He said: “ It is from the heart’s over flow that the mouth speaks; a good man utters good words from his store of goodness, the wicked man, from his store o f wickedness, can utter nothing but what is evil (Matt. 12:34, 35 Lit. Tr.). “ Truth tyrannizes over the unwill ing members of the body,” Emerson wrote. “When a man speaks the truth,” he continues, “ in the spirit of truth, his eye is as clear as the heavens. When he has base ends, and speaks falsely, the eye is muddy, and
sometimes asquint.” But Emerson has not added anything to what Jesus so well expressed. Someone has said that “God hates secrecy and loves openness, and has ordained that nature and man shall publish their secret lives.” Man pub lishes his secret life best when he talks. If his “ store of goodness” is complete, one can tell it by his con versation. If he has instead o f good ness, a “ store of wickedness,” then he can utter “nothing but what is evil.”
When Jesus said, “ Search the scrip tures,” He must have meant just that. And when we follow His advice we find some amazing things. The Scrip tures are the great Rule Book of life, and unless we follow the rules we must needs take the consequences. Jesus must have meant what He said about the “ foolish word.” The com mandment means exactly what it says when we are told not to take His name in vain. It still holds for us. It will be wisdom for us to follow the advice.
TARRY HERE and WATCH By Douglas C. Hartley Revelstoke, B. C., Canada
M ANY of God’s people are quite ready to go or do at His com mand ; some are so • presump tuous as to attempt to run ahead of Him. All too few are willing to tarry at His bidding. Yet God has His times for every thing : “ To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Eccl. 3 :1 ). He that commanded “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel” also said “ Tarry . . . here and watch” (Matt. 26:38). This is not inconsistency in the Al mighty. It is because, as we are so often reminded in the Scriptures, “ He knoweth.” On the other hand, “ It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power” (Acts 1:7). Our trouble then would appear to be the lack of a complete knowledge of the will of God—the cause of all our failures, our overeagerness and our presumptions. No truly born-again be liever would knowingly be disobedient to God’s will. Thus it is because we are not as assiduous as we ought to be in ascertaining that will that we, who so vehemently protest our desire to be wholly obedient, so often fall short. We cannot frustrate the final will of God, but because we are not willing to tarry at His command, we often hinder it. The tarry order is just as specific as that of go or do, but seemingly, as we have seen, it requires a greater devotion, a fuller obedience. Moreover, it will not, as we often suppose, hin- Page Fourteen
der the Divine cause and purpose; rather, it will greatly advance it. “ For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry [in our eyes— though we may even become im patient], wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry” (Hab. 2 :3 ). “ Yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it. Hearken unto me, ye stouthearted, that are far from righteousness: I bring near my right eousness; it. shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry” (Isa. 46:11-13). “ For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry” (Heb. 10:37). God does not count time as we do, “ For a thousand years in [His] thy sight are but as yesterday” (Psa. 90:4). All that He desires of us is that we be found faithful in carrying out His every command—to tarry as well as to go or to do—as Abraham was faithful, and those other remark- ables of Hebrews 11; even as our Lord Jesus Christ said: “My meat is to do the will [no matter how hard, as we recall from Gethsemane], of him that sent me.” Moses had a definite work for the Lord, yet he was required to wait forty years until God’s time was ripe. Abraham received a promise, but in the flesh he never saw that promise fulfilled. He was content to tarry for the time of the Lord. Waiting times are not idle times. They are times o f communion, of fel lowship, of strengthening, of growth, of preparation and of revelation.
When Jesus went to Gethsemane He said to His disciples, “ Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.” Then He took the favored three farther and said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.” It is a mark of their utter humanity, as of ours, that they wasted their precious time of waiting in sleep. No one can doubt the wisdom of God in His tarrying times for Israel: “Whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tar ried upon the tabernacle, remaining thereon, the children of Israel abode in their tents, and journeyed not: but when it was taken up, they journeyed. At the commandment of the Lord they rested in the tents, and at the com mandment of the Lord they journeyed” (Num. 9:22,23). Let us learn to know the will of God—when He would have us tarry; when He would that we move. Let us do both, completely and gladly. There can be no extreme one way or the other. God’s will is available for us: “And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it be fore the Lord” (2 Ki. 19:14). With all his faults Hezekiah did wait upon the Lord. He prayed and he received his answer—not the help of the Lord as he had hoped, because he had sin ned the presumptuous sin of contem plating going up against the enemy in his own strength, turning to the Lord only when he saw that it was (Continued on Page 22) T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
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