Blessed Jesus! my everlasting interests cannot be in better or in safer keeping than in Thine. I can exultingly rely on the "_all-power_" of Thy G.o.dhead. I can sweetly rejoice in the _all-sympathy_ of Thy Manhood. I can confidently repose in the sure wisdom of Thy dealings. "Sometimes,"
says one, "we expect the blessing in _our_ way; He chooses to bestow it in _His_." But His way and His will must be the best. Infinite love, infinite power, infinite wisdom, are surely infallible guarantees. His purposes nothing can alter. His promises never fail. His word never falls to the ground.
"HEAVEN AND EARTH SHALL Pa.s.s AWAY, BUT _MY WORDS_ SHALL NOT Pa.s.s AWAY."
21ST DAY.
"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--
"He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you."--John xvi. 14.
The Divine Glorifier.
The Holy Spirit glorifying Jesus in the unfoldings of His person, and character, and work, to His people! The great ministering agent between the Church on earth and its glorified Head in Heaven,--carrying up to the Intercessor on the throne, the ever-recurring wants and trials, the perplexities and sins, of believers; and receiving out of His inexhaustible treasury of love,--comfort for their sorrows--strength for their weakness--sympathy for their tears--fulness for their emptiness,--and _this_ the one sublime end and object of His gracious agency,--"_He shall glorify Me._" "He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak." My words of sympathy--My omnipotent pleadings--the tender messages sent from an unchanged Human Heart,--all these shall He speak. "He shall tell you,"
says an old divine, commenting on this pa.s.sage, "He shall tell you nothing but stories of My love" (_Goodwin_). He will have an ineffable delight in magnifying Me in the affections of My Church and people, and endearing Me to their hearts; and He is all worthy of credence, for He is "the Spirit of truth."
How faithful has He been in every age to this His great office as "the glorifier of Jesus!" See the first manifestation of His power in the Christian Church at the day of Pentecost. What was the grand truth which forms the focus-point of interest in that unparalleled scene, and which brings three thousand stricken penitents to their knees? _It is the Spirit"s unfolding of Jesus_--glorifying _Him_ in eyes that before saw in Him no beauty? Hear the key-note of that wondrous sermon, preached "in demonstration of the Spirit, and with power,"--"HIM hath G.o.d exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to His people, and forgiveness of sins."
Ah? it is still the same peerless truth which the Spirit delights to unfold to the stricken sinner, and, in unfolding it, to make it mighty to the pulling down of strongholds. All these glorious inner beauties of Christ"s work and character are undiscerned and undiscernible by the natural eye. "It is the Spirit that quickeneth." "No man can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." He is the great Forerunner--a mightier than the Baptist--proclaiming, "Behold the Lamb of G.o.d!"
Reader! any bright and realising view you have had of the Saviour"s glory and excellency, is of the Spirit"s imparting. When in some hour of sorrow you have been led to cleave with pre-eminent consolation to the thought of the Redeemer"s exalted sympathy--His dying, ever-living love; or in the hour of death, when you feel the sustaining power of His exceeding great and precious promises;--what is this, but the Holy Spirit, in fulfilment of His all-gracious office, taking of all things of Christ, and showing them unto you; thus enabling you to magnify Him in your body, whether it be by life or death? As your motto should ever be, "_None BUT Christ_," and your ever-increasing aspiration, "_More OF Christ_," seek to bear in mind who it is that is alone qualified to impart the "excellency of this knowledge."
"THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH WHICH PROCEEDETH FROM THE FATHER, _HE_ SHALL TESTIFY OF ME."
22D DAY.
"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--
"Your sorrow shall be turned into joy."--John xvi. 20.
The Joyful Transformation.
Christ"s people are a sorrowing people! Chastis.e.m.e.nt is their badge--"great tribulation" is their appointed discipline. When they enter the gates of glory, He is represented as wiping away tears from their eyes. But, weeping ones, be comforted! Your Lord"s special mission to earth--the great errand He came from heaven to fulfil, was "to bind up the broken-hearted." Your trials are meted out by a tender hand. He _knows_ you too well--He _loves_ you too well--to make this world tearless and sorrowless! "There must be rain, and hail, and storm," says Rutherford, "in the saint"s cloud." Were your earthy course strewed with flowers, and nothing but sunbeams played around your dwelling, it would lead you to forget your _nomadic_ life,--that you are but a sojourner here. The tent must at times be struck, pin by pin of the moveable tabernacle taken down, to enable you to say and to feel in the spirit of a pilgrim, "I desire a better country." Meantime, while sorrow is your portion, think of Him who says, "I know your sorrows." Angels cannot say so--they cannot sympathise with you, for trial is a strange word to them. But there is a mightier than they who _can_. All He sends you and appoints you is in love. There is a provision and condition wrapt up in the bosom of every affliction, "_if need be_;" coming from His hand, sorrows and riches are to His people convertible terms. If tempted to murmur at their trials, they are often murmuring at disguised mercies. "Why do you ask me," said Simeon, on his deathbed, "what I _like_? I am the Lord"s patient--I cannot but like _everything_."
And _then_--"your sorrow shall be turned into joy." "The morning cometh"--that bright morning when the dew-drops collected during earth"s night of weeping shall sparkle in its beams; when in one blessed _moment_ a life-long experience of trial will be effaced and forgotten, or remembered only by contrast, to enhance the fulness of the joys of immortality. What a revelation of gladness! The map of time disclosed, and every little rill of sorrow, every river will be seen to have been flowing heavenwards,--every rough blast to have been sending the bark nearer the haven! In that joy, G.o.d Himself will partic.i.p.ate. In the last "words of Jesus" to His people when they are standing by the triumphal archway of Glory, ready to enter on their thrones and crowns, He speaks of their joy as if it were all _His own_. "Enter ye into the joy _of your Lord_."
Reader, may this joy be yours! Sit loose to the world"s joys. Have a feeling of chastened grat.i.tude and thankfulness when you have them; but beware of resting in them, or investing them with a permanency they cannot have. Jesus had his eye on _heaven_ when he added--
"YOUR JOY NO MAN TAKETH FROM YOU."
23D DAY.
"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--
"Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory."--John xvii. 24.
The Omnipotent Prayer.
This is not the pet.i.tion of a suppliant, but the claim of a conqueror.
There was only _one_ request He ever made, or ever _can_ make, that was refused; it was the prayer wrung forth by the presence and power of superhuman anguish: "Father, _if it be possible_, let this cup pa.s.s from me!" Had that prayer been answered, never could one consolatory "word of Jesus" have been ours. "_If it be possible_;"--_but_ for that gracious parenthesis, we must have been lost for ever! In unmurmuring submission, the bitter cup _was_ drained; all the dread penalties of the law were borne, the atonement completed, an all-perfect righteousness wrought out; and now, as the stipulated reward of His obedience and sufferings, the Victor claims His trophies. What are they? Those that were given Him of the Father--the countless mult.i.tudes redeemed by His blood. These He "_wills_" to be with Him "where He is"--the spectators of His glory, and partakers of His crown. Wondrous word and will of a dying testator! His last prayer on earth is an importunate pleading for their glorification; His parting wish is to meet them in heaven: as if these earthly jewels were needed to make His crown complete,--their happiness and joy the needful complement of His own!
Reader! learn from this, the grand element in the bliss of your future condition--it is _the presence of Christ_; "_with Me_ where I am." It matters comparatively little as to the locality of heaven. "We shall see _Him_ as He is," is "the blessed hope" of the Christian. Heaven would be _no_ heaven without Jesus; the withdrawal of His presence would be like the blotting out of the sun from the firmament; it would uncrown every seraph, and unstring every harp. But, blessed thought! it is His own stipulation in His testamentary prayer, that Eternity is to be spent in union and communion with _Himself_, gazing on the unfathomed mysteries of His love, becoming more a.s.similated to His glorious image, and drinking deeper from the ocean of His own joy.
If anything can enhance the magnitude of this promised bliss, it is the concluding words of the verse, in which He grounds His plea for its bestowment: "_I will_--that they behold my glory;"--why? "For Thou lovedst (not _them_, but) ME before the foundation of the world!" It is equivalent to saying, "If Thou wouldst give _Me_ a continued proof of Thine everlasting love and favour to Myself, it is by loving and exalting My redeemed people. In loving _them_ and glorifying them, Thou art loving and glorifying Me: so endearingly are their interests and My own bound up together!"
Believer, think of that all-prevailing voice, at this moment pleading for thee within the veil!--that omnipotent "_Father, I will_," securing every needed boon! There is given, so to speak, a blank _cheque_ by which He and His people may draw indefinite supplies out of the exhaustless treasury of the Father"s grace and love. G.o.d Himself endorses it with the words, "Son, Thou art ever with me, and all that I have is Thine." How it would reconcile us to Earth"s bitterest sorrows, and hallow Earth"s holiest joys, if we saw them thus hanging on the "_will_" of an all-wise Intercessor, who ever pleads in love, and never pleads in vain!
"BE IT UNTO ME ACCORDING TO _THY WORD_."
24TH DAY.
"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--
"Because I live, ye shall live also."--John xiv. 19.
The Immutable Pledge.
G.o.d sometimes selects the most stable and enduring objects in the material world to ill.u.s.trate His unchanging faithfulness and love to His Church. "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so doth the Lord compa.s.s his people." But here, the Redeemer fetches an argument from _His own everlasting nature_. He stakes, so to speak, His own existence on that of His saints. "_Because I live_, ye shall live also."
Believer! read in this "word of Jesus" thy glorious t.i.tle-deed. _Thy Saviour lives_--and His life is the guarantee of thine own. Our true Joseph is alive. "He is our Brother. He talks kindly to us!" That life of His, is all that is between us and everlasting ruin. But with Christ for our life, how inviolable our security! The great Fountain of being must first be dried up, before the streamlet can. The great Sun must first be quenched, ere one glimmering satellite which He lights up with His splendour can. Satan must first pluck the crown from that glorified Head, before he can touch one jewel in the crown of His people. They cannot shake one pillar without shaking first the throne. "If we perish," says Luther, "Christ perisheth with us."
Reader! is thy life now "hid with Christ in G.o.d?" Dost thou know the blessedness of a vital and living union with a living, life-giving Saviour? Canst thou say with humble and joyous confidence, amid the fitfulness of thine own ever-changing frames and feelings, "Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me?" "_Jesus liveth!_"--They are the happiest words a lost soul and a lost world can hear! Job, four thousand years ago, rejoiced in them. "I know," says he, "that I have _a living Kinsman_." John, in his Patmos exile, rejoiced in them. "I am He that liveth" (or _the Living One_), was the simple but sublime utterance with which he was addressed by that same "Kinsman," when He appeared arrayed in the l.u.s.tres of His glorified humanity. "This is _the_ record"
(as if there was a whole gospel comprised in the statement), "that G.o.d hath given to us eternal life, and this _life_ is in His Son." St. Paul, in the 8th chapter to the Romans--that finest portraiture of Christian character and privilege ever drawn, begins with "no condemnation," and ends with "no separation." Why "no separation?" Because the life of the believer is incorporated with that of his adorable Head and Surety. The colossal Heart of redeemed humanity beats upon the throne, sending its mighty pulsations through every member of His body; so that, before the believer"s spiritual life can be destroyed, Omnipotence must become feebleness, and Immutability become mutable!
But, blessed Jesus, "Thy word is very sure, therefore Thy servant loveth it."
"I GIVE UNTO THEM ETERNAL LIFE, AND THEY SHALL NEVER PERISH, NEITHER SHALL ANY MAN PLUCK THEM OUT OF MY HAND."
25TH DAY.
"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--