George H. Morrison's Old And Beautiful Devotions

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The Crown of Thorns - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

And So Is Our Knowledge of the Bible

The other point at which this pain is felt is in regard to our knowledge of the Bible. A flood of light has been poured upon the Bible, till it is literally a new book today. For centuries the Bible stood alone, not to be questioned nor criticised. Every sentence was of equal value, as verbally inspired by the Almighty. And men accepted it without a doubt, and women pondered it in simple faith, and it was a garden where the Lord was walking, as in the cool of the day He walked in Paradise. And do I say it is not so today? God forbid that I should be so foolish. It is still, and will ever be, the Word of God, in a sense no other book can ever bear. And there is light in it yet for every hour of shadow, and comfort for every day of grief, and all our hope for time and for eternity is rooted in the message of the Cross. No truth can ever overturn the truth. No knowledge can discredit Him who knew. It is our bounden duty to the Lord Jesus Christ, to cast His Word into the fires of criticism. And yet with all the knowledge which that has brought us, knowledge so wonderful and so undreamed of, what pain has visited a thousand hearts, what agony of doubt and of unrest! Some have been tempted to abjure the light, that they might cherish a simple faith again. Some have turned to the critics and have cried, "Ye have taken away my Lord, and I know not where ye have laid Him." And all of us have had seasons of perplexity, not knowing what to think or what to do: only knowing if we were false to facts, we never could be true to Jesus Christ. Do not repeat that maxim of the recreant, "Where ignorance is bliss 'twere folly to be wise." That begs the question, for in a sphere like this, ignorance never can be bliss. Rather believe that knowledge is our crown, and wear it as the diadem of God, and if it pierces and is a crown of thorns, the servant is not greater than his Lord.

And So Is Love

And then, in closing, there is another crown. It is the fairest of them all—the crown of love. It is the only crown that is of amaranth, for love is to last forever and forever. Without it, the brow is always bare, and the heart is always very cold and lonely. But the commonest dwelling is a palace with it, and there is sunshine in the dreariest day. And all the wealth of the Indies will not buy it, and all the might of armies will not force it, and all the hands that reach out of the dark are powerless to pluck it from the brow. And it is not hidden in Some guarded casket, far from the handling of the common people. It is not only above the bright blue sky that there's a crown for little children. There's a crown for them here, where they are loved today, and for their mothers who rejoice in motherhood, and for their fathers who have not been false to tryst and covenant of long ago. Love is the crown of life, for God is love, and everything is a mockery without it. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and to be loveless forever and ever, that is hell. And yet this love which is the crown of life, the bliss of angels and the air of heaven, tell me, is it not a crown of thorns? I think of the patriot who loves his country. I think of the mother with her little children. Has she no fears—no torturing anxiety—no seasons when the sword is in her heart? I think of Jesus Christ who loved us so, and who was mocked and buffeted and slain, who found in love the pathway to His joy and equally the pathway to His cross. Love has its triumph and it has its torture. Love has its paradise and has its pain. Love has its mountain of transfiguration, and its olive garden where the sweat is blood. Love is the secret of the sweetest song; love is the secret of the keenest suffering. Love is the very crown of life—and it is a crown of thorns. And they platted a crown of thorns and put it on His head. That is what God is doing with us all. And shall I tell you why He treats us so, and stabs us in our coronation? It is that, looking upon the brow of Christ, we may all feel we have a Brother there. It is that, watching His patience and His courage, we may be patient and courageous too. It is that we may lift our eyes to where the Lamb is standing at the throne, where there is no more pain; where there is no more curse; where the thorn has vanished from the crown forever.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

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April 28

The Great Refusal - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

They gave him wine to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink— Mat_27:34

The One Cup Jesus Refused to Drink

It was a kindly provision of the Jews to give an opiate to the condemned. They found their warrant in the page of the Old Testament. Anesthetics in these earlier days were, of course, very far from perfect. There was no method of mitigating pain save by some dulling or stupefying drug. And it was such a draught that was offered to the Lord when He reached the place appointed for His death. This was fittingly the ministry of women. There was a guild of ladies who charged themselves with that. They bought the ingredients and mingled them, and had them ready for the unhappy criminal. And no one who witnessed the scene ever forgot how, when the draught was handed to the Lord, He quietly and deliberately refused it. He took it, and He tasted it. He was always courteous to the kind. He recognised the compassion that inspired it, and to the compassionate He was ever gracious. Then, having tasted it, and having thanked them, He quite deliberately returned the cup. It was the one cup which He refused to drink. Can we understand that swift declination? Can we fathom the reasons of refusal? The answer brings us to the heart of things.

Had He Drunk It He Would Have Marred the Crowning Service of His Life

One thinks, for instance, how the drinking of that draught would have marred the crowning service of His life. The Cross was the crowning service of His life. There is a way of thinking of the death of Jesus as if it were the tragic end of a high story. There are those who take it as the pitiable opposite of all the rich and popular activities of Galilee. But never, through the whole New Testament, is there even a hint of such a view as that—the Cross is the crowning service of His life. Christ deliberately chose that by which He was to be remembered. It was the hour when everything burst into a flame. It gathered up into one splendid action all the redeeming labours of His days. All He had come to do—all He had lived for—all His work as prophet, priest, teacher and king—was crowned in the last service of the Cross. Now, when a man is facing noble service, does he drug his faculties with opiates? Does the surgeon take a drug before the operation? Does the captain do it when the storm is threatening? For such hours, the crowning hours of service, when tremendous demands are going to be imposed, a man must be at his clearest and his best. Had His work been over, our Lord might have drunk that draught. He might have argued that nothing mattered now. That swift refusal, as with a flash of light, reveals the Master's outlook on His death. It was no tragic and pitiable end, to be got through with the minimum of suffering. It was a service to be wrought with His whole being.

Akin to that is the great thought that our blessed Lord died of His own will. "No man taketh it [my life] from me, but I lay it down of myself" (Joh_10:18). No beast in the sacrificial rites of Judaism ever died of its own will. It was dragged to the altar, struggling and reluctant. It died because other hands were gripping it. And the infinite value of the death of Jesus lay in its being a voluntary sacrifice—I come to do Thy will, O God. Now the singular power of opiates is this, that they interfere with the freedom of the will. Under their influence we are no longer free. We pass under the dominance of others. We are not controlled nor directed from within when the drug has poured its poison through the veins; we are controlled and directed from without. No longer are we self-determined, nor do we act because we will to act. We have yielded up the mastery of life; we have rendered our personality to others. And that was the one thing our Master could not do if, in the perfect freedom of His love, He was to lay His life down of Himself. So He took the cup, and tasted it, for He was always courteous to the kindly—and then, deliberately, He refused it.

==============================See Page 2

[nChrist]

The Great Refusal - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

How Much We Would Have Lost Had He Drunk the Cup

One thinks again how much we should have lost had the Lord drunk of that stupefying draught. We should have lost some of the sweetest passages of Scripture. We should never have heard that wonderful prayer for pardon, "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do." We should never have known His filial care for Mary, "Woman, behold thy son." We should never have had the ringing, glad assurance wherewith He cried in a loud voice, "It is finished"—the greatest word in the whole of human history. What multitudes have been rescued from despair by the story of the penitent thief, saved and blessed at the eleventh hour, when it seemed too late even for heaven's mercy? Yet of that penitent thief we never should have heard, nor of his cry, nor of the Lord's "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise," had He drunk of that stupefying drug. A poorer Bible and a poorer Christendom—was our Lord conscious of all that? I do not know; the Scripture does not tell us. No man can fathom the consciousness of Jesus. I only know we should have lost forever the seven words upon the Cross, had He not refused to drink the offered draught.

He Wanted to be Our Brother in Suffering

One wonders, too, if in that great refusal our Lord was not thinking of His own. For in spite of all the advances of our knowledge, suffering is still terribly real. There was a friend of my boyhood's home who suffered from an excruciating trouble. He was a genuinely Christian man, who had been active in the service of the Kingdom. And when friends stooped down to catch what he was whispering as he lay at last upon his bed of agony, what they heard was, "He suffered more for me." Was our Lord thinking of that follower when He came to Golgotha that day? Did He resolve that He would be a Brother, down to the very depths of human agony? It would be so like Him if that were in His heart when—facing the untold agony of Calvary—He refused to drink the wine mingled with gall.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

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(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
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April 29

The Darkness at the Cross

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour— Mat_27:45
When Jesus Was Born there Was Light, When He Died There Was Darkness

It is notable that when our Lord was born there was a supernatural light across the sky. It was a fitting prelude to the life of Him who was sent to be the light of men. The shepherds, sitting by their flocks, were surprised by the shining of the heavens. The night became as day about them when the Holy Child was born. All which was God's prophetic symbol of the illumination of the heart of man through the unspeakable gift of the Lord Jesus. The strange thing is that when our Saviour died there was no illumination such as that. If the cradle was a scene of light, the cross was a spectacle of darkness. At the hour of noon, when in ordinary course the sun would have shone in oriental brilliancy, there stretched a veil of darkness on the land. What are the voices that reach us from that darkness? For the darknesses of heaven are always eloquent. Let us meditate on that.

One thinks first how the darkness at the cross speaks to us of the sympathy of God. If someone whom we dearly loved were mangled in some crowded thoroughfare, the agony of it would be vastly deepened for us by the cruel feature of publicity. To have someone dear to us in torture in the center of a gaping crowd must be one of the most awful of experiences. Instinctively we draw a curtain around the sufferings of those we love. We cannot bear to think that loveless eyes should gaze upon their agonies and torments. That is why, when a dear one is in pain, we "steik the door," as Sir Walter Scott put it; that is why, in the ward of the infirmary, the curtain is hung around the bed. God's curtain was the darkness. He had such pity as a father hath. He could not bear that cruel mocking eyes should feast themselves on the tortures of His Son. And in His infinite Fatherly compassion, from the sixth hour to the ninth, He drew the veil around that dying bed.

The Ministry of the Shadow

One thinks again how the darkness at the cross reveals to us the ministry of shadow. Did you ever notice what the darkness did for the men and women who were gathered there? Before that noonday how fearful was the scene! There was malignant and insulting mockery. The passersby reviled the Crucified; likewise the priests and scribes and elders mocked Him. We see a rabble, merciless and cruel, stirred to the point of frenzy by their leaders—and then at the sixth hour came the darkness. Men tell us that in the sun's eclipse there falls a great silence on the world. Hushed is the song of birds, hushed, too, the howling of the beasts. And one has only to read the story of the cross to see how, when the darkness fell, there died away that howling of the beasts. Reviling ceased; mockery was silenced; there was not another syllable of railing. One gathers that the attitude of insolence was changed into an attitude of awe. That mysterious overshadowing gloom chilled the blasphemy of ribald lips and struck a terror into every heart. Uproar became quietness. Insolence passed into an awful wonder. A strange and searching sense of mystery fell on the most frenzied spirit there. And who can doubt that God, who loves the world, and willeth not that any man should perish, was moving in that ministry of gloom? There are things we learn in darkness that we never learn when the sun is in the sky. Sometimes men only see their cruelty, when the other is in the valley of the shadow. It is not when the heaven is radiant that men detect how evil they have been. It is often when the darkness deepens. The darkness at Calvary was gracious. It was the goodness of God leading to repentance. It awed men. It woke their conscience. It led them swiftly to revalue Jesus. I believe that many who on a later day believed in Jesus and rejoiced in Him would date the beginning of their gracious change from the awful darkness at the cross.

The Darkness Speaks of the Mystery of Atonement

Lastly, the darkness at the cross speaks to us of the mystery of atonement. Here is something no human eye can penetrate. So long as the sun was shining every movement of the Lord was visible. Did He lift up His eyes to heaven? They observed it. Did He look round on the crowd? They marked that also. And then the darkness fell, and He was hidden from them, and now let them strain their eyes, however eagerly, they knew not what was transacting in the shadow. They could not follow nor fathom what was forward. There was something they were powerless to penetrate. No husband could go home that Friday evening and say to his wife, "Wife, I saw it all. "And the strange thing is that to this hour no saint or scholar, brooding on the atonement, would ever dare to say "I see it all." No theory exhausts the cross. No intellect fathoms the atonement. No human thought can grasp the height and depth of the greatest of all mysteries. And that shrouding from our finite mind of the infinite meanings of atonement is one of the suggestions of the darkness.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
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(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
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April 30

The Place Where the Lord Lay

He is not here; for he is risen. ....Come, see the place where the Lord lay— Mat_28:6

The Grave Is Associated with Gladness

One does not usually associate gladness with the grave. That is not the experience of men. The sepulchre is the quiet home of sorrow, where the tears fall in gentle, loving memory. How often, visiting a graveyard, does one see somebody lingering by a tomb, taking away the flowers that are withered, tending it with a sweet and careful reverence. Such ministrants are seldom singing folk, with a great and shining gladness on their faces. They are the children of memory and sorrow. Summoned to a grave, we know at once that we are summoned to a place of sadness. Women clothe themselves in decent black, as perceiving the unseemliness of colour. And yet the strange thing is, in the passage now before us, that when the angel wanted to make these women glad, he bade them come and investigate a grave. He did not drive them from the garden, as Adam and Eve were driven from the garden. He did not bid them try to forget their sorrow, and go out and face their duty in the world. He quieted their fears and cheered their hearts, and turned their sorrow into thrilling joy, by bidding them investigate a grave. It is one of the strangest episodes of history. To exaggerate its uniqueness is impossible. It is the only time in all the centuries when a grave is the triumphant argument for gladness. We make pilgrimages to see where poets sang, or where patriots lived, or captains fought their battles. But the angel said (and it brought morning with it), "Come, see the place where the Lord lay."

The Grave Was Empty

One marvellous thing was that that place was empty, though only the angel knew why it was empty. It had not been rifled of its priceless treasure: He is not here—He is risen. The Sadhu Sundar Singh tells of a friend of his who visited Mohammed's tomb. It was very splendid and adorned with diamonds, and they said to him, "Mohammed's bones are here." Ho went to France and saw Napoleon's tomb, and they said to him, "Napoleon's bones are here." But when he journeyed to the Holy Land and visited the sepulchre of Jesus, nobody there said anything like that. That was the marvellous thing about the place. It thrilled these women to the depths. The grave was empty. The Master was not there. In the power of an endless life He had arisen. That empty grave, flung open for inspection, lies at the back of all the Easter gladness which had transformed and revivified the world. In the rising of Christ all His claims are vindicated. In His rising His Father's love is vindicated. His rising satisfies the human heart, which needs more than the inspiration of a memory. The certainty that we have a living friend, who will be with us always in a living friendship, springs from the investigation of a grave. For once, the grave is not a place of sadness. It is the home of song and not of tears. It is the birthplace of a triumphant joy that has made music through the darkest hours. "He is not here; He is risen. He has won the victory over the last great enemy. Come, see the place where the Lord lay."

The Grave Was Orderly

But not only was the place empty. We are also told that it was orderly. There were the linen clothes lying, and the napkin folded by itself. Now, some have held (and perhaps they are right in holding) that this reveals the manner of the rising. The napkin still retained the perfect circle which it had had when wound around His brow. As if the Lord, awaking, had not laid aside these cerements, but had passed through them, in His spiritual body, as afterwards He passed through the closed doors. The older view is different from that, and to the older view I still incline. It is that our blessed Lord, awaking, had deliberately put all these things in order. And that, if it be the true conception, is in perfect harmony with all we know of Jesus, in the decisive hours of His life. What a quiet authority He showed! What a majestic and unruffled calm! Look at Him in the storm or on the Cross. His are no desperate nor hasty victories. And now, in His victory over the last great enemy, there is the kingly touch of a sublime assurance. "He that believeth will not make haste." Drowning men struggle for the surface. Men entombed fight to gain their freedom. But the grave of Jesus bore not a single trace of any desperate or struggling haste. It was orderly. There lay the folded napkin. Leisurely calm had marked the resurrection. It was the quiet triumphing action of a king. Tell me, if men had stolen the body, would they conceivably have left these things behind? Or, if they had, would they not have torn them off, and thrown them down in a disordered heap? But they were folded, and everything was orderly, and there was not a trace of confusion in the grave. He is not here; He is risen.

The Grave Was Fragrant

But not only was it orderly; we must not forget that the place was also flagrant. Spices had been strewn around His body, and the odour of them filled the tomb. The Lord had left the grave, and it was empty. He had left it, and it was orderly. But is it not full of beautiful suggestiveness that He had left it flagrant? For now, through Him who died for us and rose again, there is something of fragrance in the common grave that none ever had perceived before. There is the hope of a life that lies beyond, in the light and love and liberty of heaven. There is the hope of meeting again those whom we have lost. There is the hope of seeing face to face, at last, in a communion that never shall be broken, the Friend and Master to whom our debt is infinite.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

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May 1

Where They Found Him

And when they had found him— Mar_1:37

Lost and Found—Sinner and Savior!

Meditating on the Gospel story, one of the most enriching of all studies, one notes the great variety of places in which men and women found the Savior. There are people of whom we say admiringly, that you always know where you will find them. At any hour of any given day, you know where they are to be met with. But I venture to say, with the most perfect reverence, no one ever could say that of Christ—that was one of the wonders of His life. Appointments may be precious, but what a charm there is in unexpected meetings, when suddenly in the crowd we see a face, and then the sun shines out even in December. People were always finding Christ like that, suddenly, in very diverse places, and it is of one or two of these I wish to write.

In the Special or Striking Place

First, let us take the wise men from the East. They found Him in a manger. It was the unlikeliest place in all the world for One who had been heralded by stars. I remember, many years ago, going down a coal mine with a friend. We stumbled along a mile of tunnel, and there came on a man working in a hollow. And my guide, who was the local minister, pointing to the stooping figure, said, "That is the brightest Christian in my parish." Then I thought of the wise men from the East finding Christ in that unlikely manger. I thought of the rowers upon the Lake of Galilee finding Him upon the stormy sea. I thought of the penitent thief upon the cross, finding the desire of all the nations amid the shames and agonies of Calvary. That is one of the wonders of the Lord. He is found in the unlikeliest places, in lives where one would never think to light on Him, and in the most unpromising of circumstances. He is found in India and in Manchuria, and among the hills and glens in Livingstonia, and in the savage islands of the Pacific Ocean. How often, studying the Old Testament, is the Lord found in the unlikeliest places—not in the royal splendors of Isaiah, but in seemingly desolate and barren tracts. So the magi, dreaming of kingly furnishings, and of cradles wrought with curious art, found Him a little babe among the beasts.

In the Sacred Place

Then, passing on a little, one remembers how His parents found Him in the Temple. It is a story familiar to us all. The wisest sages of the land were there, but Mary and Joseph never heeded them. The courts were echoing with music, but I question if Mary ever heard it. Like a morning of sunshine after a night of weeping was the sight of Jesus to His mother's eyes, and she and Joseph found Him in the church. Not in the streets where rolled the tide of traffic; not amid the chaffering of bazaars; but in the beautiful place where God was worshipped, with its altar and its mercy seat. And to this hour, wherever folk are gathered to worship God in singleness of heart, the Lord still reveals Himself as present. Through song and prayer, or when the word is preached, or in mystical ways the mind can never fathom, how many become conscious of that presence which makes all the difference in the world? What new meaning does it give to churchgoing if we practice it in quiet assurance that we shall meet the chiefest among ten thousand there?

In the Solitary Place

Then, again, one recalls how His disciples found Him in the solitary place. To me that is of infinite suggestiveness. All the evening before He had been busy, healing sicknesses and working miracles. Virtue had been passing out of Him, for when He gave a cure He gave Himself. Then in the morning, long before the sunrise, He had risen and stolen quietly away—and they found Him in the solitary place. All alone, nobody beside Him, round Him the infinite solitude of nature—and to me there is a parable in that. To many a young man there comes the day when his spirit is thrilled by Emerson or Shakespeare. But Shakespeare and Emerson do not stand alone; there are other essayists and other poets. You find them moving in a glorious company, and you look at them, and call them men of genius; but you find Christ in the solitary place. Genius is a thing of less or more. It has its chosen child in every century. Genius may be an all-subduing flame, or it may only be a tiny spark. But the one thing you can never do with Christ is to regard Him as belonging to a class; you find Him in the solitary place. In the unconditional obedience He calls for, in His unparalleled and stupendous claims, in His immediate knowledge of the Father, in His total sinlessness, Christ stands alone, confronting every one of us. We find Him in the solitary place.

The Standard Places - Along the "Highway of Life"

Lastly, one recalls that there were those who found Him on the common highway. Who does not know the matchless story of the two who found Him on the Emmaus road. There rolled the wagon. There the chariot dashed. There marched the legions of the empire. There was the merchant travelling on business; there the prodigal returning home. It was the common highway, free to everybody, open to the beggar and to the emperor, and there the two disciples found the Lord. Sometimes that common road is very dusty. The heart faints and the feet grow weary on it. We wonder if we shall have strength to travel it, till in the hour of evening we win home. But what a difference it makes, what a blessed and amazing difference, when like the two going to Emmaus, we find Him on the common road! He makes so much of our worrying ridiculous. We forget it all in company with Him. He is so radiant, so full of loving hopefulness, so absolutely sure of God. In that companionship life blossoms. We have courage for the darkest mile. We recapture, even when the shadows fall, the burning of the heart.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

May 2

The Touch That Reveals

Jesus... put forth his hand, and touched him— Mar_1:41

We Reveal What We Are by What We Habitually Do

It has been said that if we want to judge a person we should never do it by a single action; but if we must do it by a single action, let that action be an ordinary one. A man is more likely to reveal himself in the kind of thing he habitually does than in the deed of some excited moment. Now touching is a very ordinary action. We touch a thousand things each passing day. We do not prepare ourselves for touching things, as we do for the greater hours of our life. Yet in the touch of Jesus, instinctive and spontaneous, what a deal of His glory we discover! There is an evangel of the touch of Christ as surely as an evangel of the blood. I want you to think, then, of the Master's touch, that in this common, ordinary action we may have some revelation of the Lord.

Christ's Touch Revealed His Brotherhood

First, then, His touch revealed His brotherhood—we find that in the story of the leper. "If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean"—and then we read that Jesus touched him. All that the leper expected was a cure. He thought some word of power would be pronounced. He would have been well content to light on a physician; he never dreamed he was going to find a friend. And when Jesus touched him—him the outcast, him whom everybody loathed and shunned—it was something he never could forget. He would go home and tell his wife, "He touched me." He would gather the villagers and say, "He touched me." He had found more in Christ than a physician; he had found a brother and a friend. That touch revealed to him, as nothing else could do, in all the ineffable yearning of his loneliness, that he was face to face with One who understood. That was the revelation of the touch. It revealed in an instant the Savior's loving heart. It revealed His scorn of prudential morality and the self-forgetful courage of His comradeship. It was the kind of thing we are doing every day, for every day we touch a hundred objects, yet here it was the sacrament of brotherhood.

Christ's Touch Revealed His Divine Authority

Again His touch revealed His large authority: it was a quietly commanding touch. That emerges, with quite singular vividness, in St. Luke's story of the widow of Nain. When He met that procession, outside the city gates, the first thing He did was to address the mother. Christ has always a cheering word to say, even in hours when other lips are dumb. And then Luke tells us that He touched the bier, and immediately the whole procession halted. He did not argue or discuss the matter. He did not beg the favor of a halt. Apparently He did not speak one syllable to the men who were carrying the bier. It was His touch that was authoritative. It was His touch that had commanding power—and His touch has commanding power to this day. How many a drunkard has that touch stopped, when heading straight for a dishonored grave! How many a woman has that touch stopped, when she was squandering the possibilities of womanhood! The touch of the Lord reveals His brotherhood, but sometimes it does more even than that. It reveals the range of His divine authority.

Christ's Touch Revealed God's Restfulness

Then once again His touch revealed His restfulness. "Come unto me and I will give you rest." Is not the restful touch exhibited very beautifully when there was sickness in the house of Peter? Simon's mother-in-law was down with fever—of what particular kind we do not know. Her pulse was racing, and her head was aching, and she was restlessly tossing on her couch. And then, we read, the Savior came and touched her, and immediately the fever left her. The "storm was changed into a calm" in the house of Peter as on the Sea of Galilee. Instead of uneasy tossing there was peace. Instead of feverish unrest, repose. The infinite restfulness of Jesus flowed out through the very act of touching, and the touch itself conveyed what it revealed. There are people whose touch is wonderfully restful. That is one sure mark of a good nurse. There are people who can calm us by a touch, just as others by a touch can irritate. But the touch of Jesus is unequalled, in the "fitful fever" of this life, for conveying the restfulness of God.

Christ's Touch Revealed His Uplifting Power

Lastly, His touch revealed His uplifting power: we see that in the case of Jairus' daughter. When He went in the little maid was sleeping—they called it death, but Jesus called it sleep. For Him death meant something far more awful than the closing of those childish eyes. Then He touched her—took her by the hand—and the Gospel tells us that the maid arose: it is the elevating power of His touch. On Goldsmith's monument these words are written—nihil tetigit quod non ornavit. They mean that within the realm of literature he touched nothing that he did not adorn. Outside literature that is not true of Oliver. He had a touch which often tarnished things. It is only true universally of Jesus. He touched water, and the water became wine, and the wine became the symbol of His blood. He touched the lilies, and their scarlet robes grew more beautiful than those of Solomon. He touched language, and common words like talent were lifted up from the bank into the brain. He touched Simon, and Simon became Peter. What sin touches it defiles. What the devil touches he degrades. Everything that Jesus touches is lifted up to higher, nobler levels. Of all which we have a sign and symbol when in Jairus' house that day He took the maid by the hand, and she arose.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

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[nChrist]

May 4

Harvest Thoughts

He went through the cornfields on the Sabbath day— Mar_2:23

Christ Introduces the Evidential Value of the Ordinary

Harvest helps us to recapture the thought of God in the common things of nature. We do not bring what is rare into the sanctuary; we bring the common products of the fields. Our Lord's outlook upon nature differs somewhat from that of the Old Testament. There generally (though not always) God is recognized in the stupendous. In the roaring cataract, in the thunder, in the cedar which overtopped its neighbors, the Jew saw the signature of heaven, and found his testimony to Jehovah. The wonderful thing about our Lord is how He introduced another scale of values. He recognized, as none had done before Him, the evidential value of the ordinary. For Him the sparrows chattering on the housetops, and the mustard plant, and the lilies of the field were the scattered witnesses of God and the inconspicuous sacraments of heaven. It is a great thing to see God in the miracle; it is a greater to find Him in the usual. It is easier to recognize Him in an escape from death than in the recurring mercies of the day. And harvest-time, is very congenial to the mind of Christ, with its passionate insistence on the common. We do not search out rare and curious fruits for the adornment of the house of God. The sheaves, and the red berries, and the common vegetables are enough. Seeing as Jesus saw, we do not need now to limit heaven to the extraordinary. We recognize and adore God in the usual.

Harvest Awakens Us to the Faithfulness of the Creator

Again we are awakened every harvest to the faithfulness of the Creator. While the earth remains, harvest shall not fail. Often in the summer months one wondered if there would ever be a reaping. The days were sunless, and the rain so pitiless, and then the clouds returned after the rain. Yet now, in the appointed time, the golden sheaves are in the sanctuary, and the ancient promise is fulfilled again. In the deeper life of spirit we have to do with a faithful Creator. One may count on constancy in life when there is such splendid constancy in nature. If God keeps trust with corn, which knows no fashioning in His image, He is not likely to break trust with His children. Our blessed Lord was greatly daring, and spoke of the faith of a grain of mustard-seed. Did you ever quietly ask yourself what is the faith of a grain of mustard-seed? It is the faith, through cheerless days, when the sun is hidden and the rain is dripping, that its little flowers are to bloom and to be perfected. Unregarded by the eye of man, untended by any human skill, unsheltered from the storm, exposed to the fury of the elements, that weed keeps on keeping on, in the inborn hopefulness of heaven, and that is the faith of the grain of mustard-seed. All faith roots in the faithfulness of God. We only trust the trustworthy. One of the encouragements of harvest, to all whose faith is flickering, is its message of the faithfulness of heaven.

Harvest Reminds Us That Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone

Again we are reminded by the harvest that man cannot live by bread alone. Bread is needed if man is to exist; more is needed if he is to live. If bread were all that man required, we should never have had the wonder of the harvest-field. Heaven would have rained bread upon the earth, as it rained manna on the wilderness. The beauty of the harvest-field, with all its golden glory in the autumn, is the silent acknowledgment of heaven that man cannot live by bread alone. So when man makes his waterway he rules the straight line of the canal; but when God makes His waterway, He hollows it in the highland brook. And the brook wanders through the heather, and sleeps in pools and ripples on the pebbles; it is water set to beauty and to song. No poet ever wrote on a canal, but Tennyson caught his music from the brook. Yet probably the water in the brook is the same as flows in the canal. It is the way of giving, the heavenly overplus, the recognition of spiritual cravings, which is the hallmark of God's gifts bestowed for the cravings of the body. The body does not need the harvest-glory, nor the song and beauty of the brook. Why then does heaven give like this? I find no answer to that question save in the knowledge of the great Creator that man cannot live by bread alone.

Harvest Reminds Us How God Requires the Services of Man

Harvest too, reminds us how God requires the services of man. Gifts, however freely given, are ours on the basis of copartnership. We call bread the gift of God. In such language we are taught to pray. Science could no more set a loaf upon the table than it could set a daisy on the lea. But if, in a dull fatalism, we left the giving of the loaf to God, omnipotence itself would be unequal to furnishing the staff of life. Bread needs the sower and the reaper. It needs the hands of miller and of baker. The farmer calls for God, and God calls for the farmer. It is that copartnership, that fellowship, that sense of being laborers together, that lies deep in the joy of harvest, as it lies deep in the joy of life.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
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[nChrist]

May 5

The Kind of Man He Was

There was a man there [in the synagogue] which had a withered hand— Mar_3:1

He Was an Ordinary Man

If we center our attention on this man we see him as a quite ordinary person. He was one of the crowd of undistinguished people who go to church on the Sabbath day. Tradition says he was a bricklayer, and quite probably that is true. It at least indicates the old belief that this was a quite ordinary person. And one of the striking things about the Gospel is its perennial and amazing power over ordinary people like this bricklayer. He is not like Lazarus, or even Bartimaeus, whose names have come ringing down the aisles of time. The only name his fellow-worshippers had for him was "the man with the withered hand." And that, from the first, is just the kind of man whom the Gospel has been powerful to handle, and to give back to usefulness again. That is what makes it a universal Gospel—that heavenly power over nameless people. If lack of culture made it ineffectual it could never be preached across the world. And the very fact that it is so preached, and preached with signs and wonders following, proclaims it as of the Son of Man.

His Experience Was Hard and Embittered

Again we recognize him as a person who had had a hard and embittering experience. We feel the force of that more vividly when we turn to the Gospel of St. Luke. One of the charming things about Luke's Gospel is his illuminative touches in the miracles. Luke was a doctor, with a doctor's eye, quick to observe everything pathological. He tells us that the leper was "full of leprosy," and that Peter's mother-in-law was down with "a great fever"; here he reveals that the hand was the right hand. Nor, mark you, had the man been so from birth. This cruel affliction had come upon him gradually. His hand grew stiff; he lost the power of it; gradually it shrank and atrophied. Until now, when people passed him in the street, they glanced at him with commiseration, and called him "the man with the withered hand." One thinks of everything that must have meant in a day when there were no insurance's nor doles. His work gone—his children without bread—his wife a broken-hearted woman. It was a cruel thing, to all appearance meaningless, one of the taunting ironies —the years had brought him, when he was never dreaming of it, a hard and most embittering experience. Such people are always a great company. There will be not a few of them among my readers. Nothing is so hard to bear in life as bitter things that seem devoid of meaning. And the beautiful thing is that it was just that kind of person whom our blessed Savior singled out that day, in a synagogue which would be crowded.

He Had Not Lost His Faith

And then, equally evident is this, that this man had not lost his faith; for first of all the Savior healed him, and faith is indispensable to miracle. Mark you, faith is not always mentioned in the miracles, nor is there any reason why it should be. It seems to me that faith, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. Had you asked this man if he had faith, he might probably have answered in the negative, but Christ saw more in him than the man dreamed. I want to say a very comforting thing, out of a long pastoral experience. I think that many people have more faith than they are ever willing to admit. Life is compact of faith; we could. not live without it; we walk by faith through every common day—but it has never been turned upon the Lord. That is why Christ did not ask if he had faith. The man would probably have answered "No." But Christ knew him, and read his inmost heart, and saw there what the man had never seen. That is why often the Lord can work so wonderfully, and perform His miracles of grace, on folk who lament they have no faith at all.

He Had Not Given Up the Church

And then this man had not given up the church: that also is a witness to his faith. After his hard and embittering experience he was in the synagogue on that Sabbath day. One can picture him in the old, happy days coming to church with his wife and children; life was pleasant then, and God was good to him, and there was work and bread upon his table. But now, impoverished—dependent upon others—with hungry children and a despairing wife—could you have wondered if he had stayed away? "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want"—and his wife and children were in want. "The Lord God, merciful and gracious"—had He been merciful and gracious unto him? Quite evidently this was a great big soul, still simply trusting in the God of Jacob, and that the Lord instantly recognized. After that cruel irony, after that seemingly meaningless catastrophe, there he was, in his familiar place, listening to the gracious news of heaven. What need to ask him, "Hast thou faith?" That sweet and simple continuance declared it—and, "being in the way," he won his crown.

He Found That He Could Do What Up to That Hour He Had Deemed Impossible
But I keep the best wine to the last, for there is one thing more to be said about this bricklayer. He was a man who found that he could do what up to that hour he had deemed impossible. Do you not think his wife had often said to him, "Husband, try to stretch your hand this morning"? And he, feeling a little better perhaps, had tried, and always tried in vain. The delightful thing is that when the Lord commanded, somehow or other it was not in vain: the Lord said, "Stretch it out," and he just did it. He did not pray about it, nor discuss it, nor plead that it was utterly impossible. To his own intense amazement he just did it, though I daresay he could never tell you how he did it. But we, who know the mind of Christ far more intimately than the despairing bricklayer, are cognizant of the secret of the Lord. There may be seeming ironies in life: there are none in the commands of Christ. When He enjoins, He enables. When He commands, He gives the power. Despondent, on the margins of despair, with an enfeebled will or withered heart, I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

May 6

The Responsibility of Hearing - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

Take heed what ye hear— Mar_4:24

Frequent Emphasis on the Responsibility of Speaking

On the responsibility attached to our speaking our Lord was never weary of insisting. He has given a significance to human words which has altered their character forever. These syllables, invisible as air, are indestructible as adamant. They are the opposite of the snowflake on the river, which is "a moment white, then gone forever." According to the consistent teaching of our Lord, our words are shaping our eternal destiny, and by them, as by the flower of the life, we shall be judged.

Of Equal Importance the Responsibility of Hearing

But if our Lord insists, as He does constantly, upon the responsibilities of speaking, we must never forget that with an equal emphasis He insists on the responsibilities of hearing. Often when He was beginning a discourse, and sometimes when He was concluding a discourse, He would pause a moment, and look round the company, and say, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." It was a solemn summons to reflection, flung out upon a crowd who were all listening; a sharp and swift reminder to His audience of the responsibility attached to all hearing. There was a sense in which all heard alike, for when Jesus spake, He lifted up His voice. Some carry the cross of ineffectual voices; but I do not imagine it was so with Him. But there was another sense in which every man who listened heard something a little different from his neighbor, and Christ was intensely aware of that divergence. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. "All were listening, yet not all were hearing. Christ knew it intuitively and sympathetically. He read it in the look upon their faces. And so do we learn that He who felt intensely the responsibility which clings to speaking, felt, and often gave expression to, the responsibility which is attached to hearing.

Careful How We Hear and What We Hear

In the parallel passage of St. Luke our text assumes a slightly different form. It is softened and toned down a little, and becomes, Take heed how ye hear. Such an injunction as that is not arresting; it would not touch nor startle anybody. Every Galilean schoolboy knows that if he was half asleep in school, he would be punished. What Jesus actually said was far more penetrative, and would send men home to ponder and reflect; not take heed how ye hear, but take heed what ye hear. It is commonly held, and I think rightly held, that Peter dictated these logia to Mark. And I can fancy Mark suggesting a mistake here, for Mark was young enough to be omniscient. And then I can picture the veteran apostle, who had done forever with betraying Christ, bidding his amanuensis hold his tongue and write exactly as he bade him do. Christ was fond of saying startling things, and this is one of His most startling things. Take heed how ye hear is commonplace; take heed what ye hear is revelation. For it tells us that in the kind of things we hear there is more than the impact of the wave of air. There is our love and hate. There is our ruling passion. There is character and destiny.

We Cannot Choose All That We Hear but Our Soul Can Pass Verdict on All

Of course there is a large and literal sense in which hearing is independent of the will. And of course our Savior knew that perfectly, for He was always in living touch with fact. No man can choose entirely what he hears, anymore than he can choose entirely what he sees. There is an element of necessity in life. It is the ground on which our liberty is built. Everyday there are ten thousand sounds travelling towards us in unseen vibration, and just because God has made the ear to hear, we hear them whether we will or no. He whose lot is cast in the great city cannot be deaf to the uproar of the street. He whose home is on the verge of ocean cannot escape the music of the sea. In the physical impact of all sound there is a region where the will is powerless, and Jesus was perfectly aware of that. The point is that when Jesus spoke of hearing, it was not of the physical impact that He thought. For Him no sound had traveled all its course till it had reached from the ear into the soul. And it is when the soul, in its inherent liberty, passes its inevitable verdict, that the thing we hear becomes a moral thing, carrying an infinite significance. "Two men looked out of the prison bars. The one saw mud, the other stars." It was the same prospect that they looked upon, and yet to hope and to despair—how different! And so to different ears come the same words, identical in cadence and in syllable, and yet how diverse their interpretation in the selective power of the soul. It is not really by the eye we see. It is really by the soul we see. And it is not by the ear we hear. It is indeed by the character we hear. By all we love, by all we have made ourselves, by all we have striven for or lusted after, do we take the words which fall on every ear and color them with heaven or with hell. Take heed what you hear. It is a revelation of your personality. It is in the verdicts which you are always passing that your responsibility begins. Every sermon that is worth a scrap is a revelation of the preacher; but remember that in the thought of Christ it is also a revelation of the hearer.

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[nChrist]

The Responsibility of Hearing - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

What We Hear Betrays Our Personality

"Father, glorify thy name," said Jesus, and then there came an answering voice from heaven. And Jesus and the disciples heard it, and all the company who were standing round; and when they heard it, some said it thundered, and others that an angel spoke to Him. Think of it, it was the voice of God: the audible utterance of the Creator. And it fell alike on every listening ear of the men and women who were gathered there. And yet for some of them there was no more in that than the distant roll of thunder in the hills; and for others there was the music of the angels. Each caught the selfsame utterance of heaven. Each heard what he had trained himself to hear. It was the same accent upon every ear, but a different accent within every soul. And that is what Jesus means when He enjoins us to take heed what we hear, for what we hear betrays the personality.

One might illustrate that in many ways. We might think, for instance, of the home. We might think of those childish stammerings of speech that succeed the "only language" of a cry. Those broken syllables—those childish lispings—those faint irrecognisable resemblances—how little these convey of any value to the indifferent or uninterested heart. But to the mother they are full of meaning, and she is never weary listening to them: to her they are the sweetest music in the world. She does not hear them with a fleshly ear. She hears them with a mother's heart. She brings that gift of heaven, a mother's love, to the interpreting of every syllable. And so by what she hears she trains her child; yet in so doing she reveals herself, and stands before us self-confessed in motherhood. Love a person, and his speech is sweet. Hate him, and his every word is barbed. It is by love and hate and jealousy and envy that we record and register the utterance. And thus is it always vital to self-knowledge not only to take heed to what we say, but also to take heed to what we hear.

That strange divergence of the recording faculty has in our modern life one notable expression. It is the bane, perhaps it is the necessity, of the development of party-politics. With party-politics as party-politics the Christian minister has no concern. But with the temper fostered by such politics the Christian minister has every concern. And there is certainly no sphere in modern life which more powerfully or constantly exemplifies that there is no such thing in the affairs of men as what may be called neutrality of hearing. Some great statesman makes a speech, and the news of it is flashed along the wires. And on the morrow in a hundred newspapers it stands precisely as it was delivered. And to one man it is the voice of angels and thrilling as with the music of a trumpet; and to another, hearing the selfsame words, it is sound and fury signifying nothing. Nothing is registered on a clean slate. There is no such thing in life as a clean slate. Nothing falls upon a virgin ear. There is no such gateway to the soul. Men hear by every ideal that they cherish—by every battle they have lost or won—by every ancient privilege they guard—by every dream that they have ever dreamed. All our hope is in our hearing, and all our selfishness is in our hearing; all the right that we have ever sought, and all the wrong that we have ever done. That is the response of human character to everything that falls upon the ear, and our response is our responsibility.

The same thing is always happening in the hearing of the Gospel message. A hearer's judgment of a Gospel sermon is really the judgment of himself. With patient and with prayerful diligence a minister prepares his message. He has his ideals of what preaching is, and from those ideals nothing will make him swerve. And then, often in fear and trembling, and sometimes with a joyous sense of liberty, he gives his message to his beloved people. It is the same message which falls on every ear, and yet how varying is the reception! All that is living in the hearer's breast rises up to meet a living message, and rises in welcome or defiance. Men hear with all that they have made themselves. They hear with every sin that they are clinging to. Every ambition, every joy or sorrow, comes to the hearing of a Gospel sermon. And that is why to one it shall be weariness, and to another a thing to be disproved, and to a third, in hungriness of heart, the message shall be the very bread of angels. It is a great responsibility to preach. It is a great responsibility to hear. I know no teacher except Jesus Christ who has laid such tremendous emphasis on hearing. For Him there is nothing mechanical in hearing. It is the response of what a man has made himself. It is the swift reaction of the character, and character is destiny.

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[nChrist]

The Responsibility of Hearing - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

In closing I point to another familiar fact which helps to illustrate our text. It is the fact that in the company of certain people there are things that we should never dream of saying. There are people in whose presence the most indecent tongue never feels one vestige of restraint. There are other people in whose hearing one would not venture on an unseemly word. And all that, to the observant mind, indicates that the kind of thing we hear depends in no small measure on the character. If one were to tell me an objectionable story I should certainly be very much ashamed. But not of the narrator only should I be ashamed: I should be ashamed also of myself. I should be ashamed that he had such thoughts of me, and of the kind of thing I loved to hear, that he would venture on such garbage to amuse me. There are thousands of men in a city such as this, whose lips are far from being what they ought to be. Yet moving among them every day are citizens who are never visited by their indecency. If their life and character were different, it would all be poured into their ear; but being what they are, they never hear it. To a large extent in our daily life we are responsible for what we hear. There are numerous occasions every day when a man is largely to blame for what is told him. He has invited it by his own habits: by all the impress he has made on others. Had he been living a more worthy life his character would have commanded silence. My brother and sister, take heed what you hear. It is often a revelation of yourself. Count it a thing much to be desired that men should honor you with worthy speech. And when they do the opposite, look inward, and find what must be amiss in you, when men whose words are dishonoring to God venture to trade upon a fellow-feeling. There is no refuge in silence for a Christian. Silence may only indicate consent. There is no refuge from the strife of tongues save in the fellowship of Jesus Christ. For in His presence all that is evil dies, and gossip and indecency are silent, and something stirs men to say out their worthiest, as conscious of a heart that understands.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

May 7

Taking Him as He Was

They took him even as he was— Mar_4:36

Without What Some Thought as Necessary Provisions

From the first verse of this chapter we infer that Christ had been teaching the people from the boat. He was not particular about His pulpit. He had sat in the ship a little way from land, and spoken so to the crowds upon the shore. Now the teaching was over; He was weary; He was craving for a period of rest. And so He bade His disciples cross the lake, and that is the moment to which our text refers—they took Him even as He was. Perhaps the sky was threatening a storm, and someone had suggested fetching cloaks. Or one had hinted at getting store of victuals if they were going to camp out on the other side. And then Peter, who was dictating this, recalled a certain eagerness in Christ, so that all the kindly hints had come to nothing. They had not waited till any cloaks were brought. They had not sent a messenger ashore. Weary, and probably hungry, they had taken Him even as He was. That is a great task for all of us, and I should like to consider for a little some of the many folk who fail to do it.

Don't Take Jesus as You Think He Ought to Be

First, then, I speak of those who take Jesus as they think He ought to be. It is the temptation of many godly people, and that is the reason why I put it first. They never doubt that Jesus is divine. Their confessing cry is that of Thomas. Then they remember what they learned in childhood, that God sees everything and is omniscient. And so, quite independently of Scripture, and as an inference from the attributes of God, they conclude that it was so with Him. Then perhaps they open Scripture, and they find Him saying, "I do not know." Or they read that He was astonished and surprised, and, of course, omniscience never is surprised. And it perplexes them, and gives them troublesome doubts, as if the writers were tampering with their Lord, and laying violent hands upon His glory. Then comes the temptation to wrest Scripture, and to make it mean what it could never mean, and to evade the sense that any child would gather if you put the Bible in his hand. And to all such I would say quietly, and very gently (for I honor them), "Friend, you must take Him even as He was." Never dream that you are honoring God by imposing your conceptions upon God. Never dream that any thoughts of yours can be worthier than those the Bible gives you. You are a child, a learner, a disciple, and as a child you must come to Christ in Scripture. You must take Him even as He was.

You Can Learn from Nature Only as You Take It as It Is

That this is the only way to get to know Christ I might illustrate in simple fashion. I might think of the knowledge we have gained of nature. For long centuries men came to nature with certain preconceptions in their minds. They had their theories about the world, and to these theories nature must conform. And the result was ignorance, and rank empiricism, and a science that was falsely so called, and the countless errors of the Middle Ages. Then came Bacon—and what did Bacon do? He took nature even as she was. He swept away that fog of preconception. He accepted facts as simply as a child. And the result was a real and growing insight into the mystery of God in nature, which has irradiated all the world for us. For us the wayside weed is wonderful, and the tiniest insect is compact of miracle. For us there is a glory in the heavens such as was never dreamed of by the Psalmist. And all the knowledge has been brought to us because these gallant toilers of the dawn had the courage to take nature as she was.

Take Him as He Is, Not as Others Present Him

Again, I think of those who take Him as they find Him in the books they read. Our modern literature is full of Christ even though His name be never mentioned. There is a Christ of Browning and of Tennyson. There is a Christ of Mr. Wells. There is a Christ of the novels of George Eliot, and of the sermons of Newman and of Spurgeon. Yet all these are but imperfect paintings, and the yearning heart can never rest in them. To know Him and to trust Him and to love Him we must take Him even as He was. That was what the wise men from the East did. In their books they had been told of Him. And then the star appeared and led them to the cradle—and the cradle was but a sorry manger. Many a scholar would have gone home again, preferring his scholarly dreams to this reality; but they took Him even as He was. Took Him in the manger, with the ox and ass as His companions—gave Him the gold and frankincense and myrrh—worshipped and adored. These students of all the learning of the Orient did what every student has to do—they took Him even as He was.

Don't Take Him as You See Him in the Lives of Others

Lastly, I think of those who take Him as they see Him in the lives of others. Someone has very truly said that a Christian is the Bible of the street. There are multitudes who judge of Christ by what they see in His professing followers. And very often that is a noble witness, fraught with an influence incalculable, and rich in commendation of the Master. A godly and consecrated father is a noble argument for Christ. A Christlike mother, in a worrying home, is more convincing than any book of evidences. But the pity is that you and I who trust Him are often so very different from that. And to all who are watching us and judging Him by us, I say, "Friend, you are not dealing fairly with the Master. You must take Him even as He was." You would never dream of judging Chopin by the schoolgirl's rendering on her poor piano. Is it perfectly fair to judge of Christ by the imperfect rendering of His learners? What a difference it would make for multitudes if only, like the disciples on the lake, they would take Him even as He was.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

May 8

The Ultimate Discovery

And they went out to see what it was that was done. And they come to Jesus— Mar_5:14, Mar_5:15

They Went Out Searching and They Lighted on Jesus

As many of my readers are aware, there are no verses in the Greek New Testament. The text runs on without a single break. The verses of our English Bible have proved a great help to Scripture study. For thousands of humble folk they have made the Bible easier to read. But sometimes they obscure the sense, and cut right across some striking thought, as in the passage we are considering today. One pictures the swineherds, trembling and aghast, hurrying to the city with the news. One pictures the crowd, angry and unbelieving, pouring out of the city to the shore. Or as Mark puts it (and as he wrote the words don't you think their depths would dawn on him?), they went out to see what was done, and come to Jesus. The extraordinary thing is how often we do that. We go searching, and we find the Lord. We pursue our inquiries wherever they may lead us, and we light on Jesus, central and dynamical. We might illustrate that in many different ways.

Our Present Education and Civilization Would Lead Us Back to Christ

Think of national life, for instance, as we have it in our own land of Scotland. Men visit our shores from many countries to see what has been done in education. They inspect our splendid schools and colleges, they learn of our national passion for education, and then, pursuing inquiries, they discover that it runs back to the genius of John Knox. But John Knox was not a teacher, he was a mighty preacher of the Lord; and so, going out to see what has been done, men come to Jesus. Or, take the United States, with their vitality and their idealism, with their gallant effort to stem the tide of drink, with their extraordinary liberality. And when one asks inquiringly what lies away at the back of this large life, one comes to the Pilgrim Fathers. That is to say, one comes to men and women who gave up everything for the sake of the Lord Christ, who left their homes and the green fields of England, in simple and splendid loyalty to Him. So, going out to see what has been done in that virile and magnificent republic, one comes, like the Gadarenes, to Jesus.

Or, again, think of missions in their industrial and civilizing aspects. Take such a mission as Livingstonia. Go out to see what has been done there, and you find schools and colleges and hospitals; you find trade, and boats upon the lake, and highways, and cultivation of the soil. And then, back of all that civilization, where fifty years ago was blood and terror, you see the rugged face of Dr. Livingstone. Now Dr. Livingstone was not a trader. He was something more than consul or explorer. He was a man inspired by the Lord Jesus, and eager for the coming of His Kingdom. So, going out to see what has been done in the very heart of Africa, you come to Jesus. Multiply all that by fifty from the New Hebrides to Madagascar. Everywhere a growing civilization, and at the back of it—the Lord. It is facts like that, and the world is full of them, that bow me at the feet of Christ and make me cry, "His name shall be called Wonderful."

Our Poetry, Architecture and Music Go Back to Jesus

Nor should we forget that we make the same discovery when we engage in the pursuit of beauty. Poets and artists must remember that. I think of poetry, that daughter of the gods. Now, where did English poetry begin? Not in the love of nature, but in the inspirations of religion. I think of architecture, that "frozen music," and I am back to church and to cathedral, each fashioned in the likeness of the cross. When the common people lived in hovels, when Scottish palaces were only keeps, when domestic architecture was undreamed of, when private dwellings were comfortless and shapeless, art, genius, increasing toil were being lavished in the service of the faith. I think of painting, that most heavenly art, and I discover at the birth of modern painting not the portrayal of mountains or of forest, but the figures of Mary and her Child. Go out to see what has been done in the noble realms of English poetry. Go out to see what has been done in painting, architecture, music. The strange thing is that whenever you do that, never dreaming what you are going to find, like the Gadarenes, you come to Jesus.

At the Back of Our Social Reform Is Jesus

Again, one thinks how true this is in the great sphere of social reform. At the back of it all do we not come to Him? Who led the way in the reform of prisons? It was certainly not your general philanthropist. It was men like Howard, whose hearts the Lord had touched, and who had felt the power of His compassion. Who toiled for the emancipation of the slave? It was not your champion of the rights of man. It was men like Wilberforce, inspired by the conviction that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Go out and see what has been done for women—go and inquire what has been done for children—go and cast your eyes on Quarrier's Homes—go and measure the walls of our infirmaries—and you come, not to a general philanthropy, nor to any natural tenderness of heart: like the Gadarenes you come to Jesus. Go down into the slums of our great cities, and tell me who is toiling there. Moral philosophers? I rarely meet them.

Doctrinaires? They are at home discussing social problems. I light on Christian men and Christian women. I light on the Salvation Army, with its magnificent battle-cry of "Blood and Fire." When the drunkard is made himself again, when the poor woman of the street is rescued, when little homes that once were pigsties become models of neatness and of cleanness, I bear my witness, after a long ministry, that in ninety-nine cases in the hundred at the back of everything you come to Jesus. Ally yourself with Him. He is the only One who gets things over. Why waste youth and energy and brains in allying yourself with anybody else? With life so short, with so much yet to do to "build Jerusalem in our pleasant land," it is the sanest and most practical of politics to fight under the banner of the Lord.

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George H. Morrison Devotions

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[nChrist]

May 9

Why She Was Treated So

But the woman fearing and trembling…came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth. And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace— Mar_5:33-34

Why Didn't the Lord Let Her Go Unnoticed?

One is ready to think it would have been kindlier treatment if our Lord had let this woman slip away. It would have been more consistent with His gentleness. Probably she was a stranger in the place; all the traditions point to that. She was a modest and retiring woman, not in the least eager for publicity. And the hidden cross that she had borne for years had been of a kind that made her haunt the shadows, as one burdened with a thing of shame. Was it not a little unlike our blessed Lord to insist on an overt avowal—to make her, sore against her will, the observed of all observers? Would it not have been kinder to let her go quietly home, rejoicing in the fact that she was healed, though nobody knew anything about it? Our Lord Himself had often felt that deep imperious craving for retirement. Thronged by the crowd, He had often stolen away to where beyond the voices there was peace. And yet He refused to let this woman go; He summoned her forth, and made her tell her story. He brought her in confession to His feet. One perhaps wonders why He acted so; it seems so different from His usual tenderness. Let us try to find the loving reasons for it.

She Would Have Thought She Was Cured by Magic

First, then, had He let her steal away she would have carried wrong conceptions to her grave. She would have thought she had been healed by magic, and would never have known the loving will of Christ. That her faith was a strong and conquering faith is written so that he who runs may read. She did not expect to be made a little better. She believed that at a touch she would be whole. And this, though she had never seen the Lord, and had no parallel to rest her faith upon, for all this happened early in Christ's ministry. It was a very strong and splendid faith, yet intellectually it was a faith of ignorance. She evidently thought there was some magic power resident in the garments of the Master. She believed that without the consciousness of Christ, and the loving cooperation of His will, wonderful things could be wrought upon her body. Now cannot you see what would have happened if the Lord had let her quietly slip away? She would never have known the loving will of Christ; she would have thought her cure was automatic. And our Lord summoned her forth, and made her tell her story, that she might be lifted out of the realm of magic and brought into living relationship with Him. It seemed cruel, but it was really kind. It sent her home with loftier thoughts of Him. She would never talk of the wonder of the tassel; she would always talk of the wonder of the Lord. Permitted to steal away without confession, she would have said exultantly, "I've found a cure." Now the woman cried, "I've found a friend."

She Would Have Never Been Sure of Jesus

Then had she been allowed to steal away she never would have been quite sure of Jesus. She would have been haunted, to the last hour she lived, by the suspicion that she had done something wrong. You will notice that when the Savior summoned her she came to His blessed feet with fear and trembling. It was not her dread of the crowd that made her tremble; it was something deeper in her woman's breast. It was her fear that she had stolen something; that she had filched a cure and acted surreptitiously; that she was going to hear the accents of rebuke. Now suppose she had gone home again, without the swift compulsion of confession, cannot you see at a glance that all her life she would have been haunted by that chilling fear? Healed, she would have been unhappy; her conscience would have continually pricked her; she would never have heard that Christ was in her neighborhood, but she would have fallen to fear and trembling once again. It was impossible for Christ to let her go like that, however great the pain of her avowal. He was not content that the woman should be healed; He wanted always to think of her as happy. That was why He insisted on confession; she must tell Him all and see His look of love; she must hear Him saying to her, "Daughter." She was the only woman to whom He ever gave that title. He never called anybody else His daughter. She would have missed all that if she had got her way. To learn it, she had to take the way of Christ. And always, if we want to learn His love, and to have done forever with our fear and trembling, like her we have to take the way of Christ.

She Would Have Been Powerless for Service

Lastly, if He had let her have her way this woman would have been powerless for service. And nobody is healed just to be happy; we are saved that we may save. In a brief space of time He would be dead, and dead, where were His garments now? What Roman soldier had them in his chest, to be carried home to his family in Britain? The garments were gone, their wearer had been crucified, and what testimony had she to bear for Christ to the children of disappointment and disease? She would have had no power for witness-bearing; she could never have spoken of the love of Jesus; she never could have cried to weary, broken people, "The Master looked on me, and called me daughter." And Christ was so eager she should be a witness-bearer, in places where His foot had never trod, that He imperiously insisted on confession. Now she would never talk of magic; she would talk of the wonderful welcome she had got; she would talk of the love that streamed on her poor heart, which was better than the healing of her body. Had she stolen away she would have had her gift, but she never would have known the Giver. For that she had to stand forth and confess.

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George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
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