He receives sinners.” And what did they.mean ? They meant what you have so often said: “You cant touch pitch without being defiled.” But this Man sat down with the publican and He didn’t take on any defilement from the publican. On the other hand, He gave the publican His purity in 'the • life o f Jesus "Christ. Things worked the other way. He was the great negative of God to the very law o f evil that you have—evil contami nates good’. If you will put on a plate one apple that is getting bad among, twelve dthers that are pure, the bad one will influ ence the others. Christ came to drive back every force joi disease and every force of evil by this strong purity of His own per son, and He said: “ I will go among the bad and make them good.” That was what He was doing the whole way through. So His spirituality was not asceticism. And if you are going to t>e so spiritual that you
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker