waters and hewed them out broken cisterns that can hold no water. Do you have a thirsty soul, panting after God as the hart after the waterbrooks? “ Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness,” not because they thirst but because “ they shall be filled.” Notice, the Psalmist says, “my soul thirst eth . . . my flesh longeth.” It is the hunger o f the whole man. And he says, “ 0 God, Thou art my God.” A lot o f praying gets no further than “ O God.” Here it is personal . . . “Thou art my God.” He says also, “My soul thirsteth . . . my flesh longeth FOR THEE.” Any spiritual exercise that stops short o f God Himself stops too short. We can be taken up with the means and forget the end. Our Bible reading may bring us profit and we may lay down the Book with a comfortable sense of duty well performed. But does the heart say, “ Be yond the sacred page I seek THEE, Lord” ? We may get a secret satisfaction out o f praying that makes prayer an end in itself. “Early will I seek THEE”—that is true prayer. “ Now THEE alone I seek, Give what is best.” Faith has no value save as it links us with God, yet we often become taken up with our faith and miss God entirely. Feelings, experiences, church attendance, with all these we may stop short o f God. We can throng Him with the crowd and never touch Him for ourselves. One other thing: If we thirst for God Himself, we shall be satisfied when we accept our Saviour’s invitation: “ If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink; he that believeth on me,” as the Scripture hath said, “ from within him shall flow rivers o f living water.” “Getting through to God” would indeed be very abstract had not our Saviour come but the Word has been made flesh. No man comes to the Father but by Him and him that cometh to the Saviour He will in no wise cast out. “ As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country” and the Gospel “ good news” invites us to come to the Saviour for everything. His gracious invitation in John 7 :37-39 has all the “ steps” : thirsting, coming, drinking, believing, overflowing. The thirsty soul comes, receives, be lieves it has received (Mark 11:24). Are you tired of trying, praying, seeking to work up an experience? You never will get your experience to suit you. Cease working at your faith and rest in the Faithful One. When you give all trying over, simply trusting, you are blessed. “ Early will I seek Thee” said the Psalmist. Seek Him early in life. “ Those that seek me early shall find me.” “Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth.” Seek Him early in the day. “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” The greatest experience o f life is to make your home in God Himself. “ For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.” Jfl
But after all that, there came a humbling vision of God and his “ comeliness was turned to corrup tion.” Or think of Habakkuk who started out pout ing and ended up praising. He sought explanation but God gave him revelation and “ rottenness en tered his bones” . Out o f it all he comes forth like a shouting Methodist. He has had an understanding with the Most High. Peter had his rendezvous with the Master by Tiberias. He had denied his Lord by the enemy’s fire and he came back to his Lord by the Saviour’s fire there on the beach. Up until then almost every thing Peter had said as we have it reported was a mistake. “ Peter said . . . not knowing what he said” ! But this day Jesus does most of the talking and from it Peter comes with a new commission, “ Follow me.” When Paul met his Lord on the Damascus road, his companions stood speechless, heard a voice, saw a light, were afraid. They had an experience but they did not meet the Lord. It would have made a great story to tell afterwards and some wit nesses today have no more to relate. One of Job’s comforters, Eliphaz, had quite a hair-raising expe rience to give but he knew little of God. It was Paul who got through to “Who art Thou, Lord?” and “ Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” The lights you see and the voices you hear will vary, but the “Who” and “What” are standard; they make the authentic experience. Remember that John was the disciple whom Jesus loved. He laid his head on the Saviour’s breast. But in his old age he came to a new vision of the glorified Lord and fell at His feet “ as one dead” . That was a devastating experience. The best of us need to fall at His feet and realize that we are dead with Him that we might rise to walk in newness of life. Out of John’s vision came the Apocalypse and out of such a meeting with Him will come our deepest revelations. Now these varying experiences o f men who met God furnish us with no uniform pattern. With Job, God revealed His grandeur in nature. He came to Isaiah in a day o f national calamity. To John he appeared in lonely exile. He may not meet us in either o f these fashions. What does matter is that we meet God HIMSELF for OURSELVES. How? I suggest no “ steps.” I can tell you how it will begin and end. It will begin with a THIRST FOR GOD HIMSELF. “ 0 God, Thou art my God: early will I seek Thee: my soul thirsteth for THEE, my flesh longeth for THEE in a dry and thirsty land where no water is” (Ps. 63:1). Here we have A DRY LAND, A THIRSTY SOUL and A SAT ISFYING GOD . . . “my soul shall be satisfied” (V. 5). “ He satisfieth the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness” (Ps. 107:9). Certainly we live today in a DRY LAND, where men have forsaken the fountain o f living
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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