George H. Morrison's Old And Beautiful Devotions

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October 2

Unconscious Ministries - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

And the prisoners heard them— Act_16:25

An Unconscious Ministry in Music

Strangers in a strange city, Paul and Silas had very violent treatment. They were seized and, without semblance of a trial, were thrust into the inner prison. It was a gloomy and miserable place and might have appalled the spirits of the bravest. Men had been known in that dark cell to curse and some, in black despair, to kill themselves. But never, since these walls had been embattled, had any prisoner been known to sing there, and yet at midnight Paul and Silas sang. It was dark, and yet all bright to them. It was exceeding loathsome, and yet beautiful. Stone walls did not a prison make for them, nor iron bars a cage. And so they sang like the lark at heaven's gate— although for them it was a prison-gate— and as they sang, the prisoners heard them. Probably some of these prisoners became Christians afterwards. It was they who told the story to the Church: told how at dead of night, dull and despairing— hark the sound of music. And one would recall how it held his hand from suicide, and another how it revived his hope, and another perhaps how it brought back the memory of his mother and his childhood and his home. Of all that service the men who sang knew nothing They were totally unconscious of such ministry. They sang because Christ was with them and was cheering them. They sang because they could not help but sing And all the time, although they never dreamed of it, they were serving others better than they knew, touching old tenderness, reviving courage, making it easier to suffer and be strong.

We All Exercise Unconscious Ministries

Now something of that kind we all are doing We all of us exercise unconscious ministries. When we never dream we are affecting anybody, we are touching and turning others all the time. We fret, and others feel our fretting, though never a syllable has passed our lips. We play the game, and just because we play it, folk we have never heard of play it better. We sing at midnight because God is with us and will never leave us nor forsake us, and prisoners in other cells are cheered. One of our writers, a man of genius— yet a man whose moral character was vile— has told us how, when in the grip of shame, somebody took off his hat to him. It was only a custom of familiar courtesy— the instinctive action of a gentleman— yet to him it was a gleam of heaven in his hell. We never know what we are doing when we do it. Our tiniest actions are touched to freest issues. Like Faithful, in the Valley of the Shadow, we lift up our voice because our heart is strong. And some poor Christian, stumbling on behind us on his way also to the Celestial City, thanks God and takes courage at the music. Be quite sure that the very humblest life is full of beneficent unconscious ministries. There is not a note of song we ever raise but the ear of some other prisoner will catch it. Words that we utter and then quite forget—a smile in passing— the clasp of hands in comradeship— have got their work in God's strange world to do and will meet us in the rosy-fingered dawn.

The Ministry of Happiness

This unconscious human helpfulness is one of the chiefest ministries of happiness. Happiness is sometimes selfishness; but happiness is also sometimes service. He who resolves at all costs to be happy is generally a very miserable person. In this wide world the things we set our hearts on are so often the things we never get. But when anyone is genuinely happy, with a heart at leisure from itself, then happiness is unconscious benediction. One of the most beautiful poems of Robert Browning is a wonderful thing that he calls Pippa Passes. It is a story of murder and of guilt, portrayed with the passion and the truth of genius. And then below the house of all this vileness where vows are treachery and kisses shame, in the exquisite summer morning, Pippa passes. She is only an innocent girl, supremely happy, and because she is happy, as she goes she sings. She has no thought of doing good to anybody. She is quite oblivious of listeners. And yet that simple song of girlish happiness, entering the open casement of the house, comes with the very ministry of heaven. Happiness will sometimes do what bitterest reproach can never do. The man who can sing at midnight because God is with him is doing something for others all the time. To be happy— to be serene and radiant— when the shadows deepen and the cross is heavy is one of the finest of life's unconscious ministries.

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Unconscious Ministries - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

The Influence of Children

A similar unconscious service is the sweet and tender helpfulness of childhood. Childhood never dreams that it is helping, yet its benedictions are incalculable. A well-known writer has told us that after anxious days he completed a certain book he had in hand. It had cost him much laborious research, and now it was completed. And all the joy of that completed toil, he tells us, was nothing to the gladness he experienced in the pattering footsteps of some little children whom he had taught to love him. Do you remember what they wrote upon the tombstone of a little girl who had gone home? They wrote her name and then beneath it this— It was easier to be good while she was with us. And that is what little ones are always doing— they are making it easier to be good. How many a man has been true to what is pure through the constraining influence of his children. How many a selfish heart has grown considerate when the mystery of motherhood has come. Those eyes of innocence, those pattering feel those lips that are only still when they are sleeping, have done more to beautify and bless the world than all the legislation of the sages. There is no more real ministry than that, and the wonderful thing is it is unconscious. No child awakens on a summer morning and says, "Today I am going to be a blessing" He is a blessing and he never knows it. He plays in the marketplace and Christ is gladdened. He sings like Paul because he cannot help it— and the prisoners hear.

The Service of Passivity

The same unconscious ministry, again, is often a beautiful feature of the sickroom. Patient suffering may be finest service. It is told of Dr. Norman Macleod that on one occasion he went to pay a visit to a Sunday school scholar of his own. He found him stretched upon a sorry bed, for the lad— an invalid— was dying amid scenes of crime and destitution. Norman Macleod was not a great preacher; Norman Macleod was a great human. Stooping over the bed he said, "My poor lad, I'm afraid you're very weak." "Yes, sir," was the reply, "I'm very weak, but I'm strong in Him." The following Sunday, Dr. Macleod told that story from the pulpit. It was published in religious newspapers both in England and America. And by and by, from Scotland, England, and from far-off villages of the United States, came testimonies that the story had been blessed. Out in the High Street other lads were serving, Men and women were toiling for the Master. Here in the garret, above the crowded street was a sufferer who would never serve again. Yet, like Paul and Silas in the dungeon, he sang in his midnight because God was with him, and far away the other prisoners heard. I have heard women lamenting they were useless because they could never leave their little room. Others were out and active in the world; they were nothing but cumberers of the ground. And yet that little chamber was a Bethel, and to enter it was to feel that God was there, and through the streets one walked a better man because of that patient beautiful endurance. Never forget that among life's many ministries, the freest may be the unconscious ministry. There is an exquisite service of passivity as surely as a service of activity. When the lights are low, when the strong ones bow themselves, when the silver cord is at the point of breaking, you may be serving better than you know.

We Are All Preachers

This too is the real value of genuine and unaffected goodness. It is exercising every day a beautiful unconscious ministry. A man may forget all that his mother told him. He will never forget all that his mother was. He may lose count of all his father's counsel, but never of his father's character. It is not the things which we can utter glibly— it is often things we have no power to utter— that fall on other lives with benediction. When Sir Walter Scott was building Abbotsford in England, he put the lawn in a peculiar place. And at one corner of it he built a little summerhouse where he might sit in the evening after dinner. And he told Lockhart why he built it there; was it because the view was beautiful? not so, but that he might sit there and listen to the evening worship of his coachman. Old Peter was a real old Scottish servant. He would not have talked religion for the world. But every nightfall in the year he took The Book, and "waled a portion wi' judicious care." And then a psalm was sung, and travelling heavenward to Him who understands the Scottish reticence, Sir Walter heard it, and hearing it, was comforted. Old Peter was preaching better than he knew. He was preaching when he never thought to preach. That is what all of us are doing constantly, though we were never in a pulpit in our lives. There are Spurgeons in unlikeliest places, apostles who are cheering all the prison, and they never know that they are doing anything

The Only Thing Worth Living for

Indeed, I believe that much of our Christian service must always be of that unconscious character. When that is lacking, the other is formality. I trust that when this hurrying life is over, you and I shall each have the "Well done." That is the only thing worth living for. It is the only welcome which I want. But I have sometimes thought that if I ever hear it, one of the great surprises of the dawn will be the kind of thing for which it is given. Perhaps all these sermons at which I have daily toiled will never be mentioned in that summer morning And certain ministries of which I knew not anything as I went in and out among you in the shadows here, will waken the trumpets on the other side. Men who do their best always do more though they be haunted by the sense of failure. Be good and true; be patient; be undaunted. Leave your usefulness for God to estimate. He will see to it that you do not live in vain.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

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October 3

He Called for Lights

Then he (the Philippian jailer) called for lights (R. V.), and sprang in, and came trembling— Act_16:29

The Human Heart Protests Darkness

That call of the Philippian jailer is the deepest call of every human heart. It distinguishes man from the dumb beasts. Give a beast its food, it is content. It asks for nothing more; it never questions. It never tries to understand its instincts. Its farthest horizon is present satisfaction. But man is always calling out for light. What is history but the call for light? What is science but the call for light? What is philosophy, with all its groping, but the call for light in the darkness of the prison? On every problem, on every unsolved riddle, on every mystery of earth and heaven, we call for light like the Philippian jailer. Why do men risk their life to reach the Poles— what lures them to the top of Everest— why does the thought of a place unexplored draw men as a magnet draws the steel? It is the human heart protesting against darkness as something alien from its deepest being It is the call for light of the Philippian jailer.

The Call for Light Came After the Earthquake

It should be noted that this call for light came after the moment of the earthquake. The jailer called when everything was shaken. At midnight, generally, men are content with darkness. They are weary; their craving is for sleep. Look down the street when the clock is striking midnight, and well-nigh every window is in shadow. But let there come the rumbling of explosion, or the cry of fire, or uproar in the street, and lights are flashing from a hundred windows. So was it in the jail at Philippi. On ordinary midnight's no one wanted lights. It was when things were shaken, and solid walls were rocking, that the Philippian jailer called for light. And never is the call for light so urgent in the lives of men and in the tale of history as when familiar things begin to reel and tremble. Do you remember the last great war? It was an earthquake worse than that of Philippi. It broke suddenly into our ordered life like some terrific catastrophe of nature. And instantly, from a thousand human hearts, as from the lips of the Philippian jailer, there was a call for light. Why did God permit the war? Could He be sovereign and suffer this to be? Was progress a chimera? Was Christianity only a veneer? Such questions were scarcely vital questions in the quiet and settled years before the war—but after the earthquake came the call for light.

The Call for Light Comes at the Time of Death

You will remember, too, this call was made by a man who was within an inch of death. A moment before he was on the point of suicide. Death was very near to him that night. He had been standing on the margin of the grave. He thought to shuffle off this mortal coil. He faced the grim extremity. And it is when death is near and knocking at the door, or when the open sepulchre is at our feet, that we call for light like the Philippian jailer. What mother did not call for light when her dear boy went off to war? What father did not call for light when his beautiful child was lying in its coffin? More than anything— more than the heaviest cross or the bitterest reverse of fortune— it is the fact of death that inspires the call for light. What does it mean, this silence and this darkness — this borne from which no traveler returns? Are powers given never to be perfected? Are we never to look on our dear dead again? The ceaseless questionings, the dim surmising; these, of which dumb animals are ignorant, are the crown and title of humanity. We are great because we call for light. We are better than dumb, driven cattle. We want to know; we yearn to understand; we crave to penetrate the mystery. If from darkness we came, darkness would content us. Gloom and shadow would be our native air. But God has made us, and we call for light, and so tell of the Light which is our home.

The Servant Who Brings Light

I close by noting in this thrilling story that when the jailer called for lights, he got them. Cannot you see them flashing through the corridors? Who brought them we are not informed. It is one of the ministries of nameless people. Nameless people may do far more good than those whose names come ringing down the centuries. He called, and he was given. He called, and in the darkness torches flashed. He called, and servants heard the call and answered. Now, did you never hear of One who took on Him the form of a servant? Who willingly came down into our prison-house and was among the prisoners as one who serveth? And do you think, if these Philippian servants heard the call for lights and flashed their torches, that this Servant would not do the same? He flashed His torch on suffering He flashed His torch on sin. He flashed it on the hidden heart of God and on the age-long mystery of death. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid; in My Father's house are many mansions. He who has that light wants no other light. It casts its radiance on the murkiest passages. He may still tremble like the Philippian jailer, but in that light he has the power to spring. He has light for duty and for disappointment now; light on the heart of God and on the grave. "I am the Light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness."

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
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]

October 4

The Attraction of Agnosticism - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD— Act_17:23

Atheism and Agnosticism

Not very long ago in Glasgow there was a criminal trial which attracted much attention, not only by reason of its peculiar circumstances, but also because of certain observations of the judge. When the prisoner was being examined by counsel one of the questions asked was, "Are you an atheist?" That was a very unusual question to be put in a modern court of law. No one, therefore, was very much surprised when Lord Guthrie, in giving the charge to the jury, dwelt with undisguised severity on that unusual interrogation. Now had the learned lord done nothing more than that, the aspect of things would have been entirely legal. But your true Scot is a theologian born— especially if he be born a Guthrie. And so we had a little discourse on theology in which we were very wisely told that there are no atheists nowadays— only agnostics. I was struck by the very widespread notice which was given to that dictum of the judge. It found its way into all sorts of papers and was commented upon from every point of view. And so I have thought this might be a fitting time to say one or two words about agnosticism.

The Difference between an Atheist and an Agnostic

Now I venture to think there are few who do not know the meaning of these words. An atheist is one who denies that there is a God; an agnostic one who denies that we can know God. The word agnostic is quite a modern word. It was coined, if I remember rightly, by Professor Huxley. It was suggested by that verse in the Acts of the Apostles which tells of the altar raised to the unknown God. It is very significant that the view of things which utterly denies all revelation should have had to borrow its title from the Bible. An atheist has the courage of conviction. He lifts up his eyes and says there is no God. For him, heaven is a vacant place, and there is no eternal Personality. But the agnostic does not deny there is a God. All he asserts is that we are so constituted intellectually that to know God is utterly impossible.

Agnosticism Is Not Born of Humility

You will observe that this agnostic attitude has nothing in common with Christian humility. It does not spring from the majesty of God, but from the limitations of our finitude. There are octaves of sound, in high and sunken registers, which no human ear is capable of hearing, yet to say that a thousand tones are imperceptible is not at all to say that man is deaf. And so the Christian reverently holds that there are heights and depths in God he cannot know, and yet he is convinced that God is knowable. "Now we know in part and see in part"; there is an agnosticism which is apostolic. There is a reverent veiling of our mortal gaze under the burning mystery of heaven. But to hold, as every Christian holds, that there are depths in God beyond our fathoming is not to assert that God cannot be known. On the contrary, for the Christian consciousness, there is no such intense reality as God. He is nearer than breathing, closer than hands and feet, more subtly present than any summer morning; and this though logic be powerless to reach and argument ineffectual to demonstrate Him, and life, in all the seeming tangle of it, too intricate a riddle to reveal Him. "And when I saw him," says John, "I fell at his feet as dead"; there were depths in the Infinite which overwhelmed him. Yet that same John— with what triumphant certainty does he ring out the clarion cry, We know. And this is the glory of our Christian faith that, with the fullest confessions of great ignorance, it can yet lift up its voice out of the darkness and say, I know whom I have believed.

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[nChrist]

The Attraction of Agnosticism - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

The First Christian Church Battled Against Gnosticism, Not Agnosticism

It is significant, let me say in passing, that the wheel of antagonism has now come full circle. This last subversal of the Christian faith is the intellectual negation of the first. When the new Gospel was fighting for its life, it had one foe more deadly than others. Some of you probably have never heard its name, though the later epistles are full of references to it. It was more deadly than any Jewish hatred. It was more subtle than any pagan ridicule. It wrought more havoc in the infant Church than the most cruel and bloody persecutions. Across the Empire, from Ephesus to Lyons, there was not a Christian community but suffered from it. It sapped the spiritual life of congregations and blighted the promise of countless catechumens. And this so subtle and insidious enemy, with which the infant Church fought for its life, was called by the forgotten name of gnosticism. Now the word gnostic, as students are aware, means exactly the opposite of agnostic. The Gnostic is a man who says I know; the agnostic a man who says I don't know. And the singular thing is that the Christian faith, which began by battling against a spurious knowledge, should now have to battle against a spurious ignorance. I regard this as a very hopeful sign for the ultimate triumph of the Gospel. There is less hope for the man who says that he knows everything than for him who thinks that he knows nothing, For the one is unteachable, and in a world like this to be unteachable is to be condemned; but the other has at least the aspect of humility. That is why in early gnosticism the prevailing temper was one of scornful arrogance. And that is why in our modern agnosticism we can so often detect a note of wistfulness. It is always a humbling thing to say, I do not know; doubly so to a keen and brilliant intellect; trebly so when the things it does not know are known to the humble farmers in the glen.

Agnosticism Contradicts Man's Deepest Instinct

Indeed it is this last fact, when you consider it, that makes the attraction of agnosticism so remarkable. It contradicts the deepest of all instincts: yet it is acceptable today. That there is a God, and that that God is knowable, is the universal verdict of humanity. That there is a God, and that that God is knowable, is the instinct and affirmation of the soul. Yet when agnosticism throws out its challenge and repudiates these universal witnesses, it finds a welcome in the modem mind. That is a very remarkable phenomenon, well worthy of our consideration. At gnosticism we all smile today; but at agnosticism no one thinks to smile. And what I suggest is that this is only explicable on the ground of a certain specious affinity between the negative creed of the agnostic and the general spirit of the age. Professor Lecky has taken pains to show that it is not argument which kills beliefs. It is rather those slow and subtle changes which gradually permeate the spirit of a people. But not only do these slow and subtle changes explain the destruction of ancient superstition; they explain also the emergence of beliefs. Every creed demands its fit environment as absolutely as does the Alpine flower. Without that environment it will never flourish though it be preached with genius and passion. And I want to show you how the agnostic creed, which once would have been treated with derision, has found a fitting environment today.

Agnosticism's Fitting Environment

Agnosticism, for instance, seems to answer readily to our altered thought of the dwelling-place of man. "What is man, that thou art mindful of him" has meaning for us the psalmist never knew. So long as man deemed that the world which he inhabited was the great and glorious center of the universe, so long was it natural for him to hold that he was important in the eyes of heaven. But if his dwelling place be but an atom flying through boundless space where worlds are numberless, then things assume a different complexion. Now that is exactly what modem science has done. It has dislodged our world from its centrality. It has robbed us of our cosmical importance and made us the creatures of a tiny planet. And it was inevitable that this altered thought, which has so profoundly influenced man's attitude to nature, should have influenced also his attitude to God. It was natural to believe that God was knowable when just beyond the clouds He had His throne. But heaven has gone very far away now, and we sweep the depths of space and cannot find it. And so having learned, on evidence unquestioned, the actual insignificance of earth, we begin to doubt the significance of man. It is to that temper agnosticism comes. It is the creed which answers that suspicion. It is not presumptuous as was atheism. It does not dare to say there is no God. It only says that for creatures such as we are, fashioned of the dust of a little distant planet, the proper attitude is one of ignorance.

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The Attraction of Agnosticism - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

But if men would only think a little, they would see the fallacy of that appeal. There is a little cottage down in Ayrshire to which pilgrims turn with tender hearts. It has no grandeur as of marble staircase nor spacious rooms with decorated ceiling. Yet he who was born there would have been no greater had he been cradled in a kingly palace, nor was he less a genius because a cottage-child. It is not the dwelling place that makes the man; it is the man that makes the dwelling place. There may be depths of meanness in the lordliest home and moral grandeur in the poorest mountain hut. And to argue that man must be a cipher because the world is not a lordly dwelling place is like arguing that Bums was not a genius because he was a cottage-child. On the contrary, it seems to me that the evidence is the other way. For it is not in palaces nor lordly manors that moral and spiritual worth is oftenest found. It is in humble homes with lowly roofs which have no beauty that we should desire them and which never obtrude themselves upon the passerby. Search through Scotland for the men who know, and you will not find them in the grandest dwellings. It is not in the castles of Dumbartonshire that you find the students who know Shakespeare. And so to argue that God cannot be known unless the world be the castle of the universe is to move contrary to all experience.

Agnosticism in an Environment of Rejection of Dogmatism

But there is another attraction of agnosticism which helps to explain its prevalence today. It is in apparent harmony with an age that cannot brook the accent of finality. To say I do not know is not dogmatic, at least it does not seem to be dogmatic, and so it answers to that prevailing spirit which cannot tolerate the thought of dogmatism. Probably we are suffering today for the over dogmatism of the past. You will very generally find an age of doubt after an age of overconfident assertion. And it may be that the preaching of a former generation, which was so absolutely confident of everything, has given us an age which is confident of nothing. Whatever the cause be, this at least is plain, that men today are not in love with dogmatism. They may have a wistful yearning for the Christ; but they are easily irritated at the creed. They do not accept the sufficiency of formulas. They are no longer held by orthodox beliefs. They are impatient at the suggestion of finality. That there is a nobler side to this impatience, I think it is only fair to recognize. It is always the characteristic of an age that is trembling on the verge of discoveries. And that we are now trembling on the verge of such discoveries as will revolutionize our life and thought, I have not the shadow of a doubt. Now whenever there is such expectancy abroad, the one intolerable standpoint is finality. To be dogmatic in a world of mystery is to seal the eye so that it cannot see. And any creed which cuts as with a saber into the heart of all dogmatic doctrine is certain to receive a kindly welcome. There have been ages when a teacher had no audience unless he could lift up his voice and say I know. But today a far more powerful appeal is to lift up the voice and say I do not know. And that is the attraction of agnosticism to an age that is a little weary of dogmatics and is beginning to feel again, in countless ways, the wonder and the mystery of things.

Agnosticism an Intolerant Dogma

But the curious thing is that agnosticism has proved itself the most intolerant of dogmatisms. Professing to be the foe of all finality, it is itself the most final of all creeds. Through all the ages the Gospel has maintained itself with an infinite and living power of adaptation. It has responded to all the growth of knowledge and never forfeited its central verities. But agnosticism in these past forty years— and what are forty years to twenty centuries— has only saved itself from utter ruin by the very dogmatism which it scorns. To say we have no evidence for God may sound like intellectual humility. It may seem to indicate a very different temper from the blatant atheism of fifty years ago. But when you are dealing not with things but with persons, to say that you have no proof of their existence is really to deny that they exist. There might be gold under the snows of Greenland though we had no evidence that gold was there. But if there were little children in a home, would they not be certain to betray their presence? And if you found no nursery nor cot, no picture books nor fragmentary toys, would not that mean there were no children there? That would be the verdict of the briefest visit: but what if you lived for years within the dwelling? What if you lived there day and night for years and never found one proof that there were children? You see in a moment that to find no evidence is to be driven to deny their being; and as with little children, so with God. If even a shipwrecked sailor on an island leaves unmistakable traces of his presence, how much more the Creator of the universe.

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The Attraction of Agnosticism - Page 4
by George H. Morrison

Agnosticism Cannot Stand the Test of Life for It Is Negative and Life Is Positive

Now that is where agnosticism fails. It has never been able to maintain itself. It has not been able, like the faith of Christ, to stand foursquare to every wind that blew. It has either gravitated far nearer atheism than Lord Guthrie would allow us to admit, or it has crept back to the feet of God again. I confess I have no faith in any creed that cannot maintain itself for forty years. I have a strong suspicion that the truth must lie with one that has stood the storm and shock of centuries. And when I find it meeting my deepest need and answering the crying of my heart, by it I am content to live and die. For character is not built upon negations, nor does life come to its victories that way. Life is too difficult and dark and terrible to be fought out by what I do not know. It is when I can say after the strain of years, I know whom I have believed, that my feet are planted on the rock.

____________________

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]

October 5


The Perils of Unsettlement - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

None of these things move me— Act_20:24

These Words Paul Spoke on His Way to Jerusalem

Paul was journeying to Jerusalem when he spoke the words of our text. They were addressed to the elders of Ephesus whom he had summoned to meet him at Miletus. It was a journey attended by much hazard, and Paul was aware how hazardous it was. The spirit of prophecy, in every city, had testified to the hardships that awaited him. Yet though bonds and imprisonment were in his prospect, and perhaps a shadow darker than imprisonment, the apostle was able to say in all sincerity that none of these things moved him. With an unwavering and undaunted heart he held to the route that he had planned. Like his master, in a still darker hour, he set his face stedfastly towards Jerusalem. In other words, this great apostle had overcome the perils of unsettlement, and it is on the perils of unsettlement that I should like to speak for a little while this evening.

The Prospect of Christ's Return Provided the Spirit of Unsettlement

Now no one can read the New Testament without observing that this was one of the deadliest perils of the apostolic church. However fiercely other evils tried them, this one seems to have had peculiar power. The early Christians, like the Elizabethan mariners, had broken into an untravelled sea. They were beyond the experience of the ages. They lived in the daily hope that Christ was coming And all this wrought such a ferment in their hearts, and seemed to release them so from common obligations, that with all its victories and all its virtues the early church was a-quiver with unsettlement. Men threw their tools down and refused to work. They studied everything save their own business. Why should they take provident care against tomorrow when at sunrise tomorrow Christ might come again? So did there spread through apostolic days a spirit of unquiet and unrest, and men, through the very wonder of it all, were prone to be unbalanced for a little.

We Too Are Beset by an Age of Unsettlement

But though circumstances are very different now, this peculiar danger has not vanished. Today, not less than in the days of Pentecost, we are beset by the perils of unsettlement. I am not speaking of the characteristics of the age, though it is the fashion to call this an unsettled age. I take it that every age which has had life in it has been an unsettled and unsettling age. I speak rather of these large experiences which befall each of us upon our journey when I say that we are still exposed to the swift and subtle perils of unsettlement. Sometimes they reach us through a staggering sorrow which lays the palace in ruins at our feet. Sometimes through the thrilling of good news, or the excitement or variety of travel. Sometimes through the calling of the summertime, with its mystery of light and beauty, touching our hearts and strangely stirring them with cravings which we cannot well interpret. In such ways, and in other ways as evident, are we all in danger of unsettlement. We lose our grip on what we used to cling to. We begin to drag our anchors unexpectedly. We are restless and know not what we want, and we lack the unity that makes for power, and so do we learn out of our own experience the perils which the apostle mastered.

Unsettlement Caused by the Monotony of Life

Indeed, the very concentration of today leads to the intensifying of this danger. When life is narrowed into a dull routine, unsettlement is very easily wrought. In the old days, when life was larger, men were less ready to be thrown off their balance. Familiar with a wider range of circumstance, they were not so lightly moved away by novelty. But now when that large liberty is gone, and men have to concentrate unceasingly, they have lost the power of responding quietly to what is new or strange or unexpected. They are more easily cast out of their reckoning than men who traveled across a larger field. When life is monotonous, even a little incident has the power of disturbing greatly. And so the very monotony of labor, which is so characteristic of today, makes it an easier thing to be unsettled.

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[nChrist]

The Perils of Unsettlement - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Unsettlement Is the Pain and Privilege of Youth

Let me say in passing that this is a peril from which no man can hope to be exempted. No quiet sheltering of home or task will ward off the inroad of unsettlement. It is true that as life advances it grows less. With the passing of years comes the passing of unrest. In the fulness of its disturbing strength, unsettlement is the pain and privilege of youth. Yet God has so ordered this strange life of ours that into every lot, however sheltered, sooner or later there break out of the infinite those things which are mighty to unsettle. There are perils which we can shun in prudence. We can shape our course so as to avoid them. But this is a peril which we cannot shun, though we had all the wisdom of Athene. Suddenly a great sorrow is upon us, or the thrilling of unexpected joy, or we waken to hear, with hearts that burn within us, the calling of another summertime. From such disturbance there is no escape. We cannot expel the angels when they visit us. We must open the door to them and bid them welcome, and say, "Come in, thou blessed of the Lord." Only thus can we hope to use for good that recurring disturbance of the heart which falls upon us all, in diverse ways, amid the joys and sorrows of humanity.

Unsettlement Makes our Work Harder to Perform

Well now, let us consider one or two of the evils of unsettlement, and the first and most evident perhaps is this, that it makes our work harder to perform. For most men work is hard enough, even when they give to it an undivided mind. It takes every power and faculty which they possess to be honest toilers in the sight of heaven. But work becomes doubly hard for all of us, and to certain natures grows well-nigh impossible when these powers are inwardly distracted and will not answer the summons of the hour. It is not easy to do the common duty under the shadow of overwhelming sorrow. It is not easy to ply the daily task under the new glow of a great joy. It is not easy to take the burden up and to go quietly to our familiar place when the glad and open world is calling us. That is the commonest peril of unsettlement, and I take it there is no one here but knows it. Labor grows irksome; duty becomes irritating; drudgery is well-nigh intolerable. And yet this drudgery, for every one of us, from the dullard to the loftiest genius, is the one road that leads, o'er moor and fen, to the sunrise and the welcome and the crown.

Unsettlement Relaxes the Hold of Our Good Habits

Another peril of unsettlement is this, that it relaxes the hold of our good habits. We come to find, in our unsettled hours, that they do not hold us so firmly as we thought. Most of us are the creatures of habit in a far larger measure than we think. If it is to them that we owe many a weakness, it is to them also that we owe many a virtue. There are few men who can look back upon their lives, with gratitude to God that they have done a little, without recognizing what a debt they owe to one or two habits which were early formed. Such habits may be very simple, yet they have a wonderfully redeeming power. They redeem every day from being wasted and every energy from being ineffectual. If a bad habit is the worst of curses and leads by the road of bondage to the dark, a good habit, through the grace of God, is one of our surest and most priceless blessings. Now it is always one peril of unsettlement that it relaxes the hold of our good habits. It lifts us out of the embrace of good ones and throws us into the embrace of evil ones. For always, when we lose our self-control, sin, as the Scripture says, coucheth at the door waiting to call us to what we practiced once but have long through the grace of God forsworn. All men have a hunger for the good, but all men have a bias to the evil. It is that bias which the devil uses in the season of a man's unsettlement. Torn from his center by unexpected incidence, caught into new and strange environment, a man is in peril because his grip is weakened on the steadying and simple habits of his past.

Unsettlement Is the Enemy of Prayer Regularity

And especially, will you let me say in passing; is this true of the sweet habits of the interior life. Unsettlement is the peculiar enemy of regularity in private prayer. I take it that most men pray in secret. I trust I am not mistaken in so thinking It may be only a few words— it may be very formal— yet is it better than no prayer at all. But who does not know how this interior grace, which we may have learned beside a mother's knee, is apt to be shed off like an old garment when the hour of unsettlement arrives. I grant you that in a great catastrophe there is an instinct in the heart to pray. It is often then, when all the deeps are broken, that the pride which never prayed is broken too. But in all the lesser unsettlements of life when there is disturbance only, not catastrophe, there is the constant peril of forgetting the sweet and secret exercise of prayer. I have known men who prayed through years of drudgery, and who ceased it when great good fortune came. I have known men who prayed right through the winter, yet somehow in summer they forgot to pray. I have known men— yes, and women too— who would never have dreamed of omitting prayer at home, who yet omitted it, not once only, amid the excitement and the stir of foreign travel. That is a grave peril of unsettlement. There is not one of us but is exposed to it. It is appalling how lightly we are held by the secret habits of the interior life. A glimpse of liberty, a day of sunshine, a stroke of luck, a touch of one we love, and it may be— God only knows— that we shall throw ourselves upon a prayerless bed tonight.

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[nChrist]

The Perils of Unsettlement - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

Resolute Continuance Is a Mark of a Great Character

Now it is always one mark of a great character not to be easily or lightly moved. A certain quiet and fine stability is generally one of the hallmarks of the noble. When Saul was chosen to be king of Israel and when the people shouted "God save the king," we could scarce have wondered if that swift elevation had unsettled him and turned his head a little. And it has always been held as a proof of Saul's nobility that he passed with a quiet heart through that great hour, and with the cry of the people in his ears went back to guide his father's plough again. Of course there are natures more prone than others to yield to the pressure of unsettlement. There are dogged natures and responsive natures, and there always shall be till the trumpet sounds. Still speaking broadly and generally, we may say that to be unsettled lightly is a bad sign, and that one mark of nobility of character is a quiet and resolute continuance. The question is then how we, not being great, can hope to attain to that continuance. How can we organize into victory the common perils of unsettlement?

Aloofness Is Not the Answer to Unsettlement

Let me say first, and in a negative way, that it is but a sorry victory to stand aloof. It is not thus, as I understand my Bible, that God would have his children live. There are men who never take a holiday, they are so filled with dread of its disturbances. Knowing how certainly it will unsettle them, they prefer to forego it altogether. And while in the aged or the infirm of body such a reluctance is easily understood, with others it is a road to peace that is perilously near to cowardice. We were never meant to live our lives so. We were never meant to bar the gates like that. To shut the summer out, and to shut love out, is not victory, it is defeat. In many of the choicest gifts of God there is a terrible power of unsettlement, and a Christian was never meant to reject the gift because of the unsettlement it brings. There was once a philosophy which wrought along these lines. It was called the Stoical philosophy. It sought to achieve serenity of life by steeling the soul against the passions. And do you know what happened as a fact of history? Well, I shall tell you what actually happened— one of two results was found in life. Sometimes men won the serenity they craved, but they won it at a tremendous cost. For love was banished and the charm of things and the touch of sympathy that makes us brothers. And sometimes in the very hour of victory, nature, trampled on, rose to her rights again and in her passionate and overmastering way swept down the defenses they had built. It is no use fighting against nature. It is worse than useless fighting against God. We are not here to stand aloof from things and to steel our hearts against disturbances. We are here to welcome whatever God may send, whether it be sunshine or be sorrow, and somehow out of all unsettlement to wrest the music of our triumph-song.

Unsettlement Is Helped by Seeing Things in Their Proper Proportions

Well now, one great help to that is learning to see things in their true proportions. Without a certain feeling for perspective, we can never be quiet in the thick of life. You remember what Dr. Johnson said to a friend who was worrying about a trifle? "Think, sir," he said in his wise way, "think how little that will seem twelvemonth hence." And if we only practiced that fine art of thinking how little many a thing will seem twelvemonth hence, we should be freed from much unsettlement today. It is good to know a big thing when we see it. It is not less good to know a little thing. There are people to whom the tiniest burn is as swift and dangerous as the Spey. And always when you have people of that nature who have never taken the measurements of life, you have people who live on the margin of unsettlement. Next to the grace of God for through bearing, there is nothing more kindly than a little humor. To see things in a smiling kind of way is often to see them in the wisest way. For as there are things, and always shall be things, that strike to the very heart of human destiny, so are there things, and always shall be things, that are so trifling as to be ridiculous. It is amazing how many worthy people seem never to have learned that simple lesson. You would think they had never heard the words of Jesus about swallowing the camel and straining at the gnat. And so are they always in peril of unsettlement, not because their experience is exceptional, but because they have never learned in life to see things in their true proportions.

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[nChrist]

The Perils of Unsettlement - Page 4
by George H. Morrison

See the Hand of God in Everything

But the greatest help of all is this, it is to see the hand of God in everything When a man has come to see the hand of God in everything, he touches the secret of the weaned heart. I have noticed among domestic servants one very common reason of unsettlement. It is that they do not know who is the mistress and have to take orders from half a dozen people. And all of us are servants in God's house and always in our service we shall be irritable unless there be one voice we must obey and one will which gives us all our orders. That was the meaning of the peace of Job. He saw God always, and he saw Him everywhere. "The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away," said Job, "blessed be the name of the Lord." It was not God today and fate tomorrow. It was not heaven in the morning and blind chance at night. Through light and shadow it was God to Job, and that was one secret of his rest. So is it with us all. To have many masters is always to be restless. "I have set the Lord always before me," said the Psalmist, "therefore I shall not be moved." To see His hand in the least and in the greatest, in the burden no less than in the blessing, is the sure way, amid all life's unsettlement, to have the heart at leisure from itself.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

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October 6

Paul before His Judges

But after two years Porcius Festus came into Felix's room; and Felix, willing to show the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound— Act_24:27

Paul's Two Years in Prison

After being five days at Caesarea, Paul was formally indicted by the Jewish party. The case against him was conducted by Tertullus who was as unscrupulous as he was eloquent. Felix was no stranger to the matters in debate; he had lived long enough among the Jews to grow conversant with them. He therefore refused to decide the matter offhand; he would wait till his captain from Jerusalem came down. Now, whether the captain was unwilling to come or whether he got a broad hint not to hurry, is a question we need not trouble to decide. The fact remains that we have no trace of his visit during Paul's two years of confinement at Caesarea. What was the apostle doing all that time? We cannot be certain that he wrote any epistles. Do you think he was fretting? Or worrying over his churches as he paced his prison battlements by the blue sea? We may be absolutely certain he was doing nothing like that— he was growing and ripening in his own inward life. For twenty years he had been fighting for Christ amid the excitement and stress of a glorious campaign. New views of Christ had been borne upon his heart; new aspects of the Gospel had arrested him. It wanted leisure now to focus everything, and God bestowed that leisure at Caesarea. Compare the letters that were written after these years with the letters which we know were written before them. Note the richness and depth and glory of the later ones— their exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ; their fresh insistence upon spiritual union; their recognition of the possibilities of sainthood; their method of bringing the most majestic doctrines to bear on the common duties of every day— and you will see what these two years did for Paul. I dare say the soldiers thought him very idle. Had you asked them, they would have said he was doing nothing Yet all Christendom is deeply in God's debt for making Paul come apart and rest awhile.

Paul before Felix and Drusilla

Only one incident has been enshrined for us out of these two years at Caesarea. It is the scene with which our passage opens when Paul was brought before Felix and Drusilla. Drusilla was the youngest daughter of King Herod Agrippa I. She was a beautiful young Jewess of some eighteen years of age. But there were dark shadows lying across her path that would have marred the fairest womanhood. It was not God who had made her Felix's wife. She had a home already when Felix cast his bad eyes on her. And it may be that a guilty conscience and a torn heart and a mind that could not forget urged her to hear the Gospel of this prisoner. Do you observe what Paul was asked to speak about? He was asked to speak "concerning the faith in Christ." And do you note what Paul did speak about? He reasoned of righteousness and self-control and judgment. Righteousness— and Felix was a promise-breaker and had procured the murder of the High Priest Jonathan. Self-control— and there at his side, eagerly listening, sat beautiful Drusilla. Judgment— that was the very thought that haunted Felix, only it was the judgment of his emperor, not of his God. No wonder Felix trembled. He had the soul of a slave, says Tacitus, and the power of a sovereign. He would hear no more; Paul was dismissed; "when I have a convenient (not more convenient) season, I will call for thee."

Paul before Festus

About the year 60, Felix was recalled and was succeeded in the governorship by Porcius Festus. Festus seems to have been a better ruler, and probably he was a better man than Felix, but, like a Roman, he cared little for religion and could not understand religious earnestness. He was perplexed about this Jewish prisoner; it occurred to him that he might try the case at Jerusalem; and it was then that Paul, apprehending the danger he was in, took the great step of appealing to Caesar. That is not in the passage to be read, but it must be touched on to illuminate the passage. For it was not till Paul had appealed to Caesar that Agrippa and Bernice came to Caesarea. Might not they be able to unravel Festus' difficulties? They were Jews and understood the points at issue. Festus arranged that a court should be convened at which Agrippa and Bernice might be present. It was then that Paul made that most noble defense which is recorded in the twenty-sixth chapter. He told the story of his conversion again, for his greatest defense of all just lay in that. And our passages take up the narrative at the point where Paul has touched on resurrection and has been rudely silenced by Festus crying out in a loud voice, "Paul, thou art mad!" Paul instantly, and without losing self-command, repels the charge. He appeals to Agrippa on the grounds of Jewish prophecy. And Agrippa replies in these memorable words, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." Do we know what Agrippa really meant? He did not mean "I am almost persuaded." The Greek words that have been translated so are not capable of bearing such a sense. What Agrippa meant was "Paul, do you think that with a little persuasion you are going to persuade me to be a Christian? It is a far harder task than you imagine."

Three Simple Lessons

Now let us note three simple lessons, and first the peril of tomorrow. Someone has said that today has two great enemies— the one is yesterday, the other is tomorrow. Are we not reminded of that whenever we think of Felix whose evil past was such a burden on him and who talked of a convenient time— which never came. Next mark how history reverses human judgments. Peter and the other disciples were despised, because they were ignorant and unlettered men. Paul was put to scorn by Festus for just the opposite reason— he had learned too much. Men thought the prophets of Israel raved. They said of Jesus that He was beside Himself. Is there any one now who would harbor such a thought? Lastly, see the perfect courtesy of the apostle— "I would you were altogether as I am except these bonds." "Courtesy," says St. Francis of Assisi, "is the sister of charity, which quencheth hate and keepeth love alive." Never forget that God's mighty missionary was one of the truest gentlemen who ever breathed.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

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of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
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October 7

Paul's Voyage and Shipwreck

And when it was determined that we should sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners unto one named Julius, a centurion of Augustus' band— Act_27:1

Paul's Mediterranean Voyage

All of us love stories of voyages and shipwrecks, and our lesson of today deals with these themes. I do not know any chapter in the Bible that is more alive with thrilling interest. So far, we have seen Paul in many perils; we have followed him through many strange adventures; but just as the hero in the schoolboys' storybooks is never quite perfect till he has suffered shipwreck, so is it with this traveler and missionary. Can we briefly outline the fascinating story? Well, Paul embarked at Caesarea under the guard of a centurion, Julius. The vessel was only a coasting-vessel; they would have to change if they were to get to Rome. Fortunately, at Myra in Asia Minor, a corn-ship from Alexandria was in the harbor. It was bound for Rome to distribute its cargo there, and Julius and his prisoners got a passage. But the season was late, and the winds were getting stormy; it was with great difficulty that they made a port in Crete. Here they would have remained throughout the winter had they hearkened to the advice of Paul. But who was Paul that he should be attended to? Had not the captain made this voyage twenty times? The prospect of wintering in Crete was quite intolerable when the stir and gaiety of Rome were waiting them. So the harbor was left; the sails were trimmed again; a favoring breeze gave every one new heart when suddenly the ship was caught in a typhoon— one of the wild and dangerous storms of the Mediterranean. The boat was hoisted on board; the sails were furled; stout ropes were passed round the body of the ship; not a glimpse of the sun could be got and not a star was visible;— for fourteen days they drove on under bare masts. Then at midnight there arose the cry of "Land!" Soundings were taken; the water was getting shallower. Four anchors were cast out of the stern; they held, and the ship rode safely till the morning, Then as the light dawned and outlines became visible, a little bay among the cliffs was seen. The cables were cut, and a desperate effort was made to beach the vessel on the rock-engirdled sand. It partly failed, the currents were so strong. The ship was driven ashore and sorely battered. But though she soon went to pieces, and everything was lost, "it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land."

Circumstances Reveal the Man

Now among the many lessons of this chapter, note first that the hour reveals the man. When Paul stepped on board, he was one of a batch of prisoners. Neither captain or sailors would give two thoughts to him. They had carried all manner of desperadoes Romeward, and there was nothing striking about this little Jew. But gradually, as the voyage became more perilous, Paul moved out from the darkness to the light. It was he who advised and encouraged and commanded. It was he who put new heart and hope in everybody. He went on board an unregarded prisoner, but the hour of need struck, and he stood supreme. Do not such hours come to all of us when for weal or woe we stand in our true colors? "There is nothing hid, but shall be revealed." It was Paul's years of reliance upon God and of secret prayer and of steadfast loyalty that broke into the rich blossom of this hour. Will there be such secrets to reveal in us?

Faith in God Keeps a Man Calm in a Storm

Next note how faith in God keeps a man calm. Perhaps that is the most notable feature in this story. Amid a scene of excitement and of terror, we are arrested by the quietude of Paul. The sailors, panic-stricken, were for fleeing; the soldiers were crying out to kill the prisoners; but the apostle was cool, collected, confident, and he was so because of his faith in God. Men used to feel that, too, about General Gordon. There was something mysterious in his calmness in moments of peril. Those who had fought in many a desperate battle and witnessed many shining deeds of heroism would say there was something in the courage of Gordon that was unlike anything they had ever seen. We know now what that" something" was. It was living and glowing and conquering trust in God. It was the same faith as gave Paul the quiet mastery in the confusion and panic of the storm.

God Saves Many for the Sake of One

Again, we must not omit to notice here that many may be saved for one man's sake. When the ship was driving westward before the wind, an angel of God, we read, appeared to Paul. And the message which the angel brought was this: "Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar; and lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee"— that means that for the apostle's sake every man on board the vessel would be saved. How little any of them ever dreamed of their obligation to this despised Jew! In after days when the sailors told the story of the wreck, they would say it was a miracle they were not lost. But the only miracle was the will of God in choosing their vessel for His servant's journey. And we are like these sailors in this one respect. We all owe debts where we little dream of it. A father's example and a mother's prayer, the presence of good men and women in our childhood, the spirit of Jesus breathing in the world and falling on us like the blowing of the wind, these influences mould us when we never know of it and may save us in our hours of gale and storm.

We Should Not Just Wait but Cast Some Anchors

Then, lastly, it is not enough to wish for the day (Act_27:29); there are some anchors that we all should cast. One of them is faith; another is a good conscience. Without these, says Paul, some have made shipwreck (1Ti_1:19). A third is hope: "which hope we have as an anchor of the soul" (Heb_6:19). We are all voyaging on a dark and boisterous sea. Our hearts and our eyes should ever be toward the morning. Meantime let us thank God that we have anchors by which the weakest may ride out the night.

____________________

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
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of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
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[nChrist]

October 8

The Life of Drift

When the ship was caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we
let her drive— Act_27:15

Causes of Drifting: Internal Breakdown

It is interesting to remember some of the causes that make vessels drift. Often it is a breakdown in the engine room. So long as the engines are in perfect order the vessel holds to its appointed course. But let the shaft snap, as sometimes happens, and immediately the ship begins to drift. And as it is with ships, so is it not infrequently with lives; they drift because of interior breakdown. It may be a breakdown in morality, though no one knows anything about it yet. It may be a breakdown in the will, for the will is the shaft of life. It may be a breakdown in some sweet and simple piety like that of prayer in the secret place— and the ship goes drifting on the sea. There is a story of an officer in the Great War who went drifting and was finally cashiered. He came back again to his old home and entered the little bedroom of his boyhood. Then, turning to his mother, "Mother," he said, "the whole thing began when I stopped praying as a lad beside that bed."

Drifting Caused by the Rising of the Tide or Change of Circumstances

Again, we must not forget that boats may drift because of the rising of the tide. One has had that experience on summer holidays. You draw the rowboat high up on the shore, and you leave it there, thinking it is safe. But the night is the night of a spring tide, and concurring with the tide there blows a gale. And in the morning you go to get the boat, only to find that it is gone: the spring tide has come and set it drifting. That is often how young people go drifting. Youth is the spring tide of life. Passions awake, tempestuous and turbulent; new thought and knowledge lap around the gunwale. And lives that once were safe, beached in the securities of childhood, go drifting like ships upon the sea. That often happens when a lad goes to college out of an orthodox and godly home. He enters a new world of thought and gains a new conception of the universe. And the ship that was so safe once amid the unquestioning pieties of home, finds itself drifting on the deeps. Spring tide has come, and spring tide is of God. God is in the flow as in the ebb. Lives that drift like that can be recaptured. There is One who is out to seek and save. I find a perennial and profound significance in a Savior who could walk upon the sea. Drifting stops when He is taken aboard.

A Drifting Ship Is a Danger to Other Shipping

It is well to note, too, that a drifting ship is always a danger to the other shipping. Every captain would corroborate that. You can chart a quicksand or a reef, and having them on the chart you can avoid them. But nobody can chart a drifting ship; it may be on you in a moment in the night. It is well to remember that in that regard a drifting life is like a drifting vessel; it is fraught with peril and disaster. When a man drifts from his anchorage in Christ, he affects a hundred other lives. No one can tell the hurt that he may bring when he drifts into indifference and worldliness— spoiling the fair name of Christ, damping the zeal of zealous, eager people, making it always easier to be skeptical and always harder to be true. One of the signals of a drifting iceberg is a rapid lowering of the temperature. Drifting lives are just like drifting icebergs: wherever they drift there is fall in temperature. They chill the church. They chill the congregation. They chill the eager loyalties of youth, not because they are notoriously bad, but just because they are drifting.

Christ Warns Us of Drifting Lives

That is one reason why our blessed Lord is always dead against the life of drift. He condemns it in a score of instances. Think how He describes the days of Noah. According to Genesis the earth was full of violence; but our Lord says nothing about violence as the precursor of calamity. He says that in the days before the flood men were eating, drinking, merrymaking, marrying— and then, suddenly, the flood came. Noah was a man of action, of swift decision, of determination. The others went drifting on from day to day, thoughtless, heedless, irresistible. It is the Lord's warning against the life of drift as leading to disaster, and He is always insisting upon that. The man of the one talent took no risks. He forfeited everything for doing nothing. The man who built his house upon the sand found that in the drift was his destruction. The man who worshipped God today and tomorrow was the slave of mammon was intolerable in the eyes of Jesus. Christ calls for action, for decision, for determination of the will. If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out; if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off. Nobody knew better than our Savior that we are here not to drift but to decide if we are ever to have the music and the crown.

Christ Was Never Accused of Drifting

And how beautifully is that exemplified in His own so perfect life! Scoffers said He drank, but no one ever said He drifted. By a magnificent energy of faithful will He put from Him all the kingdoms of the world. He chose the long, hard trail and held to it, though His feet were bleeding and His heart was breaking Far off He saw the cross in its agony and shame and ridicule, and He set His face steadfastly towards Jerusalem. Nothing could divert Him nor break the steady power of His purpose, no tempting friends nor cheering multitudes nor bitter desertion nor betrayal. The great word in the life of drift is may, but the great word in the life of Christ is must, and must is the last triumph of the will. No man can share His spirit who lives on in aimless indecision. Nobody can have His joy who shrinks from full surrender. The life of drift never reaches harbor. It reaches the quicksand and the reef— from which may God in His mercy save us all.

____________________

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]

October 9

Social Consequences of Individual Faith

Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer, for I believe God— Act_27:25

What You Believe Affects the Lives of Others

It might seem as if what a man believed were no concern to anybody else. That is his own affair and his alone. Let a man be honest, industrious, and straight, and it does not socially matter what his creed is. Others are not the better for his faith nor the worse for his want of it. One hears frequent expression of that view, and sometimes it is buttressed by the text, "Hast thou faith? Have it for thyself." As a matter of fact, what a man believes has profound and pervasive social consequence. It affects the lives of all he comes in contact with. It inspires or depresses them. And all this is more beautifully illustrated in the story of the shipwreck of St. Paul than perhaps in any other piece of Scripture.

Doing and Being

We note, for instance, how the faith of Paul made him intensely and practically useful One is reminded of the exclamation "What practical fellows these great mystics are." We could well imagine somebody dilating on the compelling preaching of St. Paul, but quite certain that in storm and shipwreck he would be altogether useless. And yet in such an hour, when things were darkest, Paul was the most useful man on board, and he was so because he believed God. The same thing is profoundly true of Jesus who lived in a perfect and unwavering faith. That did not make Him an ineffectual dreamer; it made Him intensely and socially useful. It filled the nets, and fed the hungry folk, and restored the withered arm to service, and brought joy and singing to the home at Bethany.

Paul's Faith Brought Hope to All Aboard

We help people by what we do. Perhaps we help them more by what we are. We prove ourselves useful when we give our money. We are still more useful when we give ourselves. And no man has his whole self to give, in all the expansion of his possibilities, until he has aligned himself with God.

We note again how the faith of the apostle brought new hope to everyone on board. These despairing souls were saved by hope. One moment there was not a star in all their sky. They were drifting on to certain death. The best of them would be crying to their gods; the worst would fail to cursing and blaspheming. And then, like the first faint flushing of the dawn, hope came stealing into every heart because there was one on board who believed God. Things were just as dark as they had been before. There was no cessation of the raging storm. They were still drifting on to an iron shore, their ship the sport and plaything of the elements. But one man believed God and because of that was radiant and serene, and it brought hope into the heart of everybody. What does it not matter what you believe? Is faith entirely devoid of social consequence? It mattered supremely for these despairing sailors. It matters every time. Have faith in God— have it for yourself— be strong and quiet and confident because of it, and everybody on shipboard is affected.

Faith Radiates the Atmosphere of Hope

For that is always one of the fruits of faith. Faith radiates the atmosphere of hope. The presence of a strong and living faith calls out the music of a thousand hearts. A son may be a prodigal, and everybody may think him past redemption. But his mother never thinks him past redemption because of the faith in her big mother-heart. And because of the faith in the heart of the Lord Jesus, hope has dawned on twice ten thousand people who, like these shipwrecked sailors, were despairing It is a great thing to give weary people hope. It is like sowing grass on a parched and arid land. And in all our weakness, one sure way to do it is the old sweet way of Jesus and of Paul. Have faith in God. Live it out in storms. Be strong and quiet when others cry in terror. And in mysterious ways we cannot trace hope will dawn upon the hearts of men.

Paul's Faith Brought Good Cheer to Others

Not only did the faith of Paul give hope; it also gave the blessing of good cheer. It brought the comfort of a happy confidence to every desponding heart on board. I have read somewhere of an ocean liner caught in the fury of a terrific storm. Men were panic-stricken— women screamed— and then the captain smiled. And the faith that lay behind that smile, that the ship he knew so well would weather through, brought good cheer to every soul on board. So was it with St. Paul. He believed God and he could smile. When others were terror-stricken and beside themselves, he could give thanks and quietly take his breakfast. And men, seeing it, forgot their fears and plucked up heart again and became cheerful— and all because one person believed God. It is a fine thing to do kindly, helpful deeds. It is one of the very finest in the world. But there is something finer than the helpful hand; it is the helpful heart. To be brave and radiant when things are darkest has an impact upon everybody, and for that one must believe God. My dear reader, longing to cheer others, begin by having faith in God. Fix the one point of your compass there, and let the other sweep as widely as you will. A strong faith is the secret of all helpfulness. Nothing can ever take the place of that. This is the victory that overcomes the world— even your faith.

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George H. Morrison Devotions

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