T here was an interesting detail in the law of Hebrew bond- service in which the slave, whose year of release had arrived, might of his own choice elect to be a slave forever: “I am well with thee; I will not go out free.” His master thereupon pierced his ear, fastening it for the moment to the housedoor, a pledge and brand of perpetual c o nn e c t i on with the house and perpetual obedience. De lightful parable of what the Chris tian may, not once only but ever more, be doing in his conscious re lations with his divine and beloved possessor: “O my Master, I have felt Thy yoke. I have tried Thy despotism deep within my soul as well as in the outside of my life. It is real, intensely real, stricter and more penetrating by far than any other ownership can be. I see that it means for me the continuous surrender to Thee, in full reality of all I am and all I have and do. But I have found in it the glorious paradox of a blissful and restful liberty. I have found the secret of a nearness to Thee and fellowship with Thee unfelt before. I know my absolute sovereign to be, while He never relaxes His sovereignty for a moment, yet meek and lowly in heart, as I could not know it be fore. I have begun to taste the deep sweetness of a life whose sole inner aim is to be a vessel for the Mas ter’s use, when and how He pleases. And so it is well with me in Thy bondage. Brand me again. Bind me to Thy housework again. I will not go out free.” We shall never get beyond the occasions of such new surrender nor beyond their blessedness. Every day and well nigh everything may give the opportunity. Sharpest trials, deepest repose; the Lord’s takings and the Lord’s givings; things which definitely remind us of slavery, things which largely tempt us to forget it or to conceal it; all will give us opportunity, which we will rejoice to take. Through such renewals of our sur render, if they are done in truth of heart before Him, will flow in
The Divine K eeper
by H. C. G. MOULE
self and among them its aim to govern itself in its own name more or less wisely and successfully. And now what has happened cor respondingly? This divine possessor who now in a sense so true and special holds me as not my own but His assuredly regards me and thinks of me in a sense correspond ingly special, as a piece of instru mental property and possession to be used and therefore to be kept. His Word encourages me to this view, not my fancy or reverie. The man who through grace has purged himself from these, separating him self from the life of sin, that is of self, to God, is revealed to be ipso facto a vessel for the Master’s use and what a master uses, will he not, for himself from his own point of view, take care of? Will it not con cern him to keep it near him, to keep it in order, to keep it clean? You see th e sugge s t i on of thought. In the fact of that self disfranchisement on my part which God secures and also invites, there lies imbedded a holy further fact that the Master who owns me will very specially take care of me. And He will do this in all respects in which, for His purposes, I need it. For let me think for the while as
very markedly indeed the sancti fying powers of our Master’s life, the precious influences of our mys tical union with our glorious Head. Realize deliberately and in fact that you are the slave of Jesus Christ. Blessed position! How differ ent from that of a passing visitor with Him; a traveler through His land, stopping at pleasure to sketch or measure it! Such are not you; bound to the soil or rather to its Lord; with ceaseless obligations there; indissoluble r e l a t i o n s to Him; a very real piece of His prop erty; so, of real concern to Him. And here may naturally come in our topic, the divine Keeper. We will take up a revealed rela tion between the Lord and the be liever with special view to its bear ing on Christian holiness. Let us think a little on this aspect of the keeping power of Christ. I have realized then that I am His property, His implement for use, His living chattel in the words quoted above from Aristotle’s ac count of slavery. True, I always am such. But in a true sense I also become such in each crisis, now in this last crisis of self-surrender. I have r e nounc ed , definitely re nounced, the aims of the old life of
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THE KING 'S BUSINESS
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