The Heart-Cry of Jesus Part 7

One of the conditions of success in soul-saving is a pa.s.sion for the salvation of immortal men and women. Full salvation always brings this, and as long as a worker lives in its plent.i.tude and enjoyment he is consumed with a burning, longing, panting thirst for souls.

THE GIGANTIC LANDSLIDE.

The ministers of early Methodism and early Quakerism were not of the sort who congregate in groups and discuss the relative desirability of various appointments. They did not spend their leisure in jesting, punning and guffawing, but in praying, studying, and working, for even their vacations were turned into days of toil. They spent their all in one endeavor--to save men from a yawning Pit and a lurid h.e.l.l. Nowadays we live in perpetual relaxation and recreation. Smooth, insipid preachers talk to shallow, giddy audiences, and the whole thing is on a gigantic landslide. Lord, save! or death and d.a.m.nation are sure.

THE UNCERTAIN FAITH.

There can be no successful denial of the a.s.sertion that real soul-absorbing earnestness in religion is dying out. We sometimes mock at the Herculean labors of men like Owen, and Baxter, and Calvin, and Edwards. But though these men were perhaps more or less legalistic and at times a little narrow, yet one thing is sure, they made religion the business of life, and went at it with zest, enthusiasm, and determination. Your modern "Christian" has "certain intellectual difficulties"; is "not fixed in belief concerning Socinianism"; does "not like the old idea of the Atonement"; in fact, is in a state of fusion so far as his belief and faith are concerned. Men do not give their life's blood for matters in which they have only a half-faith.

But when one is convinced that men are dying in the dark and that their salvation depends in a measure on one's activity and fidelity, then one is hot with zeal and fire from hat to heel and set to working for G.o.d and eternal souls.

WEEPING OVER CHORAZIN.

This is the explanation of the zeal of men who are "burning for Jesus."

This is the reason men so frequently wear out in short order after they are sanctified. They are dipped in fellows.h.i.+p with Christ's sorrow, and beholding Him weeping over modern Capernaums and Chorazins their hearts are melted at the sight, and they speed away to preach the gospel of the lovely Son of G.o.d.

SANCTIFIED SUCCESS.

No wonder success comes to the sanctified man. Indwelt by the Shekinah, filled with the Holy Ghost, his whole being energized with power and force, "whatsoever he doeth prospers."

CHAPTER XI.

VISITS OF ANGELS.

DESCRIPTIVE PSALM.

The ninety-first Psalm is a painstaking description of the blessings and benefits bestowed upon the man that "dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High." Without doubt the entire chapter should be taken as a photograph of the sanctified man. Among other things, this fortunate and favored person is told that he is to have angelic guards and ministers who will protect him and keep him "in all his ways."

G.o.d'S OWN.

The sanctified are in a peculiar sense G.o.d's own, and all the resources of heaven are pledged to their protection. All the fire companies of the firmament will turn out to extinguish a fire if it kindle on G.o.d's saints. If need be, Jehovah will empty His balm jars but the wounds of warriors shall be healed. Angels are detailed for our protection: heavenly visitants hover near us lest the fires of affliction destroy us.

UNDERSTANDING CHRIST.

The moment the soul is sanctified, it begins to understand Christ in a new and delightful sense. It is given unto it to not only sit at His feet in the temple, but to groan with Him in Grethsemane. It understands Him, and, in suffering, is "as He is in this world."

A DARK HOUR.

It was a dark, dark hour for the Master. He had been praying a long while, perhaps for several hours. The place was one familiar to Him.

Many a night after a long, wearisome day of teaching in the temple, He had labored painfully up the slope of the Mount of Olives in search of the quiet of "the Garden." Here the Savior had His oratory. Sometimes the disciples were with Him; at other times He was alone.

A NIGHT OF CRISIS.

But this night was a night of crisis. The old olive trees, in all their centuries of life, had never witnessed so intense a struggle as that which took place on the night of His pa.s.sion. Alive to all the pathos of the hour, awake to all the gravity of the situation, sensitive to the slightest breath, He prays to "the Father" with that desperation in which the flight of time and the doings of the world are all forgotten.

UNCERTAINTY.

There was much about the hour which made it a painful one. There was, first of all, an uncertainty concerning the will of "the Father." With a great cry the lonely Christ fell to the ground: "If it be thy will let this cup pa.s.s, nevertheless" let thy will, whatsoever it is, "be done." Evidently He was not at that time really sure what the plan of "the Father" was in regard to Him.

A BITTER CUP.

Uncertainty is a fearful test, when it comes to the soul of a man of great and energetic purpose. So long as there is no doubt about the course to be taken, so long as the plan is plainly revealed, it is easy for a courageous man to advance. But to such a one uncertainty is like a shock to the body, palsying the form and changing a strong arm into a nerveless, useless stick of bone and tissue. A cup may be very bitter, salt with the brine of tears and hot with the fire of vitriol, and yet, if all the ingredients in that cup are known to him who drinks it, grief has not reached its superlative. Socrates' duty was plain to him.

Hemlock was in the cup, and he knew it. But the liquor with which G.o.d fills the tumblers of His people is brewed from a thousand elements.

A TEST.

To trust in the dark, to believe in a rayless midnight, to cling to a thread well-nigh invisible, to say "Amen" to G.o.d when one has no idea of the greatness of the meaning of "His will," that is the supremest test of loyalty.

THE NIGHT PICKET.

The night picket stationed far out from the camp has need of much greater courage than the soldier in battle ranks rus.h.i.+ng on toward the enemy. The man at the lonely picket post, cloaked in darkness, is guarding against uncertainty. He can not tell at once whether a dark object is a dangerous spy or a browsing Brindle. Sounds must be noted and sorted lest the enemy steal up to the slumbering army and destroy it. The snapping of twigs, the low whistle of a bird, the groan of the wind, the murmur of a waterfall must all be listened to with care.

EVIL TIDINGS.

It is suspense and a nameless dread and fear that sap many a mind and heart. Moments of breathless expectancy of evil tidings are like years in the life, bringing ashes to the hair, lines to the cheek and listlessness to the eye.

THE PALLED FACE.

"Be sure you are right, then go ahead," said Tennesseean Crockett; but supposing that one can not "be sure" of anything except the love of G.o.d, supposing that one looks out through the tangled limbs of the olive trees of a Gethsemane to a sky studded with pitiless stars, supposing that the future is obscure and the present black as Styx, supposing that even the face of the Father Himself is palled and curtained--then must one be content to trust and only trust.

THREE DISCIPLES

There was another cause for pain in "the Garden." The three disciples, whom He had chosen to accompany Him in His dark and lonely vigil, slept as He prayed. We can bring ourselves to overlook the negligence and apathy of Nicodemus and Lazarus and Simon the leper and Zaccheus and the crowds who had merely heard Him preach. We are willing perhaps to excuse eight of the twelve for their drowsiness--perchance they did not apprehend the full meaning of the hour to the Master. But there were three disciples to whom Christ had ever laid bare His heart. With Him they stood in the death chamber in the house of Jairus. To them it was given to behold "the vision splendid" on the mount of transfiguration, and these alone Jesus chose to enter into the fellows.h.i.+p of his Garden sufferings.

NO EXCUSE.

These men did not nod and sleep ignorant of Christ's need of them. With that tender confidence with which a truly great and colossal man sometimes honors his friends, He had said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." He had warned them with the words, "Watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation," and yet they slept!

"OUR OWN AFFAIRS."

It must have been a keen disappointment to Jesus to find His most trusted friends so indifferent to His needs. Is there anything in life sadder than the discovery that our own affairs are really only our own affairs? We had thought that they were our friends', as well as our own. We had supposed that our griefs were theirs also, but when Grethsemane comes into our lives, and we writhe and twist among the gnarled and knotted roots, when we turn with blanched, tear-sprinkled faces to our chosen James and trusted Peter and beloved John to gasp in their ears the story of our agony, we hear only the heavy breathing of sound sleepers.

COLD, HARSH FACT.

If there is a sharper pang than this, man's heart has not found it. We are by nature social beings. We crave fellows.h.i.+p and love and sympathy, and it is so hard for us to realize that our choicest friends are really "asleep" to our heart cries and heart interests. The cold, harsh fact can be believed but slowly. Even the Lord seemed to find it hard to convince His own heart that the John who had leaned at supper upon His breast, was resting while his Master was sweating blood. He prayed awhile and then, as if to see whether it was indeed true that no one watched to help Him, "He came and found them sleeping." Sad, cruel disappointment, and yet is it so rare that any one of us has not felt its sadness and cruelty?

AN ANGEL.

But while men forgot the Nazarene and His troubles, Grod did not forget. The Father was not negligent nor careless. "There appeared an angel unto him from heaven strengthening him." The night was not too dark for the angel to find Jesus, and the night of our troubles is never too thick and black for the angels to find us. The paths of "the Garden" may be grown up in weeds, the rough, scabeous limbs of the trees may hang close to the ground, the driving clouds may hide the moon and stars, but some celestial messenger will search us out and find us.

IN MANY FORMS.

G.o.d has many angels, and they come in many forms. Sometimes the solitary sufferer sees only a tiny flower, but love is in the flower, and he knows he is not utterly forgotten. It may be only an hand clasp, but warmth and sympathy are in it, and behold it is straightway "an angel strengthening him." Perchance it is a letter with a foreign postmark, but in it is nectar and ambrosia for a drooping spirit. Or the angel may come enveloped in a text of Scripture or flying on the wings of the music of some old hymn, such as:

"Fear not! I am with thee.