Food for the Lambs Part 5

Paused he at our boy's low trundle In the evening twilight hour, Caught away his happy spirit To its home beyond the stars.

How my heart adores the Giver Of all good o'er land and sea, But I praise him more than ever For the dear ones left to me.

As I think of her he gave me In my happy youthful time, How he bound our hearts together At love's pure and sacred shrine;

As I think of her this moment, Given me by love divine, Seems I almost feel the pressure Of her gentle hand in mine.

In the arms of night I'm folded, Soon in dreamland I shall roam; Then I'll go and see the dear ones-- See the dear loved ones at home.

VICTORY.

When you are forgotten or neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you smile inwardly, glorying in the insult or the oversight, because thereby counted worthy to suffer with Christ--that is victory.

When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your taste offended, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and you take it all in patient, loving silence--that is victory.

When you are content with any food, any raiment, any climate, any society, any solitude, any interruption by the will of G.o.d--that is victory.

When you can lovingly and patiently bear with any disorder, any irregularity, any unpunctuality, or any annoyance--that is victory.

When you can stand face to face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility, and endure it all as Jesus endured it--that is victory.

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation or to record your own good works, or to itch after commendation, when you can truly love to be unknown--that is victory.

When, like Paul, you can throw all your suffering on Jesus, thus converting it into a means of knowing his overcoming grace, and can say from a surrendered heart, "Most gladly," therefore, do "I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake"--that is victory. 2 Cor. 12:7-11.

When death and life are both alike to you through Christ, and to do his perfect will, you delight not more in one than the other--that is victory, for, through him, you may become able to say, "Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death." Phil. 1:20.

"Death is swallowed up in victory." 1 Cor. 15:54.

The perfect victory is to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" and thus to triumph over one's self. Rom. 13:14.

"In all things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."

Rom. 8:37.

THE FIRST LOVE.

You may wonder why we write so much about love. It is for the very best reason in the world. Nothing is so great as love, and no way so excellent. It is difficult to bind people together where love is lacking. A religious people may resolve to live in peace and confidence with one another; but this they will find to be very difficult if there is a deficiency of love. Love solves the problem; it removes every difficulty, and is the perfect bond of union. Nothing can separate hearts that are full of love. Love must be suppressed before division can be admitted. The most earnest exhortations and entreaties and the strongest reprovings fail to get men to attend to every Christian duty where love is wanting; but it is not difficult to persuade men to obey G.o.d and do all they can to glorify him when they love him with all their hearts.

There was much in the life of the angel of the church at Ephesus that was praiseworthy; but something was lacking. He had left his first love.

But, what is the first love? There is no difference between first love and last love if it be love. Pure, genuine love is the same always--first, last, and all the time. The overseers of this church, and doubtless the church in general, had lost the ardor of the love which they had at the first. Oh, the warmth, the sweetness, of first love! Do you not remember it, dear reader? When you were so clearly and wonderfully born of the Spirit of G.o.d, how ardent was the love in your heart! It thrilled you with delight. There was a delicious, sweet taste all through your soul. How gladly you would have taken wings and have flown away to the arms of Him whom your heart loved. The word of G.o.d was to your soul like honeyed dew upon your lips. How delightful it was to labor for Jesus! How preciously sweet to make the greatest sacrifices for his sake! and to go away into some secret place and pray was dearer to you than can ever be told. You found the greatest pleasure in attending to every Christian duty. I should be glad if I could describe to you just what that first love was in your heart. I can not do this, neither can you; but you know how it felt, and how joyful was your soul.

Oh, blessed happy day, when your sins were washed away, and love sang its sweetest lay within your soul!

Now, if you do not have the same ardor; the same warmth; the same sweet relish for prayer, for the word of G.o.d, for a meeting; the same thrilling sense of sweetness in your soul; that same precious drawing toward G.o.d and toward the brethren; that same delight in laboring for Jesus; that same joy and happiness in making sacrifices for him and for your fellow man: if you do not feel those symptoms of love as deeply and as delightfully, and if they are not in you as actively as they were at the first,--you are like the church at Ephesus--you have left your first love. In Wilson's excellent translation this text reads, "Thou hast relaxed thy first love." They had lost the intensity of their first love. It had relaxed, or lost tension, and had become languid. It does not matter to what you testify, or who you are, if you have not the same ardor and deep intensity of love that you had at the first, you have relaxed love.

Do not deceive yourself. Do not make any excuses. There is no necessity of losing this fervency of love. The leaping, thrilling, bounding love can be kept in the full blaze of its intensity in your soul as long as you live. I can never encourage a cessation of love. No matter what the circ.u.mstances, we can increase and abound more and more in love. You may have works, you may have labor, you may have patience; so did the church at Ephesus; but they had relaxed their first love.

See to it, O beloved, that you do not lose the deep fervency of love.

Keep it burning in all its brightness and warmth; and the works and labor and patience are sure to follow. But do not let your works, and labor, and patience deceive you. See that there is an underlying principle of love in all you do. If your works and labor and patience be devoid of love, there will be a secret desire in your heart to attract attention, and a longing for a bit of praise. But if all is done in purest sincere G.o.dly love, the joy you will find in doing is a full and sufficient reward. And, may the Lord give you understanding.

THE LITTLE FOXES.

One little fox is, "_Some other time_." If you track him up, you come to his hole--_never._

Another little fox is, "_I can't."_ Just set on him a plucky little "_I can_," and he will kill him for you.

Another bad little fox is, "_Just a little_" pride, self-will, worldly conformity, etc. That little mischief will strip the whole vine if left go.

Another malignant little fox is "_I haven't faith."_ He slips into the vineyard through a knot-hole called _self_. You can shut him out by removing the self-plank and filling up with Jesus only.

Another bad little fox is, "_I haven't power."_ Be sure and catch him.

If you will take the pains to dig him up, you will find his nest some where beyond the end of your present consecration. It will pay you to take him, if you have to "dig deep" and work hard.

Another devouring little fox is, "_My church_." "Salt" and "fire" is the sure and only antidote for such nasty vermin.

We will point out one more little fox, and he is able to devour all the fruit of the vineyard and kill the very vines. His species is "_Fear_."

One good dose of "perfect love" will kill him stone-dead. And a constant application of the blood of Christ will prevent this, with all other little or big foxes, yea, and all other animals, ever coming to life again.

SPIRITUAL DECLENSION.

A want of interest in the duties of secret devotion is a mark of religious declension. It is well said that prayer is the Christian's vital breath. A devout spirit is truly the life and soul of G.o.dliness.

The soul can not but delight in communion with what it loves with warm affection. The disciple, when his graces are in exercise, does not enter into his closet and shut the door, that he may pray to his Father who is in secret, merely because it is a duty which must be done, but because it is a service which he delights to render, a pleasure which he is unwilling to forego. He goes to the mercy-seat as the thirsty hart goes to the refres.h.i.+ng brook. The springs of his strength are there. There he has blessed glimpses of his Savior's face, and unnumbered proofs of his affection.

But sometimes the professing Christian comes to regard the place of secret intercourse with G.o.d with very different feelings. He loses, perhaps by a process so gradual that he is scarcely conscious of it for a time, the tenderness of heart, and the elevation and fervor of devout affection that he had been used to feel in meeting G.o.d. There is less and less of spirit and more and more of form in his religious exercises.

He retires at the accustomed time rather from force of habit than because inclination draws him. He is enclined to curtail his seasons of retirement or to neglect it altogether if a plausible pretext can be found. He reproaches himself, perhaps, but hopes that the evil will cure itself at length. And so he goes on from day to day, and week to week.

Prayer--if his heartless service deserves the name--affords him no pleasure and adds nothing to his strength. Where such a state of things exists it is evident that the pulses of spiritual life are ebbing fast.

If the case is yours, dear reader, it ought to fill you with alarm.

Satan is gaining an advantage of you and seducing you from G.o.d.

A second sign of spiritual declension is indifference to the usual means of grace. The spiritual life, not less than the natural life, requires appropriate and continual nourishment. For this want G.o.d has made ample provision in his Word. To the faithful-disciple the Scriptures are rich in interest and profit. "O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day." To such a soul the preaching of the gospel is a joyful sound; and the place where kindred spirits mingle in social praise and wors.h.i.+p is far more attractive than the scenes of worldly pleasure. But, alas!

from time to time it happens that some who bear the Christian name and who have rejoiced in Christian hopes, insensibly lose their relish for the Scriptures. If they continue to read them daily, it is no longer with such appreciation of their power and beauty as makes them the bread of life, refres.h.i.+ng and invigorating the soul. Their minds are occupied no small portion of the time with thoughts of earthly things. They find it easy to excuse themselves from frequenting the place of social prayer, and even content themselves, perhaps, with an occasional half-day attendance on the more public service of the sanctuary. And when they are in the place of wors.h.i.+p they feel listless, dest.i.tute of spiritual affection, disposed to notice others or to attend to only mere words and forms. They want, in a great measure, that preparation of the heart, without which the means of grace are powerless and lacking in pleasure or profit to the soul. Such indifference is conclusive proof that the soul has departed from G.o.d; has grieved the Holy Spirit and lost the vital power of G.o.dliness. If you, reader, are conscious of this indifference, see in it an infallible sign of your backsliding. It declares you have departed from the fountain of living waters and are a wanderer from your G.o.d.

A third indication of declension in the Christian life is a devotion to the world. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." Covetousness is idolatry. Christians are solemnly enjoined to set their affections on things above, and to lay up treasures in heaven.

But look at yonder professed disciple. See how inordinately anxious he is about gain. He is giving all his thoughts and time to business. He enlarges his plans and extends his views. He suffers the hours of worldly business to encroach upon the time which should be spent in secret or in family wors.h.i.+p or in the social prayer. He forgets that he has no right to do this, and that he can not, without sin, permit the claims of earth to crowd out the claims of G.o.d and his own immortal nature. Look, too, at his compliance with the tastes and maxims of worldly people. He appears to feel it is not best to be strict in his adhesion to his principles. He doubts if there is any harm in this or that or the other worldly indulgence. He does not see the need of being so strenuous about little things. He is anxious to please everybody and can not bear to thwart the wishes of the worldly-minded. If the world dislikes any of the doctrines or the duties of religion he would have little said about them. In a word, he is all things to all men, in a very different sense from what Paul meant. In his sentiments, his a.s.sociations, his pleasures, his mode of doing business, his conversation, his whole character, there is far too little that evinces strength of holy principle and G.o.dliness. O reader, has your case been described? You are then a backslider from the G.o.d whom you covenanted to serve.