George H. Morrison's Old And Beautiful Devotions

[nChrist]

The Eternal Son - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

Lose Christ's Pre-Existence and the Glory of Christ Is Dimmed

Again, if we lose our hold upon Christ's pre-existence, then the glory of the life of Christ is dimmed. It may still win us as a life of beauty, but it has ceased to awe us as a life of grace. For the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is certainly not the fact that He was poor. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is this, that though He was rich, for us He became poor. It is this which has thrilled and awed the hearts of men—not that He whom they worshipped was a servant, but that being in the form of God, He took on Him willingly a servant's form. When the supper was ended, He laid aside His garments and took a towel and washed His disciples' feet. It is a little picture, perfect in its outline, of the life of ministry that was so near its close. And what has awed men in that life of ministry has never been simply its lowliness of toil, but the thought that Christ in bending to His toil had laid aside His garments of eternity. Date everything from the birth-hour at Bethlehem, and you have nothing left but the poverty of Christ. His is only another of that roll of heroes who have served heroically in a narrow lot. However inspiring that may be, it is certainly not the inspiration that has founded Christendom and changed the hearts of men and kindled the adoration of the ages. Ye know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, for us He became poor. The conquering wonder of it all is not the poverty; it is the infinite wealth that was given up for poverty. It is not the manger—it is not the cross—it is the stooping from heaven to manger and to cross that has thrilled men as they never could be thrilled by any tale of patient, quiet endurance. In other words, remove the pre-existence, and you lose the infinite grace of the Redeemer. There were no riches to be given up if Christ began to be when He was born. And therefore if you would know the joy of Christmas, it is not enough to say a Child is born; you must launch out into the deeps and whisper, "Before Abraham was, I am."

If We Lose Sight of Christ's Pre-Existence, the Glory of Our Humanity Is Dimmed
Lastly, if we lose our hold of Christ's pre-existence, the glory of our humanity is dimmed. We have lost our historical and abiding argument for the nobility and dignity of man. There was a time when that was easily credited, for man was the tenant of a mighty world. His world was the fixed center of God's universe, and the stars in their courses were its obedient servants. It was for man that the sun arose in splendor; it was for man that the hosts of heaven were marshaled; it was to tell the petty secrets of man's destiny that the kindly planets moved into conjunction. Citizen of such a noble kingdom, there could be little question about man's nobility. Waited on by all these glittering servants, man was only a little lower than the angels. But now the world has lost her proud centrality, and heaven has shifted and gone far away, and sun and stars have other work to do than to tell strange stories of the death of kings. Heaven is removed and become astronomical. There is no Jacob's ladder that can reach it now. The earth, to which all creation did obeisance once, is now but an atom on creation's outskirts. And all this knowledge has so impressed the mind with the insignificance of this our dwelling place, that there has stolen on the heart, like a dark shadow, the possible insignificance of man. What is man that Thou art mindful of him—a creature of a day upon a distant satellite? What is man whose life is as a vapor, on a far atom of a boundless universe? From all such sense of nothingness, there is no argument so mighty to redeem as the argument that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son for you and me. Christ took not on Him the nature of angels. He took on Him the seed of Abraham.

He, the eternal Son of God, was found in fashion as a man. Why, if that be historically true, then, son of man, stand upon thy feet! for thou, child of an atom and a grave, art great and honorable forevermore. Seasons come when we all feel our greatness, but we need more than feeling for assurance. We want to have feeling in its loftiest hours confirmed by the witness of historic fact. And this I find, like the sound of some great bell, swinging slowly across the driving storm, is the deep and solemn music of the truth, that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Never again can I belittle man, if the eternal Son became man. Never again can I despise humanity, if He was found in the likeness of humanity. And never again can I be quite so certain of the infinite value of mankind to God, if Christ began to be when He was born. "Unto us a child is born "—yes, the gladness of Christmas is in that. It has hallowed home and sanctified the child and given new radiance to the eyes of motherhood. But remember that deep is calling unto deep, where the little Infant is crying in the manger—and so go out into the night and say, "Before Abraham was, I am."

____________________

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 6

The Man Born Blind

Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? — Joh_9:2

The Self-Forgetfulness of Christ

The eighth chapter of John closes with the Jews insulting Jesus. Angered by His claim to have been before Abraham was, they had taken up stones to cast at Him. It was then that Jesus, going through the midst of them, passed by; and it was in passing by that He saw the man. Would you have had eyes for a blind beggar, do you think, after treatment such as Jesus got? Would you have been swift to benefit a Jew when the Jews had hardly dropped the stones to stone you? It reveals the self-forgetfulness of Christ, that after this rough handling by the Jews, He should handle a Jew so tenderly as this.

If there is one story which we know by heart, we have it here. Some of us never see a blind man by the pavement, but we think of these eyes that were opened long ago. There are men who have been blinded by disease or accident; this man was blind from birth. He had never seen the meadows or the hills; he had never looked on his mother when she kissed him. Was there any hope for lost eyes like these ? The cleverest doctor in Jerusalem said No; but Jesus of Nazareth passed by, and He said, Yes. It is Christ's way to delight in saying Yes when all the wisdom of the world is saying No. And then how Jesus made the clay, and bade the blind man wash his eyes in Siloam, and how the blind man went and washed and saw (like another Caesar with his veni, vidi, vici), all this the mother will tell to her delighted children.

Purpose in Our Sufferings

There are one or two lessons that we must not miss, and first, there is a purpose in our sufferings. That blind man was a puzzle to the disciples. The first thing Jesus thought of was to heal him; the first thing the disciples thought of was— "Who was the sinner, this man or his father?" They might have learned from Job, if nowhere else, not always to link sin and suffering together. Then Jesus taught them what the blindness meant. There was a purpose in these sightless orbs. They were to bring the heart that beat behind them somewhere to trust in the great Savior of mankind. How often had the blind boy asked his mother, "O mother, what is the meaning of this darkness?" And with a breaking heart his mother had had to answer, "My dearest child, I do not know; God knows." Now Jesus came, and mother and son were taught. The secret of the darkness was unlocked. It was that the works of God might be shown forth. Do I speak to any crippled lads? Shall this little article be read to some blind girls? Be patient; do not call it cruel and bitter. The day is coming, perhaps here, certainly yonder, when you will understand.

Christ Loves to Help Our Faith

Some miracles were accomplished by a word. When Jesus went to the grave of Lazarus, He only cried, "Lazarus, come forth." But here He made clay and anointed the eyes of the blind man with it, and the question is, Why did our Lord do that? Did He need to do it? No. Did He wish the cure to be reckoned doubly wonderful by adding obstacles that made it doubly difficult? I feel at once that is not Jesus' way. He wished to strengthen faith; that is the answer, for without faith there are no mighty works. Had the man not heard from his neighbors twenty times, that spittle and clay were medicinal for the eyes? Do we not read in Tacitus of a blind man who begged Vespasian to spit upon his eyes? Jesus began upon the man's own level. He quickened faith by starting from common ground. He was leading the man by an old village recipe to the faith through which a miracle is possible.

The Man Was So Changed, the People Hardly Knew Him

His friends were sore perplexed. One could have sworn this was the man who begged. Another was ready to swear that it was not. Some argued that he was very like the beggar, but every one of them recognized the change. Now there are many things that change a man. Absence will do it—we hardly know our friend when he comes home! Suffering does it—what a difference in your sister since that illness! But neither absence nor suffering so changes a man as does the wonderful handiwork of Jesus. It gives new hopes. It brings new outlook. It kindles new desires. It creates a new heart. Old things pass away under the touch of Jesus, and all things become new.

What Christ Had Done Kept Him Loyal

After his healing, the blind man was sorely tempted to be false to Jesus. There was trouble at home; his parents were endangered. The priests and Pharisees were passionately angry at this new jewel in the crown of Jesus. And to think that he—who yesterday sat and begged—should stand in the temple and argue with the Pharisees! I am sure that when he went to bed at night, he wondered in the dark how he had done it. And then, through the lattice of his room, he saw the twinkling of a single star. Ah! it was that, that eyesight, that had stirred him. It was what Christ had done for him that kept him loyal. Let it be so with every one of us. Remember Bethlehem! Remember Calvary! Recall what Christ has done for you, and then—

Should the world and sin oppose,

We will follow Jesus,

He is greater than our foes,

We will follow Jesus.

On His promise we depend,

He will succor and defend,

Help and keep us to the end,

We will follow Jesus.

____________________

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 7

The Pattern of Service - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day—- Joh_9:4

The Perfect Service of Our Lord

Our Lord came among us as one who suffereth, and so He has taught us how to suffer. He also came as one who serves, and so He has taught us how to serve. And in this day, when the idea of service exercises such control in western Christendom, it is well that we should turn continually to the perfect service of our Lord. Sometimes out in mid-Atlantic a little boat is caught in a great storm. And she heaves and tosses in the wild of the waters till every timber in her frame is racked. And then not very far away from her making for the same port across the ocean, majestically there sails on some mighty liner. Many a worker has so thought of Christ when the winds were contrary and the sea was violent. With what an ease—with what a sense of power—with what unconscious triumph He goes by! And so it is well that we should think of Him and find anew the features of His service, and it is on some of these that I want to dwell.

The Union of Obedience and Originality in Christ

If I were asked what is the keynote to all the manifold service of our Lord, I think I should answer that it was obedience. We speak of the Gospel of John as the Gospel of love, and certainly it thrills and throbs with love; yet if you read that Gospel, at the back of love you will find something else. You will find that in every act He ever wrought, Christ was but doing what the Father showed Him; you will find that in every word He ever spoke, He was but uttering what He had heard. There is a beautiful instrument which some of you may have seen and to which is given the ugly name of seismograph. It is an instrument for recording the tremors and vibrations of the earth. And so delicate is it that if in the heart of Africa the earth should tremble with the shock of earthquake, it will be caught and registered in England. It is far from here to central Africa; it may be farther still from here to heaven. It was no skeptic, but a prophet of the Highest, who spoke of the land that is very far away. And yet so infinitely sensitive and delicate was the truly human soul of our Redeemer, that every whisper of the voice divine was caught and registered unerringly. Not the tide when it obeys the moon and moves to its fullness at the appointed moment; not the swallow when in the destined hour it makes for the sunshine of the south again—not these, nor any angel in the heavens speeding to fulfill the will of God, are so perfectly obedient as was Jesus.

Christ's Originality

Yet the singular thing is that when men looked on Christ, it was not that obedience which impressed them. It was something which seems quite different from obedience—what impressed them was His originality. On the tomb of Oliver Goldsmith there is written, Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit. It means that Goldsmith, with the charm of genius, touched nothing which he did not adorn. And if it be true of him, with all his weaknesses, a thousand times truer is it of the Master, who poured the infinite riches of His heart into His doctrine and His ministry. He touched the cottage, and from that hour to this, life in the cottage has been a different thing. He touched the heart, and in this heart of ours heights and depths appeared which had been hidden. And He touched language and it began to blossom, and He touched womanhood till it grew beautiful, and with His hands of love He touched the cross, and it has been bright with glory ever since. Had you asked Jesus with what eyes He saw, He might have answered "with the eyes of God." Had you asked Jesus with what lips He spake, He might have answered "with the lips of God." And yet men looked at Him and listened to Him and felt that here was a Man who was Himself. He was as fresh and wonderful and new as the first morning of another spring.

Now as you go out to serve, that is the first thing I want to leave with you. Your first duty is to be obedient to everything that you have learned from God. Never begin by trying to be original. That is always a tragic mistake. When men or women begin by trying that, they generally end by being useless. Begin by the great endeavor to be true to all that God has taught you and has shown you, and gradually in the lowliest service will come the touch that tells you are yourself. All service with that touch in it is blessed. All service without that touch in it is barren. It is a great thing to dare to be oneself whether in society or service. And Christ has shown us the way to that nobility—it is by being unfalteringly true to all that in the depths of our own soul we know to be the very voice of heaven.

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

[nChrist]

The Pattern of Service - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

In Christ, a Singular Union of Narrowness and Breadth

Now of course there is a sense of the word narrow which no one would ever apply to Jesus Christ. There is a narrowness which is very noble, and there is another which is very nasty. There is no love in it—no tenderness—no kindly touch as of a brother's hand. It is not generous as the sun is generous when it kisses the orchard of an autumn day. What then do I mean by narrowness? Well, take the story of the third temptation. "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." There, at the very outset of His life, when the world was all before Him where to choose, there was the stirring of imperial dream. "All these things will I give to thee." Might not this young prophet be a Caesar? Might He not go abroad into the world of men and show that He was the Master of them all? And instead of that He chose the narrow road and moved in quietness through little villages; and Roman historians, when He was dead, could not even spell His name correctly. Deliberately Christ drew His little circle, and inside that little circle He remained. And voices called Him, and hands were stretched to Him, and men besought Him, and He would not listen. Here was the place appointed Him of God, and not by a hand's-breadth would He swerve from it. That was the glory of His narrowness.

And yet once more the singular thing is this, that never was there a life so broad as Christ's. Narrowed in its sphere and in its service, the breadth of it is the marvel of the ages. Rich men like Nicodemus drew to Him. Poor men like Simon Peter loved Him passionately. Women of beautiful character revered Him. Women who were sunken would have died for Him. Men who were lawless like the zealot Simon would have fought for Him against the Roman army. And a centurion of that Roman army fell down at His feet and called Him Master. Was there ever a life so broad as this? Was there ever a life so rich in understanding? He knew the publican. He knew the mother. He knew the sufferer. He knew the child. And every bird that winged across the heaven and every flower that blossomed in the meadow, He saw, and, seeing, had these thoughts about them that oftentimes do lie too deep for tears. Intense with the intensity of God, He had the heart at leisure from itself. Feeling the infinite agony of Calvary, He felt the wonder and the joy of everything. Hating sin with an intense abhorrence, far more intense than we shall ever fathom, there was not a sinner from the streets of Magdala but somehow felt she had a friend in Him. It is such things as these that baffle me when I turn my eyes to Jesus Christ. So eaten up with zeal, and yet so tranquil; so narrow, and yet so infinitely broad. He had a baptism to be baptized with, and how was He straitened till it was accomplished—and yet He would dally with a little child as if He had nothing else on earth to do.

In Christ, a Singular Union of Failure and Success

I take it that when Christ was crucified, everybody thought that He had failed. Had you moved amid the crowds around the cross, that is the verdict you would have had from all. There was a time when He had seemed to triumph and when the people had been enthusiastic. And they would have taken Him and made Him King, and they cried "Hosanna to the son of David." But now the moment of the cross was come, and all the glory seemed to have been quenched, and the one word to write across the story was the most pitiful word in human speech. Perhaps there were one or two women who still trusted. Women can trust when everything is dark. Women will still hope about a man when every other voice is crying shipwreck. And so it may be that on the day of Calvary here and there a lamp of faith was still burning, each of them tended by a woman's fingers. But ask the disciples what they thought of it—ask the workmen what they thought of it—ask that young student, with his weary eyes, who had listened to the Lord until He loved Him. It was a splendid dream, but it was over now. It was a noble life, but it was ended. It was a fight for God in a corrupted church, and here at Calvary the church had won. Would Peter have written triumph on the cross? Could even John have written, This is victory? It was all dark to them, and all mysterious, for they had not grasped that He should rise again. If ever a service seemed to close in failure—failure dark and tragic and profound—it was the loving service of the Lord.

==========================See Page 3

[nChrist]

The Pattern of Service - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

And then what happened? You all know what happened. On the third day He rises from the dead. Then there comes the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, and the conversion of three thousand souls. And Peter is off to Babylon to preach, and Paul is off to Rome to tell the news—and Augustine is on his way to England, and Columba is on his way to Scotland—until now throughout our western world and to the farthest borders of the east, Christ is living, Christ is working, Christ is powerful in ten thousand ways. Give any name you like to that brief life, you dare not call it by the name of failure now. In all that it has done for men and women it is magnificent in its success. And yet that service, so mighty and so wonderful—so rich in impulse for a million hearts—flows from a life that once, in human speech, was branded with the bitter name of failure.

Our Seeming Failures May Be Successes in the End

Now as you go out to serve, will you engrave that upon your heart? When a man is in earnest about Christian service, he will be dogged and haunted by the sense of failure. I was talking to a doctor—a man who is well-known in his profession—and he told me how frequently there came to him a sense of uselessness that was unbearable. And I could not help thinking if that were so with him who had but the body for his sphere of service, much more would it be so with us who handle the infinite mystery of soul. I want you to believe that when you fail you may be succeeding all the time. I want you to feel you may be doing most, just when you think that you are doing nothing. I want you to look right back to Jesus Christ and to remember what they thought of Him and then to take you to your task again, leaving the issue in the hand of God. The one thing vital is that you persist. The one great treachery is to despair. To hold to it, when everything is gloomy, is the first task of every mortal man. And then some day, when all the gloom is passed, and the sun is shining and the wind is hushed, you will discover that your sorry failure was not quite so sorry as it seemed.

____________________

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 8

The Good Shepherd

I am the door of the sheep— Joh_10:7

The Man Born Blind and the Good Shepherd

Chapter nine of John's Gospel tells about the man born blind. Then in the following one is the lesson of the Good Shepherd. And I dare say it seems at first as if there were no link between the two. But if it is hard for us to find a link, it was all plain as daylight to the man born blind. He hid in the crowd and drank in every word that Jesus said; and as he heard that wonderful talk about the shepherd, he said to himself, "Every syllable of that is meant for me." Had not the Pharisees excommunicated him? Had they not slammed the door of blessing in his face? "I am the door," says the Lord Jesus. Had not the Pharisees been mad with rage that he, a poor lost sheep, should dare to teach them, the shepherds of the people? "I am the good shepherd," said Jesus. Christ knew what had happened. He knew the treatment His beggar-friend had gotten. It stirred His heart into this noble eloquence. And as the sunflower springs from its seed, so all the wealth and beauty of our chapter spring from the healing of the man born blind.

Many Were Called the Shepherd of the People

Of course, when Jesus calls Himself a shepherd, He is far from being first to use that figure. The originality of Jesus does not lie in saying things that were never said before. Old Homer (whom I hope many of my readers love) is fond of calling his heroes shepherds of men. It had been used of Cyrus in Isaiah; of rulers and prophets in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It is the name given to the teacher of wisdom in Ecclesiastes. It comes to full bloom in the twenty-third Psalm. I wonder, too, if you have ever thought how many of God's great leaders had been shepherds. Abraham and Jacob both had to do with sheep. Moses was keeping Jethro's flock when God spake in the burning bush. When Samuel came to seek a king, the king, a ruddy lad, was shepherding. Amos the prophet was a simple herdsman. And Jeremiah, the prophet most similar to the Lord, would seem to have been a shepherd too. Did not Christ know all that? Had He not brooded deep upon these shepherds, as He wandered among the hills of Nazareth? Now, at the touch of need and under the impulse of a great compassion, He glorifies and crowns that ancient image by making it the express image of Himself.

As a Shepherd, Christ Knows His Sheep

Now you will note that Jesus knows His sheep. That thought was clearly before the mind of Christ. There was not a Pharisee who knew the blind beggar although they had passed his begging-place for years. But beggar or prince, it is all one to Jesus; as the Father knows Him, He knows His own. Mr. Moody used to tell about a girl who was very ill, and her mother sang to her and spoke to her and shifted her, but the little patient still tossed and fretted. And then her mother stooped down and took her in her arms, and the child whispered, "Ah, mother, that's what I want!" You see that even a mother, for all her love, can never be sure what her little one is wanting. But every want and every need, and every trial and every hope, of every separate boy or girl who trusts Him—it is all known to Jesus. The day is coming when Christ shall say to some people, "Depart from Me, I never knew you! "But that same Jesus is saying today, "I am the Good Shepherd, and know My sheep."

The Sheep Know Their Shepherd

Note once again that the sheep know their shepherd. There is a story of a Scottish traveler in Palestine who thought he would try an experiment upon the sheep. He had been reading this chapter of St. John, and he was eager to put it to the test. So he got a shepherd to change clothes with him; and the tourist wrapped himself in the shepherd's mantle, and the shepherd donned the tourist's garb, and then both called to the flock of sheep to follow (in the East the shepherd goes before his flock). And the sheep followed the voice and not the dress. It was the voice and not the dress they knew. So you see that every sheep in the flock has got an earmark—it can tell the voice of the shepherd from a stranger's. And every sheep in the flock has got a footmark—they follow the shepherd because they know his voice. Have you been branded on the ear and foot? Are these two marks of ownership on you? Samuel was but a child when he cried out, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth!" The Shepherd called him and he heard the voice.

The Good Shepherd Lays His Life Down for the Sheep

We never think of a shepherd as a hero. But in the East there is never a day that dawns but may reveal the hero or the hireling in the shepherd. Tonight there may spring a lion on the flock. Or who can tell but that yon swirling dust betokens the galloping of Bedouin sheep-stealers? If that be so—come, trusty blade! It must be battle now! For all my watching and my watering shall be vain unless I am ready to combat to the death! So is the Eastern shepherd faced with death. Serving amid fierce beasts and fiercer bandits, he may be called to die for his sheep tonight. And I am the Good Shepherd, says Jesus, and the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep. Learn, then, that the cross is Jesus' noblest deed. It is not an accident; it is an act. It is the crowning service of the Shepherd to the sheep, whom He loves too deeply ever to let them go.

There Is Only One Fold

Then, lastly, mark that the shepherd has sheep outside our fold. In the early Church there was a fiery saint, some of whose books our students study yet. And this "fierce Tertullian," as one of our poets calls him, said, "The sheep He saves, the goats He doth not save." But in the very days when Tertullian was writing, there were humble Christians hiding in the catacombs. And they loved to draw the figure of the Good Shepherd, and many of their rude drawings are there still—and often the Good Shepherd is carrying on His shoulders, not a lamb, but a kid of the goats. To the Jew there was but one fold—it was Israel. Jesus had other sheep outside that fold. And whenever we send a missionary to China, whenever we pray for the savage tribes of Africa, we do it because the Good Shepherd has said this: "Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd."

____________________

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 9

Eternal Life - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly— Joh_10:10

What Is Life?

Amid all the mysteries which engird us there is none deeper than the mystery of life. We recognize life by a thousand evidences, and yet we know not what it is. When we see the surging crowd upon the streets under the glaring lamps of a great city; when we watch the children in their lighthearted glee come pouring from the school when it is over, we whisper to ourselves, What life is there! And yet, though it looks at us through countless eyes and speaks to us through innumerable voices, what that life is which is so manifested remains one of the hidden things of God. We probe for it with the lancet, and it flees us. We have our hand on it, and it escapes. It meets us in the surging of the city and in the quietness of nature's solitude. And yet this life, familiar as the sunshine and common as the sand upon the shore—what is it? We know not what it is.

If Life Is a Mystery, Much More Is This True of Life Eternal

Now if that be true of all life, as we encounter it in common days, much more may we expect it to be true of what the Scripture calls eternal life. That may be something which we can perceive. It may be something which we can enjoy. It may have qualities which flash upon us and tell us that eternal life is there. But if the life in any tiniest weed is something unfathomable and untouchable, eternal life must be a secret too. If a child's storybook in a foreign tongue is given you and you cannot understand a word of it, it is scarcely likely that you will comprehend a poem by a genius in that language. Nor is it likely that we will ever fathom the profound mystery of life eternal when we are baffled daily by life's rudiments. What do you mean by life eternal, is perhaps a question you may ask of me. Well then, in our Scottish fashion, I shall ask you a question or two in return. What is that life which waves in the green grass? What is that life which dances in the butterfly? What is that life which looks as from the depths through the eager eyes of little children? There is an agnosticism which is the child of pride. There is another which is the child of wisdom. It is a great step upon the road to light when a man will bow the head and say, I do not know. Even our Lord, though He was the Son of God, was not above that honoring humility, for of that day and hour, He said, knoweth no man, not even the Son, only the Father.

One Word Sums up the Gospel: "Life"

And yet though all life be a mystery and though the springs of it be wrapped in darkness, I want you to remember that it was this mystery which was the great message of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sum up His Gospel in a single word, and that one word is life. Get to the heart of all He had to teach, and life is nestling against that heart. One thought determines every other thought; one face interprets and arranges everything, and that one fact, so dominant and regal, is the deep fact of life. Deeper than faith, for faith is but a name unless it issue from a heart that lives; deeper than love though God Himself be love, for without life love would be impossible. Life is the rich compendium of the Gospel and the sweet epitome of its good news and the word that gathers into its embrace the music and the ministry of Christ. Of course, like the perfect preacher that He was, Christ was ever varying His message. He did not always harp on the same string. He did not always knock with the same summons. He cast His message in a hundred forms in His consuming earnestness to save, for every heart has its own tender spot and will not open to any other call. No words could be more occasional than Christ's. No life could be less trammeled by routine. No word that He spoke, no deed He ever did, but fitted the moment with a perfect niceness. Yet always, underneath that large variety which is the freedom of the Son of God, there was the undertone of life eternal. "The words that I speak unto you," He said, "they are spirit, and they are life." "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." "I am the way," He said, "the truth, the life." "I am the resurrection and the life." All that He came to teach—all that He was—is summed up and centered in that little word.

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

[nChrist]

Eternal Life - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Life Is a Good Thing

Now the very fact that Jesus spoke of life so is our assurance that life is a good thing. Whatever it be, in its unfathomed depth, it must be good since Christ has spoken so. When I recall the life of Jesus, I sometimes wonder that He did not weary of it. Baffled on every hand and disappointed, was there anything in that life to make it sweet? He was no dreamer in a shady solitude where all the voices of the world were calling peace. "He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Always, upon His sunniest hour, there was the shadow of the cross of Calvary. Always beside Him, in His frankest moment, were the suspicious eyes of His betrayer. And yet that Christ whose life was so environed—who could not move without the serpents hissing—held to it that life was a good thing. This was the human life that He had known; yet "I am come that they might have life," He said. Baffled and bruised, He never longed for death. He never preached the solace of the grave. He preached that life is good, not in its trappings, but in that secret which we can never fathom: "I am the resurrection and the life." It is just there that Jesus Christ our Lord stands separated by all the world from Buddha. For Buddha was so touched by human pain that he wanted to have done with life forever. But Christ, who knew a sorrow far more terrible than had ever fallen on the heart of Buddha, tells of a life that is to be eternal. He was not manifested to take life away: He was manifested to take death away. Buddhists believe that the last enemy which shall be destroyed is life. But Jesus Christ has never spoken so, nor has the Gospel which conveys His spirit. It is our hope—it is our trust—that the last enemy which shall be destroyed is death.

Eternal Life Is Something Different from Immortality

Along that line, then, we come to understand what is the meaning of eternal life. We see, for instance, that eternal life is something different from immortality. Christ did not come that we might have immortality. We should have had immortality without Him. We are not immortal because Christ was born and because He died for our sins upon the tree. We are immortal by the touch of God who in His sovereign pleasure has created us and in whose gift there is the stamp and seal of an existence that shall never cease. Immortality is the Creator's heritage—eternal life the gift of Jesus Christ. We are immortal whether we will or no. We cannot stamp out life by any suicide. But eternal life we can refuse. It is a gift, and we can spurn the gift: "Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." "This day," said Jesus to the dying thief, "This day thou shalt be with me in paradise." Brought into living touch with Jesus Christ, he had won the secret of eternal life. Both malefactors had immortal souls, and both would live forever although crucified, but only for the one was there a paradise with the Lord walking there among the lilies.

Now perhaps we shall understand that deep distinction best by touching on what we notice every day. It is the difference between mere existence and living in the true sense of the world. I take it that for all of us there are periods when we just exist. We rise and sleep; we eat and do our work, but we are dull and heavy and inert. There is no gladness when the morning comes; there is no swift response to our environment, and it is always upon that response that the wealth or poverty of life is based. And then what happens? Something like this happens. There comes to us an hour when all is changed. Sorrow may do it—some great call may do it—the mystical touch of a great love may do it. And everyone we meet is different now, and every sound has got a different music, and yesterday we existed like the beasts, and today, in that deepening, we live. Something like that, as I conceive it, is the difference between immortality and life eternal. I mean they are not different in kind. I mean they are different in degree. Eternal life is but our immortality quickened into its fullness by the Christ, touched by His love, wakened by His call, into a glory that is life indeed. You must exist or you could never live. It is the one that makes the other possible. The one is the harp of life—and then comes love, and with its masterhand draws out the music. So up and down the chords of immortality there moves the hand that was once pierced for us, and then, and only then, there sounds the music which is eternal life. Deep down below the special gift of Christ there is the universal gift of God. He is the God of Abraham and of Isaac. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And then comes Christ, and by His love and passion, and by the breathing of the Holy Ghost, He deepens—heightens—brightens immortality into the splendor of eternal life.

===========================See Page 3

[nChrist]

Eternal Life - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

Eternal Life Means a Different Quality of Life, Not Quantity

Put in another way that just means this, that Christ is thinking of quality, not quantity. Life is eternal in virtue of its quality, rather than in virtue of duration. You can never measure life by its duration. The two are not commensurate at all. We take the equal hours that the clock gives, and we mould them in the matrix of the heart. And one shall seem to us to be unending, it is so weighted with a leaden sorrow; and another shall have but flashed upon us when it has passed away, and that forever. There have been hours for you when you have lived more than in the passage of a hundred days. There have been moments when you have seen more deeply than in the groupings of all a heavy winter. Life mocks at time. Life will not recognize it. Life tramples in disdain upon the calendar. Life's truest measurement is never quantity. Life's truest measurement is quality. Do you think that because two men have lived till seventy, the one life must be equal to the other? Do you think that Christ, who died at thirty-three, had not lived more than many a man of seventy? It is not length of years that makes the different. It is the depth of it. It is the quality. The question is not how long a man may live; the question is how much.
It was of that, that Christ was thinking when He spoke of life eternal. Not even He could lengthen out its span, for God had made it immortal at the start. He was not thinking of the flight of years. He was thinking of the depth of being. He was thinking of a life so full and deep that the very thought of time has passed away. When a river is dry and shallow in the summertime, you see the rocks that rise within its bed. And they obstruct the stream and make it chafe and fret it as it journeys to the ocean. But when the rains have come and the river is in flood, it covers up the rocks in its great volume, and in the silence of a mighty tide flows to its last home within the sea. It is not longer than it was before. It is only deeper than it was before. Measure it by miles, it is unchanged. Measure it by volume and how different! So with the life that is the gift of Jesus. It is not longer than God's immortality. It is only that same river deepened gloriously, till death itself is hidden in the deeps. Knowledge is perfected in open vision; love is crowned in an unbroken fellowship; service at least shall be a thing of beauty, fired by the vision of the God we serve. That is eternal life, and that alone. That is its difference from immortality. That is the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ to the immortal spirit of mankind.

Eternal Life Is Continuous—It Begins Here and Never Ends

In closing, I should like you to observe that in the eyes of Jesus all that life was one. There was no break in it. It was continuous. It carried over the first into the last. He that believeth hath everlasting life—it is not something we are still to get. "He that believeth in me shall never die"—death is an incident in continuity. Wonderful as life beyond shall be and exquisite beyond our wildest dream, remember that at the heart of it, it will not differ from the life we know. Take the parable of the talents. Do you remember what the Master promised? "Because thou hast been faithful over few things, I will make thee ruler over many things." That was the joy and that was the reward; not singing praises in a heaven of idleness, but carrying on in an unbroken service with all the capacity that earth had shaped. Nothing that we have fought for will be lost. Nothing that we have striven for ignored. Every battle we have fought in secret will make the life beyond a grander thing. Every task that we have quietly done, when there were none to see and none to praise, will give us a heaven which is a sweeter place and a service nearer the feet of the Eternal. I don't know how it is with you, but I know certainly how it is with me. No other thought of the beyond appeals to me. No other thought inspires me as does that. And of this I am sure, if I am sure of anything, that that is what Christ meant by life eternal. God grant us faith in Him that we may have it!

____________________

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 10

The Thing Incredible

Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life .... No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself— Joh_10:17-18

History Has Come Full Circle

It is strange how often in the course of history the wheel has "come full circle." The impossibilities of yesterday have proved the commonplaces of today. Our Christian faith has always had its elements which powerfully commended it to men, and always there have been aspects of it which were obstacles to its acceptance; but the singular fact which steadily emerges from a growing knowledge of its story is how often the glory of the past becomes the difficulty of the present. One sees that in regard to miracles. Once they were confirmations of the faith. For multitudes the Gospel was authenticated by the signs and wonders of the Lord. And now for multitudes these very miracles are obstacles and stumbling blocks, only making it harder to believe. Today it is the divinity of Christ which so many find it difficult to credit; in the early days of Christianity there was far more difficulty over His humanity. Today we have to battle with agnosticism, which is the denial of all certain knowledge; but in the early Church the conflict was with gnosticism, which, of course, is agnosticism's opposite.

The Change in Attitude Towards Christ's Death and Resurrection

Something of the same kind is seen in regard to our Lord's death and resurrection. Nobody today questions that He died, but many question if He rose again. That He incurred the bitter enmity of men by the fearless proclamation of His message, that the passions He inevitably roused finally brought Him to His death—all this seems so natural to us that no one has any trouble with the cross now, viewed, I mean, just as a fact of history. The problem for us is not that Christ should die; the problem is that He should rise again, with the very body which the nails had pierced and which had known the thrusting of the sword. Multitudes of earnest souls have difficulty in crediting that. This is seen in the various attempts of modernism to explain away His resurrection. No one tries to explain away His death now. It is universally accepted that He died. Nobody finds it a thing almost incredible that at last He was hung upon a tree. The thing almost incredible to many is that on the third day He rose again, in all the power of an endless life.

The Mystery of Mysteries for the Early Disciples

And yet, if I do not greatly err, the opposite was true in the first days. For those who stood nearest to the Lord the staggering difficulty was His death. They had seen Him in conflict with all the powers of darkness, and from every conflict He had emerged victorious. He had challenged evil in all its ugly forms, and as a Conqueror driven it from the field. He had marched on in triumph, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and every foe of full abundant life had been forced to acknowledge His supremacy. Blindness had vanished at His word. Leprosy had departed at His touch. Fevers had fled away, and the withered arm had become strong again. Even death itself, that universal conqueror, had been forced to render up its prisoners at the kingly command of the Lord Jesus. All this they had seen with their own eyes. It was the constant experience of comradeship. They had walked with One who had matched Himself with death and compelled death to acknowledge he was beaten. And to them the thing incredible was this, that He, who had triumphed all along the line, should Himself become a prisoner of the tyrant. For us the resurrection is the staggering thing: the death but the inevitable end. For those who had corn-partied with Jesus it was the other way about. That He should die, that death should conquer Him, that over Him the grave should be victorious, was to them the mystery of mysteries.

Almost certainly some such thought as this moves through the disciples' aversion from the cross. It underlies their incredulous astonishment when our Lord began to speak about the end. That they heard with horror of a death of shame is in consonance with human nature. Mingling with that horror was the agony of losing their Beloved. But perhaps we shall never fully understand their wild and incredulous astonishment till we recall the personality of Jesus. Men find it difficult to associate death with powerful and arresting personalities. From Nero to Lord Kitchener we trace the conviction that the dead are living. And for men who had companied with Jesus and seen the energies of His victorious life, it must have been extraordinarily hard to picture Him under the power of the grave. That He who was the life should be overcome by the opposite of life, that He who was continually giving life should be powerless to retain His own, this was what perplexed those earliest followers mingling with their love and sorrow, whenever Jesus turned their thoughts to Calvary. It was easy to think of Him as living; it was impossible to think of Him as dead. How could death, whom He had faced and beaten, overthrow that radiant personality? And now the wheel has "come full circle," and it is not the fact of His death that staggers anybody; it is the assertion that He rose again.

Christ's Death Was a Glorious Act of Service

And it was then, brooding in the darkness, that the word of Jesus came back to them with power. They recalled how He had told them once, "I lay it down of myself." That death, which was so hard to understand, was not the ghastly token of defeat. It did not mean that He who had raised Lazarus had Himself been beaten by the enemy. It meant that He had given Himself, in the wise and holy purposes of love, into the clutching fingers of the tyrant. His death was not a dark necessity. It was a glorious and crowning act of service. The very love that had conquered death for Lazarus submitted to it for the sake of sinners. So did the death of Jesus for these sorrowing men cease to be an inexplicable problem and become the center of their hope and joy.

____________________

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 11

The Man Who Does No Miracle

John did no miracle: but all things that John spake of this man were true— Joh_10:41

The Brilliant and the Average

The kind of man who does no miracle is the kind we are meeting every day. He is the man who never makes us marvel. There are men like Shakespeare who cannot take up a pen without enriching us with miracles of wisdom. There are women who delight us with miracles of song. But the average man is different from that. One can reckon on the thing that he will do. It is the sort of thing that we can do ourselves. Now, brilliance may be perilous; but mediocrity also has perils. Remember that in the Master's story it was the man of the one talent who made shipwreck. So it may help us to consider briefly what Scripture has to teach about a man who never did a miracle.

Even Though John Didn't Do Any Miracles. He Had a Lofty Character

First, the Baptist did no miracle, yet he had a lofty character. Perhaps we should be aware of that more vividly if the Baptist did not stand so close to Jesus. A flower is apt to blossom unobserved if it be near one that is altogether lovely. And our blessed Lord, in that perfect poise of His, was "altogether lovely." So that often we are likely to miss, from its very proximity to what was perfect, the grandeur of the character of John. How true he was in every relationship! How wise in the midst of tumultuous excitements! How brave both in the desert and the dungeon! How exquisitely and gloriously humble!—and all this loftiness and moral worth found, not in the child of genius, but in the man who never did a miracle. Character does not demand great gifts. Character can ripen in the commonplace. Men who have no wonder-working genius can "come smiling from the world's great snare uncaught." And to do that, when life is difficult, and skies are dark and temptations are insistent is to reach the sunrise and the crown.

John Had a Special Work to Do

Again, the Baptist did no miracle, yet God gave him a special work to do. It was the work of witnessing to Christ, and John fulfilled it in the noblest way. Others dreamed that the Messiah would come in splendor: John witnessed that He was in their midst. Others dreamed that He would appear in sovereignty: John witnessed that He was the Lamb of God. And this great mission, of such supreme importance in the loving purposes of heaven, was given to a man who did no miracle. We are so apt to think that special service is only given to very special people, that great tasks are not for common folk but for men of wonder-working gifts. And the beautiful lesson of our text is this, that though you may have no power to do a miracle, for you, too, there is a special service-something that only you can do; something that won't be done unless you do it; something the world needs, which you and you only can supply—you, not dowered with any gift of miracle. Business men in a humble way of business, mothers in undistinguished homes, riveters working in the shipyards, clerks and typists in the city offices—such do no miracles and never will save the one miracle of patient drudgery; yet God for each has a special work to do.

John's Influence

Then the Baptist did no miracle, yet he exercised a deep and lasting influence. It was of that, in part, our Lord was thinking when He said that John was greater than the prophets. In the long history of Israel none were more influential than the prophets. They stirred the conscience; they revived the state; they brought God to bear on daily life. But even greater than that prophetic influence was the influence of John the Baptist—yet John was a man who never did a miracle. Is not that true of human life? Most of us in our journey through the years have met with some who had the gift of miracle—some who could take a common thing and touch it, and it would blossom into a world of beauty. And for all these wonderful gifts we shall be grateful, for every good and perfect gift is from above, but—are these the folk who have influenced us most? Is it not far more often common, humble people, dowered with no extraordinary gifts?—a wife or mother, a wise and faithful friend, a minister whom none would call a genius? It is one of life's most perfect compensations that influence does not depend on brilliance but comes to those (like John) who do no miracle.

God's "Well Done" Is for the Faithful Man

Lastly, the Baptist did no miracle, yet he won the highest praise of Christ. "Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John." A man may lead a false and rotten life and yet win the praise of men. The acid test of the successful life is this: does it win the praise of Christ? And the fine thing is that to win that praise one does not need to be wonderful or striking: it is given to those who may do no miracle—to those who trust Him when everything is dark; to those who keep their faces towards the morning; to those who, through headache and through heartache, quietly and doggedly do their appointed bit; to those who "endure" with a smile upon their lips; to those who help a brother by the way; to those who look for a city which hath foundations. In this big world there is room for every gift and for every genius who has the power of miracle. But in this big world there is room and power and victory for the great multitude who do no miracle. It is not "Well done, thou good and brilliant servant," else would there be little hope for millions. It is "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

____________________

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 12

The Number of the Hours - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

Are there not twelve hours in the day?— Joh_11:9

The Disciples' Misunderstanding of Christ

These words were spoken by Jesus at the time when news had been brought Him that Lazarus was sick. For two days Jesus had made no move, but had abode with His disciples where He was. The disciples would be certain to misconstrue that inactivity—they would whisper, "Our Master at last is growing prudent"—and therefore their amazement and dismay when Christ announced He was going to Judea. They broke out upon Him with expostulation—"Lord, it was but yesterday that You were stoned there. It is as much as Your life is worth to think of going—it is the rankest folly to run that tremendous risk." And it was then that Jesus turned upon the twelve with a look which they never would forget and said to them, "Are there not twelve hours in the day?" It is on these words that I wish to dwell a little. I want to use them as a lamp to illumine some of the characteristics of the Lord, for they seem to me to irradiate first, the earnestness; second, the fearlessness; and third, the fretlessness of our Savior.

The Earnestness of Christ

What first arrests us, reading the life of Jesus, is not His strong intensity of purpose. It is only gradually, and as our study deepens, that we feel the push of that unswerving will. If you put the Gospel story into the hand of a pagan to whom it came with the freshness of discovery, what would impress him would not be Christ's tenacity, but the variety and the freedom of His life. Never was there a career that bore so little trace of being lived in accordance with a plan. Never were deeds so happily spontaneous; never were words so sweetly incidental. To every moment was perfect adaptation as if that were the only moment of existence. This hiding of intensity is mirrored in the great paintings of the face of Christ. In the galleries of the old masters I do not know one picture where the face of Christ is a determined face. For the artists felt with that poetic feeling which wins nearer to the heart of things than argument, that the earnestness of Jesus lay too deep to be portrayed by brush upon the canvas.

But when we reach the inner life of Christ, there passes a wonderful change over our thought. We slowly awake, amid all the spontaneity, to one tremendous and increasing purpose. As underneath the screaming of the seabirds we hear the ceaseless breakers on the shore, as through the rack and drift of driving clouds we catch the radiance of one unchanging star, so gradually, back of all stir and change and the varied and free activity of Christ, we discern the pressure of a mighty purpose moving without a swerve towards its goal. From the hour of His boyhood when He said to Mary, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business," on to the hour of triumph on the cross when He cried with a loud voice, "It is finished," unhasting and unresting, without one check or falter, the face of Jesus is set in one direction; and it is when we come to recognize that unity hidden amid the luxuriance of freedom that we wake to the sublime earnestness of Christ. I think that the apostles hardly recognized it till He set His face steadfastly towards Jerusalem. Before that, they were always offering suggestions: after that, they offered them no more. They were amazed, we read; they were afraid. The eagerness of Jesus overwhelmed them. At last they knew His majesty of will and were awestruck at the earnestness of Christ.

Christ's Certain Knowledge of His Limited Time

There were many reasons for that wholehearted zeal which it does not fall to me to touch on here. But one was the certain knowledge of the Lord that there were only twelve hours in His day. Before His birth, in His pre-existent life, there had been no rising or setting of the sun. After His death, in the life beyond the grave, the day would be endless, for "there is no night there." But here on earth with a mighty work to do and to get finished before His side was pierced, Christ was aroused into triumphant energy by the thought of the determined time. "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work." That must—what is it but the shadow of sunset and the breath of the twilight that was soon to fall? A day at its longest—what a little space! Twelve hours—they are ringing to evensong already! Under that power the tide that seemed asleep moved on "too full for sound or foam."

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

[nChrist]

The Number of the Hours - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

It is always very wonderful to me that Christ thus felt the shortness of the time. This Child of Eternity heard with quickened ear the muffled summons of the fleeting hours. It is only occasionally that we hearken to it; far more commonly we seek to silence it. Most men, as Professor Lecky says, are afraid to look time in the face. But Christ was never afraid to look time in the face; steadily He eyed the sinking sands, till moved to His depths by the urgency of days, the zeal of the house of His Father ate Him up. Have you awakened to that compelling thought, or do you live as if your sun would never set? There are but twelve hours in the day, and it will be sunset before you dream of it. Get done what God has sent you here to do. Wait not for the fool's phantom of tomorrow—Act, act today, act in the living present!

Christ's Fearlessness

In the next place, our text illuminates Christ's fearlessness, and that indeed is the textual meaning of it, for it was when the disciples were trying to alarm Him that Jesus silenced their suggestions so. "Master," they said, "It is a dangerous thing to show Yourself at Bethany. Remember how You were stoned on Your last visit; it will be almost certain death to go thither again." And it was then, to silence all their terror and with a courage as sublime as it was simple that Jesus asked, "Are there not twelve hours in the day ?" What did He mean? He meant, "I have my day. Its dawn and its sunset have been fixed by God. Nothing can shorten it and nothing can prolong it. Till the curfew of God rings out, I cannot die." It was that steadying sense of the divine disposal which made the Christ so absolutely fearless and braced Him for every "clenched antagonism" that rose with menace upon the path of duty. When Dr. Livingstone was in the heart of Africa, he wrote a memorable sentence in his diary. He was ill and far away from any friend, and he was deserted by his medicine-carrier. But he was willing to go anywhere provided it was forward, and what he wrote with a trembling hand was this: "I am immortal till my work is done." That was the faith of Paul and of Martin Luther, the faith of Oliver Cromwell and of Livingstone. They had caught the fearless spirit of the Master who knew there were twelve hours in the day.

The Strength in Knowing That God Appoints Our Times

Now it is always a source of buoyant strength when a man comes to see that his way is ordered. There is a quiet courage that is unmistakable in one who is certain he is led by God. But remember, according to the Master's doctrine, our times are fixed as surely as our ways; and if we are here with a certain work to do which in the purposes of God must be fulfilled, no harm can touch us nor is there power in death till it draws to sunset and to evening star. What is it that makes the Turk such a brave soldier that with all his vices we cannot but admire him? It is his conviction of a relentless fate which he cannot hasten yet cannot hope to shun. In the name of freedom, Christ rejects that fatalism; but on the ruins of it He erects another. It is the fatalism of a love that is divine, for it includes the end in the beginning. Never shirk dangers on the path of duty. On the path of duty one is always safest. Let a man be careful that he does his task, and God will take care of the task-doing man. For always there are twelve hours in the day, and though the clouds should darken into storm, they cannot hasten the appointed time when it is night.

And just here we ought to bear in mind that the true measurement of life is not duration. We live in deeds, not breaths—it is not time; it is intensity that is life's measurement. Twelve hours of joy, what a brief space they are! Twelve hours of pain, what an eternity! We take the equal hours which the clock gives, and we mould them in the matrix of our hearts. Was it the dawn that crimsoned in the east as Romeo stood with Juliet at the window? It seemed but a moment since the casement opened, and—"It is my lady, O it is my love." But to the sufferer tossing on her sickbed and hearing every hour the chiming in the dark, that night went wearily with feet of lead, and it seemed as if the dawn would never break. "Are there not twelve hours in the day?" said Jesus—yet Jesus died when He was thirty-three. The dial of God has got no minute hands; its hours are measured by service and by sacrifice. Call no life fragmentary. Call it not incomplete. Think thee how love abbreviates the hours. If God be love, time may be fiery-footed, and the goal be won far earlier than we ever dreamed.

===========================See Page 3

[nChrist]

The Number of the Hours - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

Christ's Fretlessness

Then lastly, and in a word or two, our text illuminates Christ's fretlessness. For never was there a life of such untiring labor that breathed such a spirit of unruffled calm. We talk about our busy modern city, and many of us are busy in the city, but for a life of interruption and distraction, give me the life of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Some of us could hardly live without the hills—a day in their solitude is benediction; but when Jesus retired to that fellowship of lonely places, even there He was pressed and harassed by the crowd. Every day was thronged with incident or danger. There was no leisure so much as to eat. Now He was teaching—now He was healing—now He was parrying some cruel attack. Yet through it all, with all its stir and movement, there is a brooding calm upon the heart of Christ that is only comparable to a waveless sea asleep in the stillness of a summer evening. Some men are calm because they do not feel. We call it quiet, and it is callousness. But Christ being sinless was infinitely sensitive—quick to respond to every touch and token. Yet He talked without contradiction of His peace—"My peace that the world cannot give or take away"—and down in the depths of that unfathomed peace was the thought of the twelve hours in the day. Christ knew that if God had given Him a twelve hours' work, God would give Him the twelve hours to do it in. To every task its time, and to every time its task, that was one great method of the Master. And no man will ever be calm as Christ was calm who cannot halt in the midst of the stir and say, "My peace"; who cannot stop for a moment in the busiest whirl and say to himself, "My times are in Thy hand." God never blesses unnecessary labor. That is the labor of the thirteenth hour. All that God calls us to and all that love demands is fitted with perfect wisdom to the twelve. Therefore be restful; do not be nervous and fussy; leave a little leisure for smiling and for sleep. There is no time to squander, but there is time enough—are there not twelve hours in the day?

____________________

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 13

We May Live Too Long

Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him — Joh_11:9-10

The Confidence of Christ

These words are the recoil of Jesus from the fearfulness of the disciples. They had just told Him that if He went into Judaea, He did it at the peril of His life. To that, the answer of their Lord was, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? Is not My life planned out for Me by God? Are not My times in His hand? Till the appointed hour strikes, ten thousand may fall at My right hand, but it shall not (and it cannot) come nigh Me." It was this confidence, not in a dark fate, but in the perfect ordering of love, that kept our Savior undismayed and tranquil when fear was on every hand. There were twelve hours in His day, and till the sands of the twelfth hour had run, His enemies were powerless to touch Him.

In View of the Glory of the Cross

Now this was spoken by our Lord when He knew that Calvary was not far away. The miracle He was about to work on Lazarus was to prove to be the crisis of His life. When St. John speaks of the Savior being "glorified," he is almost always thinking of the cross. That lifting up of Jesus was His glory: the cross was His crown. And when our Lord says here that the sickness of Lazarus was for the glorifying of the Son of God (Joh_11:4), He knew that the impending miracle was to lead Him straight to the bitter way of Calvary. There were twelve hours in His day—with what swiftness these winged hours had fled! It seemed but yesterday since He had played at Nazareth, and now the sun was setting. What deep thoughts of life and opportunity, and of the flying shuttle on the loom of time must have occupied the heart of Jesus as, deliberately, He moved onward to Judaea! Must He die just then? Might He not prolong His life a little? It was a sweet, glad thing to be alive—could He not postpone the agony a season? If He was tempted in all points like as we are, surely He was tempted thus when He went forward to raise Lazarus—and to die (Joh_11:53).

Heavenly Light on the Pathway of Life as Long as It Lasts

And then out of these deep and solemn musings come these wonderful words that stir the heart—"But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth." The figure is, that as long as daylight lasts the traveler has the light of heaven to guide him. But let him push on into the falling darkness, and he stumbles, for the light is gone. And Christ fought back the insidious temptation to escape death and to live a little longer by that awful thought of stumbling in the night. Just as long as His twelve hours endured He had the promise and certainty of light. Led by His Father, He would be kept from stumbling, however hard and perilous the way. But let Him push on, past the appointed time, into the service of a thirteenth hour, and His feet, which had been beautiful upon the mountains, would stumble in the bewilderment of night. In other words, He must not shun the cross. To escape it would only lead to tragedy. A year gained by avoidance of the agony would be a year bereft of the shining of God's face. So He set His face steadfastly towards Jerusalem and refused the aid of the legions of angels and cried with a loud voice, "It is finished."

Prolongation of Physical Life at Spiritual Detriment

And for us the lesson is just this—and there are times when we all need to learn it—that we may purchase a few years of added life at far too great a spiritual cost. When a believer, in times of persecution, lengthens his years by being false to Christ; when a minister shuns the sickbed of infection lest he catch the infection himself and perhaps die; when a physician flees at the approach of plague; when anyone evades or shirks the cross, he is prolonging his life into the night. I do not think I have known a single young fellow who got exemption in the war to save his skin whose character has not deteriorated steadily. Life thus lengthened is always unillumined. There is no sunshine in the thirteenth hour. To shirk one's duty that life may be prolonged is to gain years that are not worth the living. And yet how often gentle, kindly hearts beg us to take care and not run risks, just as Peter did when he heard about the cross. We are immortal till our work is done. There are twelve hours in the day. Possibly by shirking dangerous duty a man might add to his day a thirteenth hour. But if he does, says Jesus, no birds will sing for him nor will the light of the glad sun direct his feet— he will walk in the night and he will stumble.

____________________

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.)
____________________