George H. Morrison's Old And Beautiful Devotions

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July 29

The Cure of the Nobleman's Son

And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judaea into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son for he was at the point of death— Joh_4:46-47

The Beginning of His Ministry

It is to be noted that all the miracles in this Gospel, with the exception of those of the loaves and the walking on the sea, are found in this Gospel only. We know that if all the works which Jesus did were written, the world itself could not contain the books thereof, and John was led to choose for us such deeds and such words of Jesus as should embody great principles in themselves and should not overlap the testimony of others. The life of Jesus is like the world we live in; there is room in it for the joyful use of all our gifts, and when we are rooted and grounded in love, as this apostle was, we shall have little heart to interfere with others. The miracle of Cana was the beginning of the showing of His glory. This miracle is a beginning too—it is the beginning of the Galilean ministry. A thing well begun is half-done, we say—note the noble beginnings of our Savior's ministry. Observe, too, that our Lord began exactly as He meant to go on. I have known folk beginning with enthusiasm, but in a little while how listless and dull they grew! Remember that whether it be in work or play, that is not the spirit of our Master. All through His life, and all through the after-centuries, our Lord has been turning the water into wine; He has never ceased to respond to the cry of faith nor to be a healer of worse sicknesses than fever. It is no chance, then, that with such displays of power His glory and His Galilean ministry began.

Illness May Lead Us to Christ

So Jesus was at Cana of Galilee again, and you can hardly wonder that the people received Him eagerly. You may depend upon it that the servants who had borne the waterpots, as they sat of an evening in the inn at Cana, would never weary of recounting what had happened when they had filled the vessels with water to the brim. The news of this mystery had traveled far; it had entered the doors of the palace of Herod Antipas; and some had wondered, and some had scoffed, and some had jestingly wished they had been there. But there was one courtier, or king's officer, at Herod's court, who pondered deeply on this so marvelous story, and when rumors came of Jesus in Judaea and of all He had done at Jerusalem during feast-time (Joh_4:45), he sifted them out and dwelt on them in secret, until at last, in the court of Herod Antipas (one of the unlikeliest places in the world), there was a heart that had begun to clamber upwards into the first glimmerings of faith. And then the son of this nobleman fell ill; physicians were useless; he was at the point of death. How vapid and vain was all the showy courtlife when there rang through it, in a voice he loved so well, the wild and delirious cries of raging fever! So oftentimes an illness may be used to tear away the tapestries around us and to lead us from the chamber of our worldly hopes into the presence of the living Christ. The nobleman came to Cana and we know what followed. If there is life in a look, there is life too in a word. The smoking flax was handled as only Christ could handle it till the flame of faith in this strong heart burned clear. The incident took place at one o'clock; the courtier set out for Capernaum immediately. The sun set, and a new day began, for with the Jew the day begins at sunset. And then his servants met him with faces of such radiance that the father had not to ask what was their news; and "Yesterday" they said (or as we should say "Today"), "at one o'clock the fever left him." That was an hour (to use the words of Jesus) when Capernaum was exalted unto heaven. In one of its homes, at any rate, that evening there was a very heaven of joy and love and gratitude. It was the second miracle which Jesus did in Galilee, and it also was a turning of water into wine.

Our Neglect of Christ in Our Quiet Years

Note first, then, as springing from this matchless story, how we may neglect the evidence of quiet years. "Except ye see signs and wonders," said Jesus to the courtier, and as He spoke He would turn to the people also—"Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe." Now what, think you, did Jesus mean by that? I think He meant something of this kind. "I was among you," He meant, "during my years of childhood. I spent my opening and my ripening manhood here; and I was the same then as I am today had you only had spiritual eyes to recognize Me; but you would not receive Me. I had no honor among you till I went to Judaea and wrought these mighty deeds, and now (though I am the same yesterday and today) you welcome Me gladly for the signs and wonders." Let us learn then to have an open eye in the years when God is moving among us quietly. Let us not wait for occurrences that startle ere we give a welcome to the Light of men. In the countless providence's of the common week, in the texts we read in the quiet of eventide, in the hymns we sing, in the preaching we hear, in all God's daily love and kindness to us, there is a call to everyone of us, "My son, give Me thine heart."

True Faith Is Followed by Activity

Then note, as signally illustrated here, how true faith is followed by activity. It was a journey of faith from Capernaum to Cana; it was not less so from Cana to Capernaum. All the love in the world for the poor boy would never have led the father Cana-wards unless within him there had been some spark of faith in the power and willingness of Jesus. Remember then that when a faith is real, working by love it will go forth in action. Remember too that there is no such source of action, nor anything so sure to make it high and noble, as an underlying faith in God's dear Son. It matters not what the children are going to be—sailors, soldiers, teachers, mechanics, nurses—whatever it is, they will do it all the more worthily, with purer motives, with more victorious gladness, if they begin life with the prayer of him who cried, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."

____________________

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]

July 30

Some Features of Christ's Working - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

My Father worketh hitherto, and I work— Joh_5:17

Christ Taught That Work Is Honorable

It is characteristic of the Christian Gospel that its Savior should be a worker. In the old world, it was hardly an honorable thing to work. It was a thing for slaves and serfs and strangers, not for freeborn men. Hence work and greatness rarely went together; and nothing could be more alien to the genius of paganism than a toiling God. Jesus has changed all that. He has made it impossible for us to think of God as indolent. It was a revolution when Jesus taught "God loves." But it was hardly less revolutionary when He taught "God works."

And He not only taught it, He lived it too. Men saw in Christ a life of endless toil, and "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Had Jesus lived and taught in the quiet groves of some academy, it would have made all the difference in the Christian view of work, and all the difference in the Christian view of God. But Jesus was a carpenter. And Jesus stooped to the very humblest tasks till He became the pattern and prince of workers. I want to look, then, at some features of His work, for He has left us an example that we should follow in His steps.

The Magnitude of His Aim

Looking back, then, upon the work of Jesus, what strikes me first is the magnitude of His aim compared with the meanness of His methods.

It is a great thing to command an army. It is a great thing to be a master of a fleet. It is a great thing to be a minister of state and help to guide a people towards their national destiny. But the aims of general and of admiral and of statesman, great in themselves, seem almost insignificant when we compare them with the purposes of Jesus. He claims a universal sovereignty. He runs that sovereignty out into every sphere. He is to be the test in moral questions. He is to shape our law and mould our literature. He is the Lord of life. He is the King and Conqueror of death. These are the purposes of Jesus, far more stupendous than man had ever dreamed of in his wildest moments. Will He not need stupendous methods if He is ever to achieve an aim like that?

The Meanness of Christ's Methods

And it is then the apparent meanness of His methods strikes us. Had He a pen of fire? He never wrote a line, save in the sand. Had He a voice of overmastering eloquence? He would not strive, nor cry, nor lift up His voice in the streets. Was there unlimited wealth at His command?—"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." Were His first followers men of influence?—"Simon and Andrew were casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers." Or would He use the sword like Mohammed?—"Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." It seems impossible that in such ways Christ should achieve His purpose. It is the magnitude of His aim compared with the meanness of His methods that arrests me first.

It should be so with every Christian toiler. It is a simple lesson for every man and woman who seeks to serve in the true Christian spirit. Meanly surrounded, he should be facing heavenwards. Meanly equipped in all things else, he should be mightily equipped in noble hope. If I am Christ's, I cannot measure possibilities by methods. My heaven is always greater than my grasp. If I am Christ's, I cherish the loftiest hope and am content to work for it in lowliest ways.

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Some Features of Christ's Working - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Difference between a Visionary and a Christian

And it is there the difference comes in between a visionary and a Christian. A visionary dreams his dreams and builds his castles in the air, and they are radiant and wonderful and golden, and the light of heaven glitters on every minaret. And then, because he cannot realize them now and cannot draw them in all their beauty down to earth, the visionary folds his hands, does nothing, and the vision goes. But the true Christian, with hopes as glorious as any visionary's because they are the hopes of Jesus Christ, carries the glory of them into his common duty and into the cross-bearing of the dreary day. And though the generations die, and the purposes of God take a thousand years to ripen, he serves and is content—

Jesus shall reign where'er the sun

Doth his successive journeys run.

Untiring Labor with Unruffled Calm

Once more, as I look back upon the work of Jesus, I find there untiring labor joined with unruffled calm.

There never was a ministry, whether of man or angel, so varied, so intense, or so sustained as was the public ministry of Jesus. He preaches in the synagogue at Nazareth. He preaches on the hill and on the sea. With infinite patience and unexhausted tenderness He trains the twelve. And all that we know of Him is not a thousandth part of what He said and did. Charged with that mighty task and with only three short years to work it out, shall we not find Christ anxious, and will we not light on hours of feverish unrest? There is no trace of that. With all its stir, no life is so restful as the life of Jesus. With all its incident and crowding of event, we are amazed at the supreme tranquillity of Christ. There is time for teaching and there is time for healing. There is time for answering and time for prayer. Each hour is full of work and full of peace. No day hands on its debts to tomorrow. Jesus can cry, "It is finished," at the close. Here for each worker is the supreme example of untiring labor and unruffled calm.

Let us remember that. It is the very lesson that we need today. There are two dangers that, in these bustling times, beset the busy man. One is that he be so immersed in multifarious business that all the lights of heaven are blotted out. The calm and quietness that are our heritage as Christians are put to flight in the unceasing round. Life lacks its unity, loses its central plan, becomes a race and not a stately progress, slackens its grasp upon eternal things, till we grow fretful in the constant pressure; and men who looked to us, as followers of Jesus, for a lesson, find us as worried and anxious as themselves. That is the one extreme; it is the danger of the practical mind. But then there is the other; it is the mystic's danger. It is that, realizing the utter need of fellowship with God, a man should neglect the tasks that his time brings him and should do nothing because there is so much to do. All mysticism tends to that. It is a recoil from an exaggerated service. It is the shutting of the ear to the more clamorous calls that we may hear more certainly the still small voice.

But all that is noblest in the mystic's temper and all that is worthiest in the man of deeds, mingled and met in the service of our Lord. Here is the multitude of tasks. Here is the perfect calm. And that is the very spirit that we need to rebaptize our service of today. God in the life means an eternal purpose. And work achieved on the line of an eternal purpose is work without friction and duty without fret. God in the life means everlasting love. And to realize an everlasting love is to experience unutterable peace.

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Some Features of Christ's Working - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

He Had a Mission with a Message

Again, as I look back upon Christ's work, there is another feature of it that strikes me. I find in it a mission for all, joined with a message for each.

Times without number we find Jesus surrounded by a multitude. Christ is the center of many crowds. Wherever He is, the crowd is sure to gather. And how He was stirred and moved and filled with compassion for the multitude, ail readers of the Gospel story know. Every chord of His human heart was set vibrating by a vast assembly. The common life of congregated thousands touched Him, true man, to all His heights and depths. He fed them, taught them. This was His parting charge, "Go ye into all the world and preach!" Yet for all this—the wide sweep of His mission—no teacher ever worked on so minute a scale as Jesus Christ. Did any crowd ever get deeper teaching than Nicodemus when he came alone? And was the woman of Samaria despised because she was companionless? How many sheep did the shepherd go to seek when the ninety-and-nine were in the fold? How many pieces of silver had been lost? How many sons came home from the far country before the father brought out his robes and killed the calf? Christ did not work on the scale of a thousand or on the scale of ten, but on the scale of one. Companionless men were born, and companionless they must be born again.

Jesus Insists on Quality, Not Quantity

We cannot afford, in these days, when all the tendency is toward the statistics of the crowd—we cannot afford to despise that great example. It is true, there is a stimulus in numbers. There is an indescribable sympathy that runs like an electric thrill through a great gathering; and heights of eloquence and song and prayer are sometimes reached where the crowd is that never could have been reached in solitude. But for all that, all Christlike work is on the scale of one. Jesus insists on quality, not quantity. And when the books are opened and the strange story of the past is read, some voices that the world never heard, as of a mother or a sister or a friend, shall be found more like Christ's than others that have thrilled thousands by their eloquence. Pray over that sweet prayer of the Moravian liturgy: "From the desire of being great, good Lord, deliver us." A word may change a life. It did for the Philippian jailer. A look may soften a hard heart. It did for Peter. To sanctify life's trifles, to redeem the opportunities for good which the dullest day affords, never to go to rest without some secret effort to bring but a little happiness to some single heart—men who do this, unnoticed through the unnoticed years, grow Christlike; men who do this shall be amazed to waken yonder and find that they are standing nearer God than preacher or than martyr, if preaching and if martyrdom were all.

Seeming Failure and Singular Triumph

Lastly, as I look back upon that life of Christ, I see another feature. I see in it seeming failure joined with signal triumph. If ever there was a life that seemed to have failed, it was the life of Jesus. For a time it had looked as if triumph had been coming. The people had been awakened. The national hope had begun to center round Him. A little encouragement, and they would have risen in enthusiasm for Messiah. But when Jesus went to His death, all that was changed. The people had deserted Him. His very disciples had forsaken Him and fled. His hopes were shattered and His cause was lost. His kingdom had been a splendid dream, and Jesus had been the king of visionaries. Now it was over. The cross and the grave were the last act in the great tragedy. Jesus had bravely tried, and He had failed. Yes! so it seemed. Perhaps even to the nearest and the dearest so it seemed. God's hand had written failure over the work of Jesus, when lo! on the third day, the gates of the grave are burst, and Jesus rises. And then the Holy Ghost descends on the apostles, and they begin to preach. And the tidings are carried to the isles and pierce the continents. And a dying world begins to breathe again: and hope comes back, and purity and honor, and pardon and a new power to live, and a new sense of God; and it all sprang from the very moment when they wagged their heads and said, "He saved others, himself he cannot save." Failure? Not failure—triumph! It was a seeming failure in the eyes of man; it was a signal triumph in the plans of God.

Seeming Failure Is Often True Success

O heart so haunted by the sense of failure, remember that. O worker on whose best efforts, both to do and be, failure seems stamped, remember that. If I have learned anything from the sacred story, it is this, that seeming failure is often success. When John the Baptist lay in his gloomy prison, it must have seemed to him that he had failed. Yet even then, a voice that never erred was calling him the greatest born of women. When Paul lay bound in Rome, did no sense of failure visit him? Yet there, chained to the soldier, he penned these letters that run like the chariots of Christ. God is the judge of failure, and not you. Leave it to Him, and go forward. Successes here are often failures yonder, and failures here are sometimes triumphs there.

One of our Scottish ministers and poets has a short piece he names, "A Call to Failure"-

Have I no calls to failure,

Have I no blessings for loss,

Must not the way to the mission

Lie through the path to the Cross?

But one of our English ministers and poets has a short piece that is a call to triumph: "He always wins who sides with God, no chance to him is lost." And is the one false, and the other true? Nay, both are true.

____________________

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]

July 31

The Judgment of the Son - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

For the Father judges no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son— Joh_5:22

Not Future Judgment but Present

When we hear the word judgment on the lips of Christ we are prone to cast our thoughts into the future. Almost instinctively there rises in us some foreboding of the day of judgment. So powerfully has that last dread scene wrought on the imagination of mankind, that always when we light on the word judgment we seem to catch in the word a whisper of it; until often, as it seems to me, we lose the primary meaning of the Scripture and blind ourselves by a judgment that is future to one that is past or actually present. Now I want you to note the wording of our text. It is not the future tense that is employed here. It is not "The Father will commit"; it is "The Father hath [now] committed." That means that in the very hour He spake, Christ was invested with a judging power.

In the Presence of Jesus People Felt Self-Reproach

Now the great impression made by the life of Christ is not an impression of judgment but of love. Here, we say, is a Man of such compassion as never was witnessed on the earth before. There is a depth of tenderness about Him that is infinitely attractive and endearing. There is a wealth of the most helpful sympathy — a passionate desire to be a friend. There is a tenderness that is unparalleled, a sensibility to all distress, a love so deep and strong and true that life was not sufficient to disclose it.

Yet in the heart of that appealing tenderness we soon awaken to another element. We come to see that wherever Jesus was, there was the element of judgment. As He moved along these ways of Galilee, men and women knew that they were loved. With a like instinct, too deep for understanding, they knew continually that they were judged. The moment they stepped into that lowly presence the moment they looked into His face and heard Him speak, they felt they were standing at a judgment bar. It was not that they felt that they were known. We may feel that we are known and not be judged. We may be perfectly conscious that someone knows our motives, and yet it may never cause the slightest self-reproach. But there was always self-reproach where Jesus was. Men were ashamed of themselves, they knew not why. His life was an unceasing act of love, and yet it was an unceasing act of judgment.

Indirect Judgment

Sometimes it was His words that carried judgment, and carried it in quite a casual way. That is one office of the casual word, to reach the conscience and stir it unawares. None of us like to be directly judged. We are apt to resent the word of condemnation. To charge a man with such and such a fault is very often the way to steel his heart. But we all know how the casual word, said in our presence but never aimed at us, has a strange way of getting at the conscience. Have not you occasionally felt uneasy when the conversation took a certain turn? It was not meant for you, and yet it reached you; it found you out and made you feel your guilt. And what I say is that the talk of Christ had that strange power, in unequalled measure, of making men feel mysteriously guilty. Sometimes He hurled an open condemnation. Sometimes He cried "Woe unto you, Pharisees." But such words were not the sorest condemnation of His lips. It was rather the words which He was always speaking, and which were never meant to wither and condemn, and yet which had that strange and awful power of waking the agony of self-reproach.

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The Judgment of the Son - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Judgment through His Deeds

Sometimes it was His deeds that carried judgment, and here again, in general, indirectly. Directly, He judged a barren fig tree once; but it was not thus that His acts judged men and women. He did them not to judge men but to save them. They flowed from a heart that was the home of love. And yet when they fell upon the human conscience, they had a strange power of wakening self-reproach. "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." You remember how Simon Peter once cried that? And what had happened to make him cry that cry? Had Christ condemned him with a tongue of fire? It was not that which caused the bitter cry. It was the net that was so full of fishes. It was an act so wonderful and kindly that Peter saw, and seeing loathed himself. Have we not all experienced that judgment—the silent judgment of some noble act? Nothing was said, but something fine was done, and seeing it so done, we were ashamed. And I say again that in the acts of Jesus, all of them acts of love and acts of grace, there lay the power, in unequalled measure, of touching men with a strange self-reproach.

Judgment through His looks

Sometimes it was His looks that carried judgment, and looks are often powerful to do that. There are looks that are the cause of keener pain than any scolding of an angry lip. It does not take deeds to make us feel ashamed. It does not take words to make us feel ashamed. A look will do it and will waken remorse and make us hate ourselves for being vile. And if in human eyes where sin has lodged there be this power of waking self-reproach, how awful must it have been in eyes like Christ's. I do not wonder that the rich young ruler was sorrowful when I read that Christ had looked on him and loved him. I do not wonder that the crowd was stricken when Jesus looked round about on them with anger. I do not wonder that when Jesus turned and looked on Simon Peter in the hall, the heart of Peter was broken with the look, and he went out into the night and wept. Will anyone say that was a look of anger? It was a look of love. And the past was in it, and all its tender memories, and the dear days that were beyond recall. And it saved Peter when the night was past to think that the Lord had turned and looked at him; but first down to the very depths it judged him. No wild rebuke would ever have done that. It would have hardened him and made him reprobate. No word of Sinai, given in flame and thunder, would ever have carried conviction to that heart. One look of Christ did more than all the Decalogue. One look of Christ outmatched a thousand threatenings. One look of Christ showed in what height and depth the Father had given all judgment to the Son.

Judgment by Being What He Was

But even that is not all the truth. There was something more than word and deed and look. It was not only by what He did that Jesus judged; it was more by what He was than what He did. Is there anyone of us who has not known how character can judge? Is there not somebody you know and love who silently condemns you when you think of him? It is not that he is wanting to condemn you; nothing may be farther from his thoughts—and yet when you meet him and when you see what bets, you are ashamed of all that you have been. That, I take it, is what the Gospel means when it tells us that the saints shall judge the world. There is not a saint and not an earnest soul but unconsciously is judging every day. And men may mock at him and scorn him and call him an idle dreamer or a visionary, and yet who knows what self-reproach is stirring before that character of love and beauty? Now from all such earthly characters lift your thought to the character of Christ. Think how complete it was, how beautiful, how perfect in its finest and its strongest. Then tell me if you have ever realized how men must have felt, and felt as in a flash, when on the highway or in the summer field they found themselves in the presence of the Lord? They were ashamed, and knew not what it meant. They were convicted, yet not a word was spoken. Away deep down new thoughts began to burn of what their life might be and ought to be. It was the unconscious influence of character; the only perfect life the world had known. It was the witness, although they knew it not, that the Father had given all judgment to the Son.

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The Judgment of the Son - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

The Qualities of Christ's Judgment: Unerring

Now I pass on to a second thought: what were some of the qualities of this judgment? I shall touch on three, and the first is that it was unerring. It is notable that when men judged Christ, their judgment was very generally wrong. He was Elias, they said, or Jeremias, or He was the friend of Beelzebub, or He was mad. But if their judgment upon Him was often wrong, His judgment upon them was always right. There are men whose judgment is wonderfully sure so long as it moves within a certain area. A born teacher can always judge a boy, and a born detective can always judge a criminal. But the wonderful thing about our Savior's judgment is that it was a universal judgment—the Father committed all judgment to the Son. Born in a village, He met the men of cities; cradled in poverty, He met the rich. Unlearned, the men of learning moved around Him; a Man of peace, there came to Him centurions. And yet in all that many-colored throng which filed forever past His judgment bar, I never find that Jesus was deceived. "Thou art a rock," He said to Simon once, and Simon when he spoke was like the sand. And I can picture how the hearers smiled, and said, "It is evident He does not know him." And then the years went by and with resistless hand dragged to the light all that was deepest in him, till in the end of the day Jesus was proven right. Did you ever think of timid Nicodemus stealing to Him under the cloak of night? Was not that just the man to be distrusted—the last man in the world to tell a secret to? Yet Christ unlocked to him His richest treasury, detecting in an instant what he was—and Nicodemus embalmed Him when He died. Never forget that the judgment of Christ is an unerring judgment. You may be wrong in what you think of Him. He is never wrong in what He thinks of you. Might it not be well, then, that you should take that life of yours, of which you are so ignorant, and quietly yield it up unto the gaze of Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire?

A Surprising Judgment

In the second place, it was a surprising judgment. It was full of the element of unexpectedness. It ran completely opposite in a hundred cases to the accepted judgment of the world. One has described the writer Amiel as the master of the unexpected. But the master of the unexpected is not Amiel; the master of the unexpected is Christ. He was always surprising men by what He did. He was always surprising them by what He would not do. But above all else I think that He surprised them just by the kind of judgments that He passed. Think of the judgment He passed upon the lilies— "not even Solomon in all his glory." Have you any conception how the Jews were startled who first heard such audacity as that? Think of His judgment upon the little children, whom even His disciples would have kept from Him: "Except ye become as little children"—and they were beneath the notice of the Pharisee. He wanted an army that might win the world, and He judged that fishermen would be the men to form it. He wanted a woman who would kneel and worship, and He judged that a harlot might be the right material. My brother, if you have ever studied Scripture, and tried to get into living touch with Christ, you must have been thrilled, as I have so often been, with the arresting presence of surprise. Now remember that on the day of judgment that element is to have a conspicuous place. "Lord, when saw we thee naked or in prison?"—we are to be amazed that we are welcomed. And I mention this that you may learn that when the great white throne is set, and Christ is there, He will be the very same in action as when He walked upon the ways of Galilee.

An Unceasing Judgment

Then in the third place, it was an unceasing judgment. It was in action every hour He lived. The judgment of character is always that, just because character is always character. Our legal judges are not always judges. They have their seasons when they sit in judgment. And then they lay aside their robes of office, and they go back to private life again. But in Christ the robe of office was Himself never to be laid aside in life or death, and that means His judgment is unceasing. You feel it when He wrought and when He spoke. You feel it when He went alone to pray. Men were convicted when they knew He prayed, and they came and cried to Him, "Teach us to pray." Right from the baptism on to the cross of Calvary; right from that hour on to this hour, Christ has been judging men and judging women, and judging everything man's hands have wrought. You say you do not believe in the last judgment. But have you ever thought what that word last implies? It is not a spectacle, that day of judgment, suddenly breaking on an astonished crowd. It is the last, and if you want the first, go back to Galilee and look at history. As a reasonable man you cannot deny the first; is it quite reasonable to deny the last? The last page of a book is meaningless save through the pages that have gone before. The last note in a piece of music is nothing save through the music that precedes. And even the last judgment would be meaningless if it were isolated and apart; it is the close of what has gone before. Born in an age like this, when everybody seems to be judging Christ, will you remember there is the other side? Will you remember He is judging you? Meditate on that. Think what must His judgment be. You will then say, "God be merciful to me a sinner."

____________________

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]

August 1

Finding Him on the Other Side

When they had found him on the other side of the sea— Joh_6:25

Men Sought after Christ

When our Lord had fed the multitude He constrained His disciples to depart. He wanted a season of solitary prayer. The sun set and the night grew dark, and He was alone with His Father in the hills; and then we read that in the glimmering dawn He came to His own, walking on the sea. Eager to know more of this great wonder-worker, many had lingered by the scene of miracle. They waited for daybreak and then searched for Him, but nowhere could they find Him. And then, says John, boarding the little craft that happened to ride at anchor in the bay, they crossed the lake, still searching for Him, and found Him on the other side. To a deep mystic like St. John, that simple fact was full of meaning. I think St. John laid his pen down then and thought how often it is true of human life that we find Christ on the other side.

On the Other Side of Political Liberation

Think, for instance, of the scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day. They were all "looking for a king, to slay their foes and lift them high." Their great hope was the Messianic hope. They were watching and waiting for Messiah. They were eagerly praying for that Coming One who was to right the wrong and set them free at last. And the singular thing is that when Jesus came, the promised Messiah of the race, they found Him—on the other side. He was over against them, antagonistic to them, pouring on them the vials of His "woe." He was on the side of the "people of the land," whom the Pharisees and scribes despised (Joh_9:34). I wonder if John was thinking of all that when he took up his pen and wrote that day—they found Him on the other side.

On the Side of Needed Blessing

Or think again of the disciples when the mothers of Salem brought their babes to Jesus. A mother's heart is a very wonderful thing, and it always wants a blessing for the children. I do not doubt the disciples meant well when they tried to head these mothers home again. What! Had their Master not enough to do that He was to be plagued with crying infants? And I question if they ever would forget, though they lived until their hair was Grey, how they found Him that day upon the other side—on the side of the feeble little children; on the side of the tender, loving mothers; on the side of the helpless and the frail; on the side of all who coveted His blessing. I wonder if John was thinking of that day, never to be effaced from memory, when he took up his pen and wrote—they found Him on the other side.

On the Side of Assurance

Or think again, changing the figure a little, of those who are tossing in a sea of doubt. Dwell, for example, on St. Thomas. There are those who doubt because they want to doubt; it affords a certain latitude and license. Sometimes it is easier to doubt than to take up the cross and bear the yoke of Christ. But if ever there was a genuine doubter who would have given worlds to have his doubts removed, it was St. Thomas in the resurrection days. For him doubt was an interior agony; it was the dark night of the soul. It clouded the heavens, blotted out the stars, silenced all the singing of the birds. And the beautiful and encouraging thing is this, that when this poor soul had crossed the sea of doubt, he found Christ upon the other side. He found Him to be far more wonderful than he had ever dreamed in the old days of Galilee. He was no longer "Rabbi"—that is, "Teacher." He was "My Lord and my God." I wonder if John had a thought to spare for Thomas when, long afterwards, he took his pen and wrote—they found Him upon the other side.

On the Side of Resurrection

And is not that, when you come to think of it, the spiritual import of His resurrection? One turns, for instance, to Mary in the garden. In that garden Mary was brokenhearted. She thought her Lord was lost, and lost forever. Then she heard a footfall on the grass, and the old familiar voice was saying, "Mary." And what thrilled Mary and changed her night to morning and brought new hope flooding to her heart, was that she had found Him on the other side. We speak much about the cross, and we never can speak too much about the cross. The cross is the spiritual center of the universe. The cross upholds, when everything else fails. But the cross is of little use to me, whether to my soul or my intelligence, except I find Him on the other side. Only then am I sure that God has conquered. Only then am I sure I have a living Savior. Only then am I sure that Christ is justified (1Ti_3:16) in the magnificent adventure of His love. That is the triumphing note of the New Testament, not only that the disciples found Him here, but that they found Him on the other side.

One Can Find Him on the Other Side—Heaven

That, too, sums up our hope of heaven. It is all concluded and embraced in that. The rest and joy and liberty of heaven is just "to be with Christ, which is far better." What heaven may be like, I do not know. Perhaps it is better that I do not know. Eye hath not seen and ear hath never heard the things that God hath prepared for them that love Him. But I cherish the abiding hope in grace, that when I have captained my liner across the sea of time, I shall immediately "see my Pilot face to face." Here He is very hard to find sometimes. Often we suppose He is the gardener. We catch the goings of His insistent feet, but Himself He very often hides (Isa_45:15). But the great hope of the trusting heart is this, that when death comes and brings unclouded vision—we shall find Him on the other side.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

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[nChrist]

August 2

The Drawing of the Father - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him— Joh_6:44

These Words Spoken in Pity

We get some light on these deep words by remembering the occasion of their utterance. They were spoken rather in pity than in sternness. Our Lord had just been speaking of Himself as the bread which cometh down from heaven. It would have been a bold word to say in any company, but to that company, it seemed like madness. They had never dreamed that One could come from heaven by the ordinary way of human birth. They thought Messiah would descend in glory. Do we not know His father and His mother? Do we not remember Him when He was just a child? It was that which irritated them and made them grumble as these stupendous claims fell on their ears. And it was then that Christ, as if pitying their deadness and half-excusing their disbelief in Him, said, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." Now in Joh_6:37 of this chapter, there is a statement which appears very like to this one: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me." The two are always associated in our thoughts. The one inevitably suggests the other. Yet there is a world of difference in their tone which is well that we should bear in mind. In the one case Christ is gladly confident. He is not disheartened although He is deserted. Let men forsake Him and turn away in anger, ail that the Father giveth Him shall come to Him. But the other is not the utterance of assurance. It is a cry of pity for hearts that were like stone: "No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him."

You Come to Christ When You Believe on Him

In passing, let me express the earnest hope that we all know what Christ meant by coming to Him. It is one of those vivid and pictorial words that were so congenial to the Master's lips: "Come unto me, all ye that labor"; "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life"; "No man can come unto me except the Father draw him." Now, had our Lord never looked beyond His earthly ministry, we might have been tempted to take coming literally. We might have thought that Christ, when He said, "Come," spoke of a literal coming to His side. But if there be one thing certain, it is that Christ took a longer view than that. He thought of a coming that would still be possible when He was no longer on the streets of Galilee. Can we now come to Him as Mary came when He was dining in the house of Simon? Can we now come to Him as Jairus came when the keel of His boat was grating on the beach? With His faith in a Gospel that should still be preached when He had gone home to share His Father's glory, Christ thought of something different from that. What then did He actually mean? He has told us that Himself. "I am the bread of life," He said, "he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." Clearly, then, in the mind of Jesus, coming and believing were identical; the one was the vivid image of the other. You come to Christ, not by any pilgrimage. You come to Christ when you believe in Him. You come when, both for time and for eternity, all your trust is centered in Him. It is in that sense, and only in that sense, that the words of our text have any meaning— "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him."

This Drawing Does Not Involve Fatalism

It is then of very great importance that we should understand what this drawing is, and my object in choosing this great text is just to try to make it plain to you. Is it something mysterious and dark, or is it something that fails within our understanding? Is it a special work of the Almighty, or does it blend into our common discipline? Is it something that we may recognize, something which inevitably betrays itself, or may we be subjects of the Father's drawing and all the time be unconscious of it? There are many who have taken this text and made it the excuse for an unworthy and unchristian fatalism. They have made no effort to believe and said they waited the drawing of the Father. I want you to learn how sinful that is, and how opposed to the spirit of the Lord, and how dishonoring to the great thought of Fatherhood which is the thought on which the text is based.

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[nChrist]

The Drawing of the Father - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

It Involves Man's Will; The Father Draws, Not Drags

The first ray of light upon the text is found in the word which Christ employs. He does not talk of the dragging of the Father. He talks deliberately of the Father's drawing. No man is hurried to the feet of Christ as the heifer was hurried to the Jewish altar. No man is pushed there by an almighty arm and in defiance of a protesting will. The Father does not drag. The Father draws. He bids the soul to come in gentle ways. He will have a man come willingly to Christ, or else He will not have him come at all. We may illustrate this meaning of the word from the only other occasion when Christ uses it: "I, if I be lifted up," He said, "will draw all men unto me." And, tell me, what is the drawing of the cross? Is it anything which tramples on our freedom? It is just the appeal to all that is within us of that spectacle of redeeming love. We are not forced to Christ by what we see. We are only appealed to by that wondrous spectacle. It puts to shame all that is bad in us. It woos and wins all that is best in us. And as it is with the drawing of the cross, so is it with the drawing of the Father. It is but the action of appealing love. I do not say it is not irresistible; but I do say it does not seem so. It is as sweet, as natural, as gentle, as the drawing of the sunshine on the earth. There is no pressure of an arresting hand; no force exerted to overpower the will; a man is not conscious that he is being dragged by a power that is mightier than his own. It is that thought which makes it such a peril for a man to await the drawing of the Father. It is not something that will flash in splendor and overpower a man into belief. It is something blended with the daily providence, and wrought into the fabric of the life, and intermingled with the lights and shadows that make the variables of our common day. Just as the sunshine falling on earth draws it into the pageant of the summer, just as the moon falling on the ocean draws it into the fullness of its tides, so not less silently, not less insensibly, does the grace of the Father fall upon the heart and draw it, when it thinks not of it, into readiness for Jesus Christ. That this is the right tone to give the word we may confirm in an interesting way. Christ found this word He used in the Old Testament, and it is illuminative to notice where He found it. There are three books in the Old Testament which are peculiarly the books of tenderness, three books above all others which contain what I might call the wooing note. The one is that mystical book we call The Song; the second is the Book of Jeremiah; the third is Hosea, who in his ruined home had learned the power and the pain of love. It is in these three books, and these alone, that the thought of drawing is found in the Old Testament. "I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." That is the accent of the Song of Solomon; that of Jeremiah and Hosea; and it is that accent you must still preserve when the prophet's word is used by Jesus Christ. He is not thinking, anymore than they, of a power that should be mighty to compel. He is not thinking of any sudden energy that should surprise a man into belief. He is thinking, with His prophetic forerunners, of all that wooing ministry of love which none can recognize except the loved one, and to which even he is often blind.

The Father Draws and Man Comes

But now we can go a little farther, for we have the commentary here of Christ Himself. In the verses which succeed out text, He throws His thought into another form. "No man can come unto me," He says, "except the Father which hath sent me draw him." And then immediately He adds, "Every man therefore that hath heard, and learned of the Father, cometh unto me." And so He tells us that the Father's drawing is just an expression for the Father's teaching, "for," says the prophet, "they shall all be taught of God." Now mark you, there are two kinds of teaching: there is an outward and an inward teaching. And it cannot be of the first that Jesus thinks or else these Jews would have believed in Him. If ever anybody had been taught of God, was it not just these men to whom He spoke? And yet they hated Him and crucified Him. A man may have the Scriptures in his hand; he may enjoy the truest spiritual teaching; he may read the name of God across the stars, and yet never may be drawn to Jesus Christ. It is only when that teaching becomes inward and moves the will and kindles the affections that it becomes the drawing of the Father. Christ does not think of a teaching of the head. He rather thinks of a teaching of the heart. He thinks of every providence that chastens us; of every providence that breaks and humbles us. It is by that teaching that a man is drawn and comes to feel his need of a Redeemer and realizes that his only hope is in the fellowship of Jesus Christ. We are not only taught by every craving. Christ means that by every craving we are drawn, by every sorrow and by every joy, by every touch of pain and hour of sadness, by all the love that meets us when we journey, by all the tears when hours of parting come; by all that, we are not only taught; by all that, we are drawn to Him. Clearly, then, our Savior did not mean that we were to sit inactive and just wait. He meant us to find, even this very hour, that the Father is drawing us to Him. He meant that if we only looked within and read our story in the light of God, we should find there today such elements as would prepare us for the feet of Christ. There was that in these Jews that, had they heeded it, would have proved to them the drawing of the Father. There is that in you today, which is undoubtedly the Father's drawing. Only let God interpret it to you and show you what it implies and what it needs, and it will draw you to the feet of Christ.

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[nChrist]

The Drawing of the Father - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

Drawing and Responding in Marriage

We may further illustrate what Jesus meant by thinking of our earthly friendships. There is a deep sense in which all human love would be impossible without the Father's drawing. Among all the mysteries with which we are engirded, there is none deeper than the mystery of love. It is the heart reaching to its own, and finding in its own its resting place. Viewed on its earthly side it is the drawing of sympathies that answer one another. Viewed on its heavenly side it is far more than that; it is just the drawing of the Father. Does not one of our oldest proverbs tell us that true marriages are made in heaven? It is not often that our proverbial wisdom lights upon a truth so deep as that. For it just means that when two hearts are knit into a union that only death can sever, it is the drawing of the Father that hath done it. The heart of the mother is drawn towards her child. The heart of the friend is drawn towards his friend. God is busy within us in a thousand ways when He is leading us to recognize our own. And so, when He is leading us to Christ, God is busy with us in a thousand ways, and it is in that preparatory ministry that there lies the drawing of the Father. Our loneliness—that is the Father's drawing; it is His whisper to us that we need a friend. Our weakness—that is the Father's drawing; it is His guidance to sufficient strength. And all our haunting sense of inability and our shame when we have sinned again, all that is but the drawing of the Father to the loving mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe as stoutly as the sternest Calvinist, that no man can come to Christ except the Father draw him. But I also believe with all my heart that He is drawing every man this very moment. It is not new drawing that men want. It is new vision to behold its meaning. Lord, open men's eyes, that they may see.
In Retrospect, Friendships, Especially with Christ, Were Not the Result of

Drifting But of Being Drawn

In closing, I desire to say that this is a truth which is abundantly verified in our experience. As life goes on and its meanings become plainer, our vision also clarifies a little. We stand, as it were, upon a little eminence and see more clearly our path across the heather. And it is then that often looking backwards we can set to our seal that this is true, we were drawn of the Father when we never knew it. Just as our human friendships, when we make them, seem to be often but the child of accident, yet afterwards as we survey it all we recognize that there was more than chance there. So the friendship of the Lord Jesus Christ may also appear to us a casual thing, yet every year that passes makes us surer that our steps were ordered when we knew it not. One of the insights of passing years is to eliminate the thought of accident. They touch as with the light of a great plan what in its hour seemed a happy chance. We come to see in sunshine and in shadow, in sicknesses, in shiftings of our home, the movement of a will that was not ours and that had seen the end from the beginning. So is it, brethren, with that great transaction which seals the covenant between the soul and Christ. It may come suddenly and unexpectedly, and we feel no will in it except our own. Yet as the years go by we trace a change. We waken to a wise and loving leadership. We thought in the passing hour that we were drifting. We now discover that we were being drawn. That strong impression deepens with the years. We become less; the Father becomes more. We realize that we are Christ's today simply and solely because the Father drew us. And so we take this as a word of hope based on the changeless love of Fatherhood, and we believe that now and always, the Father is drawing every human soul.

____________________

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]

August 3

Our Lord as a Student

How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?— Joh_7:15

He Gave the Impression of a Student

What our text implies is this, that our Lord gave the impression of a student. The Jews as they listened to Him recognized the accent of a cultured, educated man. Our Lord stood up in the temple and spoke, and whenever the Lord spoke a crowd would gather. There was something about Him that compelled attention, though nobody could say just what it was. The one question that sprang to every lip was, "Whence hath this man letters, never having learned?" He had never been at any Rabbinical school, never graduated from any university, and was evidently only a common man from the province of Galilee. Yet as they listened to Him they recognized the student, the cultivated, educated man.

Those Closest to Him Recognized His Scholarship of the scriptures

It is also a very striking thing that the nearer men got to Him the more they recognized His scholarship. It was when men were in closest contact with the Lord that they found to their cost His scholarly exactitude. There are people who, from a little distance, give the impression of admirable scholarship, but whenever you get near enough to them you are pitifully disillusioned. But nobody who came right up to Christ was ever pitifully disillusioned; what happened was that they were overcome. Think for a moment of the Rabbis. They had given their lives to the study of the Scripture. They had scorned delights, and lived laborious days, poring over the sacred word of Scripture. Yet never one of them encountered Christ but was beaten ignominiously from the field; our Master was the master of them all. "What," He would say to them, "have ye never read?" How the very question must have rankled. Never read! They had been doing nothing else since they entered the Rabbinical university. Yet the proudest scholar of them all invariably was convicted of incompetence by this strange provincial from Galilee.

His Learning Was Detected Although Not Paraded

Nor did our Lord create that deep impression by any elaborate parade of learning. All parade was abhorrent to His soul. Among the Pharisees learning was largely pedantry, with endless citation of authorities. It had passed out of touch with all reality in its meticulous exposition of the law. And over against that pharisaical pedantry, which was the despair of common people, stands the perfect simplicity of Christ. With what perfect and unfaltering ease He used to handle the most abstruse of themes! With what homely and familiar figures He would lighten what was dark! Where others stumbled, groping in the mists, lost in large polysyllabic words, our Lord moved just like a little child. The last thing the Lord ever would suggest to me is that of a man groping. There is such perfect mastery about Him, such ease of conscious and consummate power. And whenever you find anything like that, it is more than the crown and blossom of an intellect; it is the crown and blossom of a life. His intellectual processes were beautiful, because His life and character were beautiful. He says, "I come to do thy will, O God." Our modern psychology stresses will as one of the organs and avenues of knowledge, but our Master knew that long ago.

Christ Had the Courage to Be Himself

I like to notice, too, that this so perfect student had always the quiet courage to be Himself, and the quiet courage just to be oneself is one of the finest kinds of courage in the world. I have known many a young minister who might have had an admirable ministry; but then he began imitating somebody, and afterwards he might as well have stayed at home. That is one great temptation of a student, to see things through other people's eyes; to see the Bible through Dr. Moffatt's eyes or Shakespeare through the eyes of Mr. Bradley. And one of the glorious things about this student was that He never saw things through other people's eyes; He always had the courage to be Himself. Trained in the home at Nazareth, steeped in the teaching of the synagogue, with what tremendous pressure the learning of His day must have been brought to bear on Him. And His refusal to be overborne by the tradition of His time is one of the features of the Gospel story. How fresh His expositions were! How He found the truth that everyone had missed! How He swept aside accepted meanings and reached unerringly the beating heart of things. No wonder that men listening to Him found their hearts beginning to burn within them as He talked with them by the way.

His Was Not a Leisurely Learning

That leads me, lastly, to suggest that our Lord never was a leisured student. All that He won from Scripture and from nature was won in scanty intervals of toil. It is commonly supposed, from certain inferences, that Joseph died when Jesus was still young, and from the way in which He is called "the carpenter," one would take it that the shop was His. So one pictures Him, growing up to manhood, the sole support of Mary and the children, working "from morning sun till he was done." Not for Him the leisure of the morning, that golden season for the student; not for Him the "endless afternoon," nor the roomy and large hours of evening. And the marvelous thing is that when at length He went out to His public ministry, He was perfect in intellectual equipment. The world had yielded all her treasure to Him. His mind was stored with the teaching of the fields. He was a perfect swordsman with the sword of Scripture at the very outset of His ministry. And all this, garnered in the years when the daily task was arduous and long and the hours of happy leisure very few. Some of you may be just like that. You may have little leisure for the higher things. Engaged in arduous and exacting toil, your time for study may be very limited. The Master understands. His earthly experience was the same. He has not forgotten on His throne in heaven that He was once the Carpenter of Nazareth.

____________________

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
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

August 4

There Are Things We Cannot Hear

Ye cannot hear my word— Joh_8:43

No One Could Complain That They Could Not Hear

I should think that when these words were spoken they must have caused a great deal of perplexity. They seemed a contradiction of the facts. There are speakers whom one cannot hear well. It is a common complaint against the clergy. But I do not imagine for one moment that this complaint was ever made of Jesus. He could be heard in the confines of the crowd. Every word He spoke was audible in the clear, still air of Galilee. Even the officers had to bear their testimony that never man spake like this man. And one can easily picture the perplexity of those who that day were round about Him when our Lord said, "Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word."

Hearing Depends on Character

So one comes to feel that for our Lord, hearing was not a physical activity. It was rather the reaction of the soul on the syllables which fall upon the ear. Just as two men may look at the same scene, yet see in it very different things, so may they listen to the same set of words, yet hear the most dissimilar suggestions. It was of such hearing, such spiritual receptivity, that our Lord was thinking when He said, "Ye cannot hear my word." For it is not with the ear we hear; it is with the character and spirit. It is by all that we have set our hearts upon, by everything that we have struggled for. Every temptation we have ever met, every sin we have ever fought and mastered, determines the kind of thing that we shall hear as we take our journey through the world. Live meanly and you hear meanly, though you be listening to the Lord Himself. Live nobly and you hear nobly, though all that the ear catches is but commonplace. There is a great responsibility in speaking if for every word we are to give account; but our Lord was equally aware of the tremendous responsibility of hearing.

The Selective Power of Personality

One finds that selective power of personality in one of the best known of the Gospel narratives. For we read in St. John that when the Father's voice was heard, "some said it thundered, and others that an angel spoke to him." It was the same voice that broke on every ear, and yet to one it sounded like the angels, and to another there was nothing in it save the roll of the thunder in the hills. Had the ear been the one instrument of hearing, that diverse record would have been impossible. But these men were not hearing with the ear; they were hearing by what they were. All their past, their habit and their trend, their way of taking the common things of life, leapt to the light, unconsciously, in the interpretation of the Lord's voice. That is what is happening constantly. Our verdict on others is our own verdict. Often our judgment of minister or sermon is really the judgment of ourselves. We are listening, not with the bodily ear, but with our loves and hates, our grudges and dislikes. We are listening with the hidden heart. That is why the Master said so sternly, "Ye cannot hear my word." There was no physical impossibility. The impossibility was spiritual. Prejudices, jealousies, and antagonisms made the real Christ inaudible to them though His every syllable fell upon their ear.

What We Hear Is an Unconscious Revelation of Ourselves

Then one remembers how, in the Gospel of St. Mark, our Lord says, "Take heed what ye hear" (Mar_4:24). That is a very different thing from saying, "Take heed therefore how ye hear" (Luk_8:18). There is a sense, of course, familiar to everybody, in which we cannot help the things we hear. No one can escape the city's uproar when walking in the city streets. But our Lord knew that many things we hear really depend upon our character and would never reach us if we were only different. There are those to whom we would never dream of gossiping; they do not hear it because of what they are. Nobody brings them nasty or lewd tales, and that, just because of their known character. So very often the sort of thing we hear depends on the sort of character we bear, and therefore for what we hear we are responsible. That is why our Lord says, "Take heed what ye hear." The kind of thing we hear is an unconscious revelation of ourselves. And that is why, too, looking across His audience, to whom His every syllable was clear, He said, "Ye cannot hear my word." "My sheep hear my voice"—they hear it because they love the Shepherd. They hear it because, through faith and love, they are attuned to the message and the meaning. So does our Lord clearly recognize the tremendous responsibility of hearing. It is those who are of the truth that hear His voice (Joh_18:37).

____________________

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]

August 5

The Eternal Son - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

Before Abraham was, I am— Joh_8:58
Unto us a child is born— Isa_9:6

The Joy of Christmas

At Christmas, in common with all Christendom, our thoughts gladly journey towards Bethlehem. We see the manger, and the little Babe within it, and the shepherds listening to the song of angels. A birthday is always a great day, and Christmas is the greatest birthday of the year. There was no sounding of trumpets in any court about it, yet it was mightier than any birthday of the Caesars. We have only to think of all that Christ has been—we have only to think of all that Christ has done, to be thrilled by the ineffable grandeur of the hour, when unto us a Child is born.

Yet when we come to study the New Testament, there is one thing which very soon impresses us. It is that the birth of Jesus in its pages does not occupy the place we should have looked for. We might have expected that apostolic writers would have dwelt on it with adoring wonder. In every letter we might have thought to find unnumbered references to the birth of Jesus. Yet as we read the apostolic literature that is certainly what we do not find. There is many a thought flashed upwards to the throne. There are very few flashed backwards to the manger. It is not that Bethlehem is ignored. Still less is it that Bethlehem is denied. The impression rather is that it is lost in the full light of an overwhelming truth. It is lost, as it were, in the wonderful assurance that as their Lord is alive forevermore, so forever had He been alive in the bosom of the eternal Father. The fact is, we are out of touch a little with the apostles' conception of the Savior. For them His earthly life was like a valley between two peaks that rose into the heavens. And we are so fond of lingering in that valley that we almost forget the heights that close it in; but they, every hour that they lived, lifted up their eyes unto the hills. So profound was the spiritual impression that Christ had made on them that they could not conceive of Him as just another man. So overwhelmingly had He suggested God to them that they could not think of a time when He began to be. Hence they who had lived with Him and seen His glory did not dwell on Bethlehem and the manger, but wrote "In the beginning was the Word, . . . and the Word was God." To me it seems a very idle business to discuss the borrowing of that Logos doctrine. I shall be delighted if one shall prove to me that it was borrowed from the Alexandrian philosophy. To me the wonderful thing is that John did so find it as the expression of the divine activity, and felt in a flash it was a fitting category for the lowly Prophet he had known in Galilee. He had no august traditions to uphold. He had no orthodox doctrine to maintain. He had only the memory of the beloved Master upon whose bosom he had lain at supper. And yet he felt as he remembered Him that nothing was so true to that remembrance as to say, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. "The one thing the apostles never do is to date the career of Jesus from His birth. For them, with all their marked divergences, He was the eternal Son of God. They knew the gladness of the prophetic message, "For unto us a child is born," but they knew also with undimmed assurance that "Before Abraham was, I am."

Christ's Pre-Existence in His Own Words

Now if that were only apostolic doctrine, there are many who would treat the matter cavalierly. They would find for it historic parallels, and call the writers the children of their age. But the singular and indeed inexplicable thing is not that Christ's preexistence is apostolic doctrine, but that unquestionably it had its place in the mature consciousness of Christ Himself. Christ does not speak of Himself as being born. He says, "I am come," or "I was sent." "Father, glorify thou me," He says, "with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." And then there is the second of our texts, a word that always thrills me when I hear it, "Before Abraham was, I am." If words mean anything at all, these words imply personal pre-existence. You cannot explain them by thinking of the Son as eternally present to the thought of God. And remember it was not Paul who uttered them, nor Peter, nor the beloved John; it was Jesus, and Jesus was the Truth. I want to show you the bearings of that doctrine. I want to show you how all the joy of Christmas is really involved in its acceptance. I want to show you how vitally it touches all that is deepest and richest in the Gospel, all that has won the heart and changed the life of innumerable thousands of mankind.

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The Eternal Son - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Was Jesus Conscious of His Pre-Existence. During His Childhood?

But before doing so there is one difficulty that I should like to dwell on for a moment. It is a difficulty that often has been felt, and perhaps especially at Christmastide. Was Christ conscious of that former life of His? Was it known to Him when He was a child? As He played in the village street of Nazareth did the glory He had left lie open to Him? I think that everyone of us must feel that any such consciousness of pre-existence is fatal to the simple human charm of the infancy and youth of Jesus. Doubtless He had His childish dreams of that kingdom where time and space are not. Heaven lay about Him in His infancy as it lay about all of us when we were children. But to think that He was vividly conscious as a child that He had lived forever with the Father is to pluck the heart of childhood from His bosom and the innocent wonder of childhood from His eyes. I think that His birth was a sleep and a forgetting, though trailing clouds of glory He had come. I do not imagine that this knowledge reached Him by any easy way of reminiscence. I think that it was slowly formed within His mind as the choicest fruit of His filial obedience; that it emerged for Him into a perfect certainty out of the depths of His fellowship with God. When He was a Child He thought as a child, for unto us, we read, a Child is born. And then He grew in knowledge and in wisdom, and was baptized with the Holy Ghost. Until at last His consciousness of Sonship became so overwhelming and intense, that it transcended time, and rose above beginning, and showed itself as an eternal thing. The closer any being lives with God, the more he feels that time is but a dream. Beginnings and endings are but incidents when there is the grip of the everlasting arms. And it was when Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, entered into all the riches of His Sonship, that He realized in that absolute relationship something that had no beginning and no ending. Only thus, I think, can you preserve unsullied the perfect childhood of our dear Redeemer. Only thus can you believe at Bethlehem that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Only thus with all the joy of Christmas can we say, "For unto us a child is born"; and yet go out into the night and whisper, "Before Abraham was, I am."

Lose Sight of Christ's Pre-Existence and God's Love Is Dimmed

What, then, are the spiritual values of Christ's pre-existence? Let me indicate to you the three that are most evident. And the first is that when we lose our hold on it immediately the love of God is dimmed. For God so loved the world not that He thought—God so loved the world not that He said—God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son for you and me. And the simple fact is that if Jesus Christ began to be in the hour when He was born, then in heaven there was no Son to cherish, and none in the fullness of the time to give. I learn the depth of a true mother's love from her unfailing spirit of self-sacrifice. I learn how dearly the patriot loves his country from his readiness to fight for it and die for it. And so alone do I learn the love of God, not from the beauty of the summer meadow, but from a deed of sacrifice more wonderful than ever mother or patriot achieved. It is not enough to tell me that God loves me. Life is far too tragic for that. You must show me a God giving His dearest for me if you would persuade me that I am dear to Him. And that is the one thing you can never show me if in the Godhead there was no society, no Son to love before the stars were kindled, and none in the fullness of the time to give. Take away the Lord's eternal being and the love of God is but a speculation. I have to gather it from broken syllables, some of them far too bloody to be legible. I have to do my work and face my music and bear my suffering and meet my death, sustained by nothing in this world of shadows but the shadow and surmise of desire. It is not thus that men are conquerors. We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. We need to know, not merely to conjecture, that in the heaven of heavens there is love. And of that transcendent fact there is no certainty, such as can be of service in the shadow, save the assurance of the heart that knows that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. I turn to nature, and ask her, "Is God love?" And nature shows me an earthquake. I turn to life, and life throws back the napkin from the cold faces of little children. I turn to the earthly experience of Jesus, certain that there the love of God will shine, and lo, a cross, and a very bitter cry from it, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me." Ah yes, but God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Once believe that to be the heart of history, and everything else can wait until the morning. Yet that is meaningless, and has no place in heaven, and ceases to be real as life is real, if Christ began to be when He was born.

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