precious. “When mother prayed her soul was blessed; when mother prayed she found sweet rest. Her heart and mind on Him were stayed, and God was there when mother prayed.” This, I thought, must be the most earnest praying of my knowledge. One day, while pursuing the sacred page, I came to the 17th chapter of John. Somehow, in such a real way, I could see, through faith, the Great High Priest as He lifted His eyes toward heaven. Then, in His incomparable manner, He said so reverently, “ Father the hour is come . . . I have glorified thee . . . I have finished the work . . . I have manifested thy name . . .” Finally, He began to pray for you and me, all of His purchased people—“ I pray for them . . . them from the evil . . . that they may behold my glory.” This is earnest ness in its most sublime character. ★ ★ ★ SHAPING OUR DESTINY To each is given a bag of tools, A shapeless mass, and a book oi rules; And each must make, ere life has flown, A stumbling-block or a stepping- stone. —Anon. ★ ★ ★ With the Lord Jesus purpose was pri mary in progress. This is why there is a place. This is the reason for the pray er. With Him purpose pointed not so much to plans and programs, but to the fulfillment of His Father’s will. What a noble example for the child of God to emulate. The purpose of Christ proved that He had the right perspective. His purpose was positive (John 18:37). Denounced, denied and finally delivered to the Roman court, Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate to hear him nervously and incoherently propound many interrogations. Then, ere the court turned Him over to the crowd for cruci fixion, the Lord Jesus went on record to show that the custom of the people would lead to the fulfillment of the deter minate counsel of the Godhead. “ To THIS end was I born,” He solemnly em phasized, “ and for THIS cause came I into the world.” Jesus did not deal in generalizations. He was specific. There was no supposi tional if in His statements. There was certainty. He knew the why and the manner of His coming to earth. He knew also the type and the time of His depar ture. Had not He informed His disciples that “ the Son of Man MUST suffer many things, and be rejected . . . and be killed?” Yes, THIS was the end; THIS was the cause. We thrill to the revelation of His def initeness, and well we may, but could it have been otherwise? He was the divine Son of God. He was the embodiment of perfection. He doeth all things well. We
must get beyond the thought that we are dealing with a narrative, the plot of which has been conceived in some finite mind and the characters carefully chosen to play well their parts. Many see no more reality than this. But it is real! It is REAL in a glorious sense! The earth’s Creator became our Saviour. He came so to be; nor did He for an infini tesimal part of one second lose sight of His purpose. He repeatedly explained why He had come. “ The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost,” He had said, but the world which He loved and for which He bled and died has been dull of hearing and slow of response. His purpose was pressing (John 9:4). “ I must work the works of him that sent me!” The workmen who labored to rescue little Kathy Fiscus from the deep, dry well in California, pressed their efforts with strenuous persistence through thirty-five continuous hours with little rest and food, while as many as fifteen thousand stood by. When asked if or by whom they would be paid, and why they would drive themselves to the point of exhaustion, the reply was quickly given: “ There’s a little girl down there.” There were men—a world of men— down in the shafts of sin. Legions of angels stood by. Looking over the battle ments of heaven the Father saw the spirits of men whose faith had been counted unto them for righteousness. There was Abraham, the father of the faithful Moses, the liberator of Israel, Joshua, the general of the battle of Jeri cho, Gideon, who triumphed over the Midianites, Elijah, the performer of miracles—but God so loved that He gave His ONLY BEGOTTEN SON that sin ners wedged in the wells of wickedness might not perish but have everlasting deliverance. The Lord of glory put aside His royal wardrobe and dressed in human flesh, descended to the scene of the unspeak able disaster into which sin had plunged the whole of mankind. Hé came, not to be ministered unto but to minister, and His labor was a matter of pressing im portance. He descended, not only to the earth, but into the horrible pit from whence we have been digged. From those very depths, a cry of His bleeding heart surged forth to be inscribed in the fade less record, “ The pains of hell gat hold upon me.” But He pressed on—on through the incomprehensible grapplings with sin and Satan beneath the burden of the unspeakable judgment of wrath which rightly was our due. Then came the victorious word, “ IT IS FIN ISHED!” The expiatory work was ac complished for us. “He saw us plunged in deep distress and flew to our relief. For us He bore the shameful cross and carried all our grief.” What a wonderful Saviour! His was a pressing purpose. Into the chapel of a co-educational col lege in the east walked the dignified Christian president one morning with solemn mein. Following the opening (Continued on Page 29) T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
Let your heart be soothed and softened as the dew revives the rose. A moment in the morning—a moment, if no more Is better than an hour when the busy day is o’er.” An elderly Christian gentleman, who djd not find the light of a new life until he was almost seventy years of age, fell so completely in love with the Lord that it was apparent to all who knew him. He related to us this daily habit which he so much enjoyed: “When I open my eyes each morning, I say aloud, ‘Lord Jesus, it’s good to know Thee. I want to walk and talk with Thee throughout this day.’ Then, when I pillow my head at night, I say, ‘Lord Jesus, we’ve had a good time together today.’ ” What we need most of all, dear reader, in these critical days of increasing un rest, is a better acquaintanceship with our lovely Lord in a simple, satisfying manner. Too much do we find ourselves in the throes of a technical determinism, with our faith and practice reduced to certain fixed formulae so foreign to the Word of Life. We need to enter early into the Unseen Presence and then carry with us through the day the conscious ness of our Saviour’s nearness. It was an earnest prayer. The prayer was earnest in reverence and devotion, earnest in meaning and outlook, earnest in content and expression. You may think of Daniel voicing his supplication in a den of danger, of Hezekiah in a plea for protraction of years, of Zinzendorf and his pious grandmother bowed before a troop of marauding soldiers, of Mueller unlocking the storehouse of grace for orphans through constant com munion, but that solitary spot, early one morning in that distant past was the place of incomparable earnestness. In a student pastorate of years gone by, I recall with present pleasure an elderly man who always assumed a kneeling posture and turned his face heavenward as he began to place his petitions at the Throne of Grace. Some thing within seemed to convince me that his was the most earnest praying of which I had knowledge. Later, while visiting in a home in Pennsylvania one morning about nine o’clock, I heard from above a noise as of someone pounding on a table. The kindly Christian hostess, noticing my somewhat inquisitive counte nance, said, “ That’s dad upstairs. He is eighty years old. He has had his break fast and is now spending an hour with his Lord before going to the park with gospel tracts.” That is real earnestness I told myself. Then, there came to my mind, with pierc ing vividness the old family homestead in the mountains of Maryland and the family altar. There mother mentioned each member of the family by name. Sometimes, as she talked over matters of delicate import with the Lord concern ing some of us, her voice would become affected; there were times of hesitation, but her prayers were always pointed and Page Twelve
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker