T HE K I N G ’S B U S I N E S S
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Unflagging Indu stry
his head crammed w ith sp iritual know ledge, he is like a ship w ith all the cargo on the upper deck, a very danger ous condition, a most unstable condi tion, liable a t any moment to capsize and flounder. Truth must percolate from th e head down into th e h eart, and th ere m ust be the moral response and the a ttitu d e assumed th a t shall be co-ordinate and correlated w ith the tru th itself, because if I draw back and refuse to obey th e ligh t th a t is given, God will give no fu rth e r light un til I live up to w h at I have and act upon the knowledge th a t is given. Many a case of sp iritu ally arrested development may be explained by dis obedience, and I suppose nine-tenths of all intellectual difliculty has an ethi cal root and an ethical natu re, and if men would do w hat they know to be right, th e ir doubts would melt away in th e doing. R everent Hum ility S ix th : H um ility— reveren t hum ility. If any man th ink th a t he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing. This is only ano th er name for docility, and th is is the characteristic of a n ideal dis ciple, a n d 'th e word those who followed Jesu s first received. Disciple means learner. They entered th e school of faith , th e school of prayer, th e school of life. Docility, teachableness, is the ideal characteristic. The L atin word from which hum ility comes means near th e ground, on th e ground. An old w riter said, “There are two safe places in th e universe, th e heavens and the dust. Of these two, th e du st is the safer place, fo r th e re have been those who fell out of heaven, b u t who ever h eard of any one falling ou t of the dust? Where could he fa ll? ” Be clothed w ith hum ility, a new style of dress goods, prices no t gone up on account of th e war. “ God resisteth the proud and giveth grace unto th e hum ble.” But alas! when th e consciousness of hum ility goes into th e h eart, the
Fourth condition": Unflagging in dustry, hard work. “ In whom are hid den all th e treasu res of wisdom and of know ledge.” Hidden, if you please. Men don’t find golden nuggets lying around loose on th e surface of the earth . They have to look for them , and the deeper they dig and th e h ard er they work, th e more precious treasu re do they find. There are no rew ards or prizes for laziness, j There is no ¿ ru th to be discovered save by th e hardest work. Every chapter, every passage, every verse is a g reat mine, of which we only scratch th e ou ter surface. The Word is infinite and inexhaustible. But th is is th e g reatest need of all— hard work. The chief attractio n of heaven lies suggested in th e activities of the cherubim— they re st no t day nor night. They work 24 hours a day. Isn ’t th a t delightful? The tim e we sleep is wasted. We are unconscious. W hat a small sum of our tim e rem ains to do anything! One-third of our tim e is spent in bed resting, ano th er one-third feeding, groom ing and nursing these bodies of our hum iliation. . W hat a pitiable fraction of tim e is left to do anything for God or man and for study, and oh, how glorious it will be to keep on working 24 hours! “They re st not day nor n igh t.” The stud en t who works the h ard est does th e most and goes th e farthest. Im plicit Obedience F ifth condition: Implicit obedience (Jo h n 1 7 :1 7 ). Power goes w ith plan, obedience guarantees blessing. If you w ant sp iritu al power, you m u st dis cover th e divine plan, conform to it, co-operate w ith it, b u t if you w an t g rea t sp iritu a l blessing, be perfectly obedi en t to every divine suggestion and com- and, and blessedness shall be yours; so th a t whenever we discover some new tru th in Scripture, it has to be tra n s lated into conduct and incorporated into character. Now when a man gets
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