Quiet Talks on Following the Christ.
by S. D. Gordon.
Introduction
These talks have been given, in substance, at various gatherings in Great Britain, Continental Europe, and parts of the Far East, during the past four years. The simple directness of the spoken word has been allowed to stand. Portions of chapters three, four, six, and eight have appeared at various times in "The Sunday School Times."
If any who read may find some practical help through the Master"s gracious touch upon these simple words, they are earnestly asked to add their prayers that that same gracious touch may be felt by others wherever these talks may go.
The Lone Man Who Went Before
A Call to Friendship.
One day I watched two young men, a j.a.panese and an American, pacing the deck of a j.a.panese liner bound for San Francisco. Their heads were close together and bent down, and they were talking earnestly. The j.a.panese was saying, "Oh, yes, I believe all that as a theory, but is there _power_ to make a man _live_ it?"
He was an officer of the ship, one of the finest boats on the Pacific. The American was a young fellow who had gone out to j.a.pan as a government teacher, and when his earnest sort of Christianity led to his dismissal he remained, and still remains, as a volunteer missionary. With his rare gift in personal touch he had won the young officer"s confidence, and was explaining what Christianity stood for, when the j.a.panese politely interrupted him with his question about power. The tense eagerness of his manner and voice let one see the hunger of his heart. He had high ideals of life, but confessed that every time he was in port, the sh.o.r.e temptations proved too much, and he always came back on board with a feeling of bitter defeat. He had read about Christianity and believed it good in theory. But he knew nothing of its power.
Through his new American friend he came into personal touch with Christ, then and there. And up to the day we docked he put in his spare time bringing other j.a.panese to his friend"s stateroom, and there more than one of them knelt, and came into warm touch of heart with the Lord Jesus.
Just so our Lord Jesus draws men, Oriental and Occidental alike. Just so He drew men when He was down here. He had great drawing power. Men came eagerly wherever they could find Him.
He drew all sorts of men. He drew the Jews, to whom He belonged racially.
He drew the aggressive, domineering Romans, and the gentler cultured Greeks. He drew the half-breed Samaritans, who were despised by both Jew and foreigner, as not being either one thing or the other. The military men and the civilians, the cultured and the unlettered, the official cla.s.s and those in private life, all alike felt the strong pull upon their hearts of His presence.
The pure of heart, like gentle Mary of Bethany, and the guileless Nathanael, were drawn to Him. And the very opposite, those openly bad in their life, couldn"t resist His presence, and the call away from their low, bad level, but eagerly took His hand and came up. Fisherfolk and farmers, dwellers in the city and country, scholars and tradesmen, crude and refined, richly clad and ragged,--all sorts contentedly rubbed elbows and jostled each other in the crowds that came to listen, and stayed to listen longer, and then went away to come back again for more.
This was why He came--to draw men to Himself. Our Lord Jesus was the face of G.o.d looking longingly into men"s faces. And they couldn"t withstand the appeal of that gentle strong face. He was the voice of G.o.d talking into men"s ears; and the music of that low, quiet voice thrilled and thralled their hearts. He was the hand of G.o.d, strong and warm, reaching down to take men by the hand and give them a strong lift up and back to the old Eden life. And, in time, as men put their hand in His, they came to feel the little knotted place in the palm of that outstretched hand, and the feel of it went strangely into their inmost being. He was the heart of G.o.d, tender and true, beating rhythmically in time and tune with the human heart. And the music had, and has, strange power of appeal to human hearts, and power to sway human lives like a great wind in the trees.
Our Lord Jesus was the person of G.o.d in human shape and human garb, come down close, to draw us men back again to the old trysting place under the Tree of Life. And in every generation, and every corner of the earth, then, and ever since then, men of every colour and sort have come back, and found how His presence eases the tug of life on many a steep roadway, and more, much more.[1]
And our Lord Jesus drew men into personal friendship with Himself. He didn"t like the long range way of doing things. Keeping men at arm"s length never suited Him. He gave the inner heart touch, and He longed for the touch of the innermost heart. He was our friend. He asked that we be His friends, real friends of the rare sort, of which one"s life has only a few.
And He asked, too, that all else that we brought to Him should be that which grew out of this personal friendship. He gave and did all that He did and gave, because He was our friend. He asked only for what grew out of a real heart friendship with Himself. He longed to have us give all, yet only what our hearts couldn"t hold back. His friendship has one thing peculiar to itself. He has no favourites, in our common thought of that word, among the countless numbers who have come to be included in His inner circle of friends. Yet He gives to each such a distinctive personal touch of His own heart that you feel yourself to be on closest terms. He is nearer and closer than any other, and your longing is to be as near and close to Him in life as He is to you in His heart.[2]
Now, because we are His friends and He is our friend, He calls us to follow Him. It is a privilege of friendship. He would share with you and with me the things of His own heart and life. He wants to have us come close up to Himself, and live close up. And the only way we can do it is by giving a glad "Yes" to His invitation, and following so close that we shall be up to Himself. Nothing less than this contents His longing.
But there is more than friendship here. He has a plan of action in His heart. It is a wide-reaching plan, clear beyond our idea of what wide-reaching means. It is nothing less than a plan for the whole world, the entire race, for winning it up to the old Eden life of purity and of close walking with G.o.d. That plan is the pa.s.sion of His great heart. He has held nothing back--spared nothing--that it might be done. He is thinking of that plan as He comes eagerly to you and me, now, all afresh, and with His heart in His voice says "Follow Me." This is a bit of His plan for me and for you--that we shall be partners with Him in His plan for the world.
And yet--and yet--this helping Him, this partnership, this working with Him in His plan, is to be because of our friendship, His and mine, His and yours. It is a more than friendship He is thinking of. But that more is _through_ the friendship. It grows out of the friendship. Only so does it work out His real plan.
Climbing the Hilltops.
Now this "Follow Me" of His, if taken into one"s life, and followed up, will come to mean two things. There are two great things that stand sharply out in our Lord Jesus" life down here, His _characteristics_ and His _experiences_. I mean what He was in Himself; and what He went through, suffered, enjoyed, and accomplished; the Man Himself, and the Man"s experiences. These are the two things about which these simple talks will be grouped. Our Lord Jesus wants us to follow that we may climb up the hill as high as He did in these things.
Following means climbing. A friend has told recently of a journey taken to a certain village in New England from which, she had been told, a fine view could be got of the White Mountains. On arrival it seemed that a low hill completely shut out the view, to her intense disappointment. But her companion, by and by, called from the top of the low hill and eagerly beckoned her to come up. A bit of climbing quickly brought her to where the magnificent beauty of the mountains broke upon her delighted eyes.
Our Lord Jesus climbed the hilltops, both in His character and in His experiences. He wants us to share those rare hilltops with Him. He has gone away ahead of any other. He is the Lone Man in both character and experiences. And in some of His experiences He will ever remain the lone occupant of the hilltop. But He is eager for our companionship. He longs for the personal touch. He wants us to have all He has got. He has blazed a way through the thicket where there was no path before. He left the plain marks on the trees as He went through, so we could surely find the way. And now He eagerly beckons us to follow.
But following means climbing. It"s a hill road, sometimes down hill, sometimes up hill. Which makes stiffer climbing? Usually the one you are doing seems the harder. Sometimes the road is a dead level between hills.
And dead level walking--the monotonous dead-a-way, with no bracing air, no inspiring outlook--is often much harder than down hill or up. And so it too is climbing. Following means climbing. He climbed. He made the high climb all alone. No other ever had the courage to climb so high as He.
It"s easier since He has smoothed down the road with His own feet; yet it isn"t easy; still it is easier than not climbing; that is, when you reckon the whole thing up--with _Him_ in.
Now He asks you and me to climb. He cannot climb for you. That is, I mean He cannot do the climbing you ought to do. He has climbed for us, marked out the hill path, and made it possible for us to climb up too. But the after-climbing He cannot do for us. Each must do his own climbing. So lungs grow deeper, and heart-action stronger, and cheeks clearer, and muscles firmer. Step by step we must pull up, maybe through a fog, with no view of beauty, no bracing air yet, only His strong beckoning hand.
But those who reach up and get hold of hands with Him, and get up even to some of the lower reaches of the climb, stand with full hearts and dumb lips. They can"t find words to tell the exhilaration of the climb, the bracing air, the far outlook, and, yet more, the wondrous presence of the Chief Climber, even though there"s a bit of smarting of face and hands where the th.o.r.n.y tanglewood tore a bit as you went by.
Just now I want you to come with me for a bit of a look at the Lone Man, who has gone before. I mean at the Man Himself. We want to take a look at the characteristics of His life; what the Man was in His character.
And please understand me here. Following does not mean that we are to try to imitate these characteristics. No, it"s something both simpler and easier, and deeper and better than that. It means that, as we companion with Him daily, these same traits will appear in us. It is not to be imitation simply, good as that might seem, yet always bringing a sense of failure, and that sense the thing you remember most. It is to be some One living His life in you, coming in through the open door of your will. Your part is opening up, and keeping open, listening and loving and obeying.
The touchstone of the "Follow Me" life is not imitation but following; not copying but obeying; not struggle--though there will be struggle--but companionship, a companionship which nothing is allowed to take the fine edge off of.
And please remember, too, the meaning for us sinful men of these characteristics of His. With us character is a result of choice, and then nearly always--or should I cut out that "nearly"? the earnest man in the thick of the fight finds no "nearlys"--it"s always with him--character is always the result of a fight to keep to the choice decided upon.
Now with greatest reverence for our Lord Jesus, let me say, _it was so with Him_. He was as truly G.o.d as though not man. Yet He lived His life,--He insisted on living His life, on the human level.[3] He was as truly human as though not peculiarly divine. He had the enormous advantage of a virgin birth, a divine fatherhood with a human motherhood. And, be it said with utmost reverence, He needed that advantage for the terrific conflict and the tremendous task of His life, such as no other has known.
But His character as a man--the thing we are to look at now--was a result of choice, and choice insisted upon against terrible odds.
This gives new meaning to His "Follow Me." He went the same sort of road that we must go. He insisted on treading _our_ road. It was not one made easier for His specially prepared feet. It was the common earth road every man must go, who will. And so the way He went we can go if we will, every step of it. By His help working through our wills, we _can_, and, please G.o.d, surely we will.
The Dependent Life.
There were _three traits in His character upward_, that is in His relation with His Father. First of all He chose to live _the dependent life_. He recognized that everything He was, and had, and could do, was received from the Father, and could be at its true best only as the Father"s direct touch was upon it. This was the atmosphere in which all His human powers would do their best. He had nothing of Himself, and could do nothing of Himself. This is the plan the Father has made for human life and effort.[4] Our Lord Jesus recognized this and lived it. Our common word for this is humility. Humility is a matter of relationship. It means keeping one"s relationship with the Father clear and dominant. And this in turn radically affects and controls our relationship with our fellows.
There were three degrees or steps in the dependent life He chose to live.
There was the giving up part, then the accepting for Himself the plan of human life, and then accepting it even to the extent of yielding to wrong and shameful treatment, without attempting to a.s.sert His rights against such treatment. These were the three steps in His humility. In Paul"s striking phrase, He "emptied out" of Himself all He had in glory with the Father before coming to the earth; He decided to come to the human level and live fully the human life of utter dependence; and He carried this to the extent of being wholly dependent on the Father for righting the wrongs done Him.[5]
This is G.o.d"s plan for the human life. It is to be a dependent life. It actually is a dependent life, utterly dependent upon Him. It is to be lived so. Then only is the fragrance of it gotten. It is part of the dependent life--the true human life--that we depend on the Father for vindication when wronged, as for everything else.[6]
Our Lord Jesus chose to live this life. There was an entire absence of the self-spirit, that is the self-a.s.sertive, the self-confident spirit. There was a remarkable confidence in action, but it was confidence in His Father"s unfailing response to His requests or needs. This sense of utter dependence was natural to Him; as indeed it is natural to man unhurt by sin. And then He carefully cultivated it. As He came in contact with the very opposite all around Him, He set Himself--indeed He had to set Himself--to keeping this sense of dependence untainted, unhurt by His surroundings.
Now there were three things which naturally grew out of this dependent life, or which naturally are part of it. One was, the sense of His Father, and of His Father"s presence. In a perfectly simple natural way, He was always conscious of His Father"s presence. Is this the meaning--one meaning--of "blessed are the pure in heart for they shall _see G.o.d_"? And then He doubtless set Himself to cultivate this, as an offset to what He found around Him. He would quietly look up and speak to the Father in the midst of a crowd.[7] This was the natural thing to do. He was more conscious of the Father"s presence than of the crowd pressing in to get near. When He was speaking to the crowd He knew the Father too was listening. He felt the Father watching as He helped the people. This was the natural thing with Him, the presence of the Father.
With this there went a second thing, the habit of getting alone to talk things over with the Father. The common word for this is prayer. Without doubt His whole outer life grew out of His inner secret talking things out with the Father. Everything was pa.s.sed in review here, first of all. This naturally grew out of the consciousness of His Father"s presence, and this in turn increased that consciousness. So He was in the habit of looking at everything through His Father"s eyes.
And with these two, there was plainly a third thing, a settled sense of the power, the authority, of G.o.d"s written Word. It was not simply that He did not question it, but there was a deep-rooted sense grown down into His very being that G.o.d was speaking in the Book, and that this revelation of Himself and His will was _the thing_ to govern absolutely one"s life.
This points back to a study of the Book. Doubtless that Nazareth shop was a study shop too. He quoted readily and freely from all portions of the Old Testament Bible. He seemed saturated with both its language and its spirit. The basis of such familiarity would be long, painstaking, prayerful study.