So we should be able to understand spiritual things by a kind of spiritual intuition. We can know in this way the Master's will for us, His thoughts concerning us, and all the exquisite meaning of His love. There are many things in Nature that appeal to this sense, and show us how we can understand the finer creations of God. The exquisite odor of flowers is something that no chemist could evolve; but Nature has given them freely, and they speak to us of that inner world, of sweetness which we can catch in this way. In the temple there was not only the sound of God's voice speaking from between the cherubim; the taste of the bread for the strengthening of God's people; but above all else there was the sweet smell of incense rising from the golden altar and filling the entire tabernacle.
It was God's heart poured out in sweetness, and man's heart meeting it in love. So God meets us in the inner sanctuary of the soul. He does see and speak with us merely, but He fills us with a precious sense of His presence, pouring it over us in fragrant clouds of love. As we bow before Him He meets us with sweetness, and we know that He is present by this delicate inner consciousness. If we wait before Him He will come to us in this way. We have not only the sound of His voice and the vision of His face, the touch of His hand and the taste of His love, but He makes us say, 'All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia.' He is the chief among ten thousand.' And we are filled with this perfume as we go out, bearing it abroad, like those spice ships from the shores of Mozambique and Arabia, spreading the odor of the gums and spices upon the air.
We have entered into the inner soul of spiritual things, and our hearts have been filled with their essence. The reason we do not catch these things quicker is because we live so much in the external world. There is so little quiet in our lives, and so much bustle and hurry. God wants something finer from us. He would have us go through our work every day, carrying the sweetness in our hearts which we have breathed in from heaven and so always breathing it out wherever we go. The reason we do not do this is because we are not keeping close to God. We do not find this fragrance in the land of snows. We must go to the South land to find it. And so we must go to Him for all the spirit needs: we must have Him touch the senses of the soul and satisfy them, and then we can carry this fragrance to others.
As it is in the outward life, so must it also be in the spiritual. God makes our physical life a type of the inner, which is exactly the same in details, but more real. Have you all these senses open to God's influences? or are you so diseased with spiritual catarrh and hay-fever that you cannot catch the sweet fragrance of those finer spiritual things which God would make known to you in this way? If you are not able to do this, give your spiritual senses to Him today, to quicken by His living touch: nay, let Him come within, to live as the resources of all the inner life. What are you going to do when you draw near to the valley of death and hear faintly the 'good-bye' of wife and children? Will you be able to hear His voice, saying, 'Fear not, for I am with thee'? The time will come when all these outward things will be withdrawn, and there will be nothing left but the inner senses by which to apprehend God.
A gentleman once tried to rouse his dying brother by leaning over him and shouting, 'Do you know me, John?' But the sick man only shook his head. His wife came up and repeated the question, but met with the same response. Then they asked him, 'Do you know Jesus?' that woke him out of his stupor : he threw up his hands, exclaiming, 'He is with me now! Jesus of Nazareth, blessed Jesus!' And he went home to heaven in His arms. Have you got that precious consciousness of His presence that will go with you when the tide is swelling high around you, and carry you safely to the other shore? You have heard of the stage-driver in San Francisco, who, when he was dying, thought he was driving the stage-coach down a steep grade, and that he could not get his feet upon the brake. Do you know what it is to get your feet upon the solid ground? Have you got Him forever as an eternal possession? Can you say, 'On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand, All other ground is sinking sand?'
When the time comes that you will not be able to eat or drink, and they bring you all the stuff they are making now for sick people, can you say, as did the dying saint, 'He has brought me into His banqueting house?' When everything around smells of the mold, will you be able to catch above it the odor of sweet flowers, and sing, 'A sweet perfume upon the breeze Is borne from ever vernal trees.'
Can you say, as another of God's dying saints exclaimed. 'There is no dying here; there is no bitterness here. I smell the mold, but faith comes, and, blessed be God! I smell the rose above the mold.' When all sight is gone for every earthly thing, will you be able to see those dearer visions opening upon the inner sight? I have sometimes thought, the more dear our earthly surroundings, the more bitter it makes the hour of parting. The more lovely are the things that are around us in this sensuous life, the more terrible do they make the dying hour.
I beseech you, dear friends, to keep this life here full of God. Keep the Master with you who goes through both worlds with you. There will be nothing in the golden streets up there but what will have had their beginnings down here. May God give us a little heaven here below, with Himself as its joy and its centre.
21. Business Terms As Types Of Spiritual Things
"But now hath He obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also He is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises." Hebrews 8:6 NOT only are all the objects of Nature used as emblems of spiritual life and truth, but God has put teachings of His own holy truth into the framework of man's secular and social life. He has used the ordinary employments and business arrangements of every day as types of His own transactions with us. In every part of commercial life, we can see a finger pointing upward like a church spire, and telling us of God. On our business streets, and in all the marts of trade, we can learn many precious lessons of God's covenant blessings. The business man, as he goes to make a deposit in the bank, can think of the great treasure he has laid up for him in Heaven.
Such verses as this may come to his mind : 'I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep my deposit against that day.' So, too, the broker'as he prepares his insurance papers, and the proprietor man as he takes them from his hand'may think of the greater security he has obtained for the future. When the flames of dissolution shall sweep over this dissolving world, he need not fear for he is safe from loss or danger. The notary, as he places the stamp upon the paper, and hands over the sealed document, and the one person who receives it, may each think of the greater covenant written with God's own finger and sealed with His own stamp. So through the whole circle of business life, there is something which speaks of God.
The Scriptures are framed on these moulds, and, to understand all their meaning, we must understand business forms among men, especially among God's ancient people. God is definite in His transactions, even far more than man. The whole plan of salvation is precise, and yet wonderful in its adaptation to the needs of the community or people to whom comes, bringing its promises of help. The act of faith, by which its offers are received, is as much a business matter as a letter written to a person accepting some offer in every day commercial transactions. It is setting our seal to God's covenant of grace. The work of the Holy Ghost is described under these figures. The great act by which God secures redemption to us, is called a covenant. The Communion service in which we so often participate, is described by a commercial term. It is not only a supper of which God and His dear children partake together, but it is a will and testament'the seal of a covenant. It is a business transaction repeated often in the presence of men and angels.
These terms, which are employed so freely in the Bible, give us insight not only into God's character, but they present His truth in such a definite way that we are able more readily to grasp it. We will speak this morning of two or three of these and the manner in which they are intended to help our struggling faith. The first of these is the word 'covenant;' the second, 'seal,' and the third, 'earnest.' They are all closely linked together.
I.
In the first of these we shall, perhaps, be able to get a view of God's covenant with us. In the text it is spoken of as a better covenant of which Christ is the surety. The word means a treaty which is formed between communities or individuals. Such things were very common in ancient times, and particularly in Oriental countries, they were considered very sacred. An Arab today counts his word or his covenant as sacred as his life. With them they were ratified by some simple ceremony. The covenant of salt was always ratified by each party partaking of bread and salt, and striking hands together heartily when the rite was over. The compact then was as good as the life of each man. In certain parts of Africa the persons, forming a covenant, partake of each other's blood.
A vein is opened in the arm of one of them, and the other drinks his blood. There is then a blood covenant between them which can never be broken. In the distant East, that land of spiritual symbols, a covenant is regarded as a very sacred thing, and God has taken this form and made it the pledge of His love and help for His lost and redeemed people. We find covenants running all through the Scriptures. There was first the covenant of works by which Adam, and his posterity were to be saved if they kept it unbroken. Then there was the covenant written in stone by the finger of God in presence of the holy angels. Still further back there was a covenant before man was born by which the sin of the world was to fall upon Christ, by whose sufferings lost man was to be redeemed and brought back to God.
This was a covenant in which Christ and the Father participated. It was the covenant of grace. The other covenant of works was broken, and God knew it would be; the covenant of grace through Jesus Christ never can be broken. It is the best and strongest of all the covenants. It is made with God's dear Son. I like to think that God did not make this covenant with me personally, but with Jesus Christ for me, and it is kept by Him. All through the Old Testament this truth is taught. Salvation is a great transaction, in which the Father and the Son are the transacting parties. Jesus stands as the head of the redeemed race and undertakes to fulfill all the conditions of the agreement. He stands there with the Father in the ages before the world was formed, as though man had already fallen.
He assumes all the guilt of the fall, undertakes to suffer for the sin, to fulfill the rightousness which man has lost, and to pay all the debt he has incurred. He measures all the possibilities of man's failure, and assumes all the responsibility of preserving his love and faith and obedience unbroken. He undertakes the whole of it, and agrees to make the matter right on man's part. God on the other hand agrees to remit the penalty for sin, to blot out all the transgressions, and to accept sinful man in His Son through all the ages to come. It is of this that the Father speaks when He says: 'I will give Thee for a covenant of the people.' Jesus came down to earth for this very thing, to be the surety of a better covenant. If God had made the covenant with us we would certainly have broken it, but Christ has made it sure for us by fulfilling all its stipulations.
He took the hardest place that could be found in the universe. He overcame all its difficulties, and until the end He shall not fail. His holy life was lived in the presence of sinful men, the burden of our guilt was fully borne, and until death He stood without a failure. Then He could raise the exultant cry, 'It is finished.' The price was all paid, the purchase was complete, and we have nothing to do but to enter into the possession He has prepared for His beloved and redeemed ones. Then He ascended up on high, having led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. As soon as the work of redemption was complete the Father began to deliver over into His hands the results of His wonderful sacrifice and toil, and He shares it with us, His brethren.
He is the elder brother, and so inherits everything, but we enter into His possession and enjoy it with Him. He takes us in as joint heirs with Himself. The covenant of salvation was not made with us. It was made with Christ for us. He became the surety of this better covenant. He undertook to be the sponsor for you and me. We do not promise God to do this or that, and then He will do His part. That old covenant of works was broken in the garden of Eden, and never can be kept by man.
Christ becomes surety for the frail heart of man. He knows it is nothing but a rope of sand, yet he says: 'I will stand for it.' Christ becomes through this covenant of grace surety for our rightousness. As we let Him live in us and control us perfectly He meets God's expectation in us, and the covenant is fulfilled. What is the language of the old prophets in this connection? 'I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them.' 'I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever.' God puts Christ's spirit within you, beloved. Christ is in you as the strength of your life and He is for you, the surety of better a covenant. Let us be very careful that we lean only on that inner consciousness of the Spirit's presence.
There is another sense of this word which is also very sweet. God has not only made a covenant with Christ, He makes a personal covenant with each one of us. We have come to trust in the fulfillment of Christ's great covenant with the Father for us all collectively as His people. But besides that, it is very blessed to have separate covenants with God for ourselves, each in his own life. They are little circles of precious links with God, revolving within the greater circle of Christ's marvelous work for us, and working out the fulness of their purpose with as great certainty as Jesus' own work is being fulfilled.
One of the first acts I did as a child after my conversion was to write out such a covenant with God. I had been reading the severe but profoundly heart-searching writings of Dr. Philip Doddridge, and I took his suggestion about such a plan. I wrote it out carefully and signed and sealed it. I could weep sometimes as I think of the many little things God let me put into that covenant, and the marvelous way in which He fulfilled them, trifling as they seemed afterward. I was careful even then, to make it in accordance with Scripture, and so it was not presumptuous. I have learned more fully since then, that a knowledge of His will is the highest thing we can ask for. More than anything else we need that there shall be a perfect understanding between His heart and ours.
What He does not wish me to know I do not care about knowing; and away back in those early days I had a consciousness that not one of His thoughts for me would ever fail. One of the things that as a child I chose in that first covenant was the working out of His best thought for me. I chose even then the will that He intended for me, as the best thing that could be wrought into my life. Later, as my life has been more fully yielded to Him, I have known that He was fulfilling it, and am sure that He will to the very end. We can lean back upon the knowledge of this truth, and find it supporting us like cables of steel, each one of them a separate line of communication with heaven.
Yes, beloved, the Lord has a covenant for each of us, a better covenant than our wills could frame. It is sweet to think of it. It is a covenant by which God is specially pledged to you, and you are immutably bound to Him. Let us then lift up our heads in confidence, and realize what it means, for we have a 'strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast.' It is sure; it cannot be shaken. There is nothing that need frighten you. God has made it sure, that we may be free from fear. We know it is strong and safe. We can go to sleep on it. We can awake and go to work upon it. We can suffer and die upon it.
There is nothing more secure and solid in the universe. It is as stable as eternity, as deity itself. 'It is an anchor to the soul sure and steadfast.' God is under covenant to each one of you, beloved friends. He has bound Himself to you so strongly that He can not tear Himself away. It is a safe place to be in, but all it cost Him to provide it for us not even the angels can know. God help us to abide in it, and say evermore: 'On Christ the solid rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand.'
II.
The next expression, we will refer to this morning, is the word seal. It is used in the epistles as a type of the stamp of the Holy Ghost which God puts upon us when we accept His word. There are two seals spoken of in the New Testament: one is the seal of faith; the other is the seal of the Spirit. 'He that hath received His testimony hath set to His seal that God is true.' That is the seal of faith. 'In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.' That is the work of God. I put my seal upon the document, and then God puts His there.
He will not do this, however, until you have committed your faith irrevocably to Him and His word first. As in business transactions the most responsible party reserves his signature until the other has affixed his, so God does also. When you accept Him wholly and without reserve, then He gives the stamp of inner gladness and joy and peace. The trouble is we are too apt to want His seal before we have put down our own, forgetting the word of Jesus, 'He that believeth not the Son shall not see life.' There must be faith on our part before God will seal us with the Holy Spirit.
Jeremiah was so convinced that the children of Israel would be brought back from their captivity that before they were carried away, he bought back part of his old paternal estates, believing God's word that fields and vineyards should again be possessed in the land. He sealed the covenant he thus made with its former owner with two seals, one of which was open and the other was closed. Beloved, God's covenant with us has two seals also. The open one is faith in the Word of God. But there is a secret seal He puts upon His dear children, that is fore each one personally. This is the Holy Spirit by which God impresses upon our hearts a sense of His acceptance, and a consciousness of His presence and blessing.
III.
The last business term, which we will look at today, is the word earnest. It occurs in the same verse which we read before. Eph 1: 13''Ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.' God not only seals us when we become His children, but He gives us something which He calls an earnest. The old Hebrew custom will convey some meaning of this figure. The earnest was a guarantee and in some sense a sample, a first installment of the thing covenanted for. So with us it is the beginning of that which God means to give later more fully.
When Jeremiah bought back his old estate, he probably received from its former owner a handful of soil taken from the farm according to the ancient custom, as a token that he should have the whole of it. This first installment or earnest of future possession used to accompany all the deeds of ancient times. The covenant was not only sealed, but along with it came a little pledge of future possession. God uses this figure to teach us a precious truth. He not only gives us a promise, confirmed by an oath, of what He is going to do for us, but the Holy Spirit gives a part of that which is yet to come into our hands. He begins to pay it over to us from the very commencement of the contract. As fast as we can take in the soil of heaven we are put in possession of it.
The future inheritance is transfused into our life here in some measure. There is nothing that we shall have or that we shall be in the fullness of glory but we begin to have and to be in the days of grace. There is not a song we shall sing in heaven but we shall begin to learn it here. There is not a glory or a purity or a power awaiting us yonder but we have received the beginnings of here. The fullness of eternal life we begin to receive here on earth : and if we do not have it here in foretaste, beloved, we shall not have it there. As we sit here this morning in His holy presence, do we realize that we have all heavenly things, not only in promise, but that we are really tasting them?
This word earnest is used not only in reference to our spiritual possessions, but about our physical life also. It has been very impressive to me to find out this truth about divine healing. God begins to give us the resurrection life of His dear Son here on earth. We have an earnest not only of the purity and bliss of heaven, but the beginnings of resurrection life in physical power in our nerves and veins. Speaking of this, Paul says: 'For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
Now he that hath wrought us for1 the self-same thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.
Therefore we are always confident.'
The Spirit is giving us now the first fulfillment of the promise of resurrection life. We can know it in the beating of the heart, and the fresh energy of the whole frame. Resurrection life has indeed already begun.
God has given us this morning three great words: His covenant of grace; the seal of the Holy Spirit; and the earnest of an inheritance which Jesus died to bring to us, and of which He has become the sponsor and guardian. Are you sure that you have them all, dear friends? Are you sure you are trusting in His covenant, and not your own, and that you have received His pledges and the surety of His word and love? May God begin today to renew His covenant and seal, and press into our lives the earnest of His promises of future glory in abundant foretaste, so that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
22. Natural And Spiritual Transformations
"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." II Corinthians 3:18 THE mythology of ancient languages and of ancient peoples is full of wonderful pictures of transformations. The beautiful objects of nature, flowers, buds, and even the foam upon the sea waves are represented as changing into other forms of purity and loveliness. It tells us also of metamorphoses by which lower orders of animals are changed into higher and more glorious ones. This idea, however, did not originate with them, nor did it find its birth in the regions of poetry.
We see the same thing taking place every day in the realms of nature. We have only to look around us to find these delicate transformations going on upon every side. The ugly bulb is being transformed constantly into the beautiful blossom. The crawling thing of earth is becoming a glorious thing of heaven. The repulsive worm we saw yesterday creeping along our path, today has taken to itself wing, and is soaring on high a beautiful creature of the air. These transformations of common things into beautiful ones are to be seen everywhere. The canvas of the artist is made to glow with exquisite loveliness.
The cold marble is changed into the radiant face of an angel, whose countenance expresses all the emotions that a human face could assume. Even the common things of the street are taken up by art and beautified and refined into something far above their original place. Such is the beautiful paper upon which we write our letters of love to our friends. Such are the lovely gems with which so many of the votaries of fashion are decked. It is a transformation from a lower into a higher order of things. Art takes the light of the sun, and with it paints its pictures of life and beauty.
Perhaps these thoughts will lead us up a little to the beautiful picture of our test. Paul gives a Bible illustration of the same principle in the context. He has been speaking of Moses. He tells us that he went up into the mount with a face of common dull clay, but up there he listened to God's voice, he looked up into His face, and the glory of His presence filled his whole being. It penetrated his very blood and flesh and veins. It caused him to glow with the same radiance. When he came down after being up there forty days his face was shining like the sun. The people could not look upon it, and they begged him to cover it up. Gazing upon God had made him like God. It had transformed him into the same likeness.
The apostle uses this principle to illustrate the spiritual transformation that God is constantly making, taking man's coarse, sinful nature and changing it into the glorious image of His own beautiful face. He was alluding to Moses when he said: 'We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.' This is a picture of spiritual life and growth into the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. No other such transformation as this has ever been wrought upon earth. All else is but the scaffolding around this inner and eternal temple.
All that art has accomplished or taste and skill performed, are nothing to what the Holy Ghost is able to do. Where can you find such a change as is going on in the heart of a reformed man, who was once perhaps a low drunkard, but whose life is now filled with the glory and beauty of God. That is the kind of transformation that is taking place now in the history of each one of us. The week that has just passed has been full of opportunities for such touches. The week that is coming will put us under the chisel again, to bring out more fully and with new beauty the light of His countenance in ours.
Are you yielding yourselves to this transforming power, dear friends? Are you becoming thus changed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ, through the patient care of the Master's hand? Are you allowing Him to press out of your nature all the materials that are common and unclean, and that would spoil the beautiful likeness He is laboring to bring out within you? Are we allowing these baser elements in our character to rule us, corrupting the good and us unfit to touch the holy things of God, or are we being transformed by the renewing of our minds into the image of Jesus? Certainly if we desire it we shall be made into that glorious image. That is what we are elected for. There is no other election but that which is making us pure.
God has no other election for any man but to change him into the likeness of His dear Son. We are just bits of canvas put upon an easel and stretched there with the pattern above it, and the Master sits down patiently before it and begins the work of reproducing it in us. We are just blocks of marble brought rough from the quarry, but each one of them contains an angel, and the great Sculptor begins to bring it out. He works on and on and on until this glorious work is done'the gentle, patient Holy Ghost, whose work it is to purify and transform us and make us like the blessed Saviour.
There are many principles in these words, which show us how this may be made real in Christian life.
I.
We are to become copies of the glory of the Lord. We are to be changed into the image of God. We are to sit down and be copied into Him. We cannot comprehend all that this means, nor indeed any of it till we know Him well, but this is the first thought, to be made over into His image. We shall find that includes His holiness, purity and perfect love. It would be presumption for us to think of assuming this if He did not direct us to do so, but that certainly is a part of the picture we are to copy. It is not our own picture that we are to reproduce, but His. It is set before us, but we must get very near it to make a perfect copy.
It is not a few delineations of character only we are to get, but the likeness of the full glory. 'We are to be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.' Are you venturing, my brothers and sisters, to make this copy? Are you going about feeling that you are standing as God, and that you are representing God and the glory of God to others, and that you are a copy of His divine perfection? This will not bring with it any spirit of self exaltation, for it is not your own perfection you are showing forth, but His.
II.
God gives us a miniature of this glory to copy. We behold it as in a glass. We could not gaze upon divinity itself unveiled, and so God puts all these attributes, He would have us be possessed of, in a glass, so that we may see them clearly and yet not be dazzled by their brightness; and that glass is His dear Son. Jesus is the image of the Father. We could not look upon the sun steadily without destroying our vision, but we can smoke a piece of glass and look at it thus in a partial shadow without being injured. We could not look upon God in His splendid majesty, and He kindly veils His glory and shows it to us in softer light in the person of Jesus Christ. 'We see Him in miniature in the gospels, upon the level on which we live ourselves, filling positions which we are able to understand.
An astronomer constructs a telescope by which he can view the stars of the heavens as they are reflected in a glass which acts as a mirror. He does not have to strain up to the sky in order to examine the clusters of stars, but he brings a reflection of them down to his own level, and then he can see them clearly. So Christ brings the glory of God down to us. He comes down and lives among us, and thus shows us all that God has it upon His heart for man to become. If we have any desire to become like God, we must study the Saviour and imitate Him. He is the typical man, the perfect picture of what God expects every man to become. Christ is not only a picture of God: He becomes our Head, imparting to us His own life. He is a real inspiration, giving us vital force. He is not only a pattern for us to look at and try to imitate, but He communicates to us the power to become like Himself. He comes and lives in us and helps us to grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.'
III.
'We are changed into the glory of God by gazing into this glass. A steady look there will bring spiritual beauty into our life. We can get it nowhere else than by looking unto Jesus. We must fix the eye upon Him and keep it there every moment steadily. Thus He becomes to us more than our example; even the very fountain from which we drink in spiritual life. There is another principle connected with this transition that we must not fail to discover. I am sure we do not fully understand the mighty power of a look. There is a strange physical contact which comes to us through the eye.
The little bird catches the eye of the serpent and finds it to contain a strange, magnetic power, which it is not able to withstand. The venomous, crawling thing sees the little innocent creature, and with one look it seems to fasten itself upon its very life, and transfix and hold it captive by that gaze. The ancients represented this principle in their picture of the head of Medusa, a horrid combination of cruelty and abomination, which had the power of changing the person who looked upon it into stone. It was a type of the power there is in coming in contact with evil.
There is a power in this which too few Christians even understand. You cannot look at any picture of evil without taking in its filthiness with your whole being. You cannot look upon scenes of moral degradation and death without having them throw a spell over you which it will take all your powers of resistance to overcome. On the other hand, there is equal power upon the good and true. By gazing steadily upon them you will grow into their likeness. If you see nothing around you but that which is cultivated, you will grow up in refinement. It is easy to fix the social positions of the people before you by their faces.
We take the tone of the influences that surround us, as insects take the color of the plants they feed upon, as the chameleon takes the colors of the passing seasons, and as the conies borrow the color of the rocks they live in. The power of association is intensely strong in human nature. A celebrated artist wished once to paint a picture of the judgment and before he attempted to touch his canvas he went to live day after day in the sepulchre of the dead. He gazed upon all the surroundings, looked steadily at the skeletons, took in the whole atmosphere of the place into his eye and brain, then when his whole being was penetrated with the influences of the sepulchre he went to his studio and transferred it to the canvas.
He could paint it now for it had grown into his very nature. This thought will help us to understand the power of association with Christ. If we fix our eye there we will find His life beginning to flow into us through the power of that gaze. We shall become like Him because we are so much with Him. The eye is so constructed that it takes in the image of the thing upon which it gazes. If you look upon the sun in yonder heaven, the image of it will be formed in your eye. If you look upon the face of some dear familiar friend, that image is brought into your mind through the organs of vision. So gazing on Christ brings Him also into your being. If you look at Jesus, you have Jesus, if you look away from Him you lose Him. It is necessary then to fix the vision ever closely upon Him if you would hold Him as a perpetual presence. How that look will light up your soul, quicken your mind, and irradiate your whole nature.
This gaze must be with open face, there must be no hindrance, nothing to obstruct the view. Neither must the gaze become distracted by anything else that would cause us to look aside this way or that. There must be a steady, open, fixed look straight up to Christ. So only can we know of having spiritual growth or of being transformed into His glorious image. Perhaps this will be made clearer by the art of photography. The image there is transferred by the power of steady contact. You know the person must get in front of the camera and gaze steadily upon it. Then the image is formed upon the prepared plate inside. If anything comes between, there is no picture formed.
If a curtain should be placed there, or if some other person should stand there, or even if the sitter should not sit still or should not look steadily at the camera there would be no picture. If he moves a little to one side or winks his eyes there will be a slight aberration of the lines. He must look steadily and sit still until the picture is taken. So in divine transformations, we must look at Jesus with open face with no barrier between. We must keep the heart fixed on Jesus if we would grow like Him, if we would be able to grasp Him by our instincts, if we would have the Holy Spirit through the consciousness of His presence, in our hearts constantly. We shall become used after a while to the fact that there is some one there besides ourselves, who is not a disturbing element, but who adds power to our thought and peace to our heart and who can be always apprehended by an inner perception which we could not perhaps put into words.
Flowers do not speak to us to tell us of their presence, but we detect it by the sweet fragrance shed upon the air. This presence does not hinder our work. We go on with that as before, hurrying too in its busy parts, faithful as ever in all its details, yet conscious all the time that some one is with us. Have you never had a dear friend at your side to whom you were too busy to talk, but who was ever present to your mind as you went on with your busy toil? So Christ's presence in our heart does not interfere with our occupations, but rather helps us in them. It leaves us free, yet overshadowed with the purity and sweetness and strength of God. This is the presence that the Holy Spirit comes to us to keep constantly before our minds. The devil comes also and tries to inject another vision there.
Perhaps it is something intended to distract our thoughts, or to introduce fear. Perhaps something crosses our path, over which we allow ourselves to be irritated, and the sweet image is gone. The consciousness of God's presence leaves us. Therefore it is necessary to hold steadily to the view of Christ which has been presented to us, looking at Him with open face. Therefore it is necessary to keep the eye on Christ, and turn resolutely away from the other vision, which would allure us from Him. We must refuse to listen to its suggestions or to give it attention in any way. We are not, however, to be frightened by it. It cannot hurt us, while we are holding steadily to Jesus. Hand the evil thing over to Him and trust Him to conquer it for you.
Abide in Him at all times. 'Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him.' 'Thou wilt keep Him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.' The time to keep stayed on Him is, when all around is in commotion. When everything is surging and restless about you, then let your anchor of trust take fast hold on God, and it will keep you steady. Let your eye never be taken from Him, no matter how the adversary may try to hinder you. He will spoil the simplicity of your faith, if once he can cross its path. It often happens that God's dear children have gone home from some service for Him or from listening to some teaching that has filled their hearts with holy peace, and they almost feel that they shall abide in Him forever, but the enemy comes in some subtle guise, and the whole thing is shivered in an instant, and the sweet piece destroyed.
Ah! it has not been beholding with open face the glory of the Lord. It is not always annoying things that have this power of hiding God's face from us. It is often simply distracting things, or pleasant thoughts that are not sent by Him. The devil goads us sometimes off the right path, sometimes he allures us by false lights. The apostle tells us a little later: 'If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.' The literal reading is, 'by the things that perish, by which the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them, which believe not.' By these perishing things of earth their minds are blinded.
If the face of Jesus Christ is hidden at all it is by the perishing things of this world. The vain, idle pleasures, the vanities that last so short a time, have power to 'blind the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.' If you try to look at Jesus Christ the devil will try to get your attention. He will surely come and throw some beautiful bandage over your eyes to prevent you from seeing Him. It may be some petty article of female adorning. It may be a love of art, or the pleasures you engage in every day, and which in themselves may be innocent, and he says to you, 'look at these: See how lovely they are.' The instant you turn away to look at these things which perish, he bandages your vision so you cannot see Jesus.
How can you when you see so many other things? They must blind you to the vision of heaven. It is very easy to be so engrossed with social life, so busy and preoccupied with the things that relate to this world only, that there is no time for gazing even for a little while upon the beauty of Jesus. The summer is a ceaseless round of pleasure in the country, the winter is a hurried pursuit of the same kind of things in the city. If a serious thought for a moment arrests the mind, or an earnest appeal reaches the heart, if the eyes are turned an instant only toward heaven, the devil is more quickly there with some beautiful bandage to blind them.
That is the reason the people are not saved, they are so busy with the pleasures of earth that they have no time. One excitement after another keeps them in a whirl of unrest that destroys all thought of God. There is no leisure for quiet growth in the divine life. We must with open face behold His glory constantly. We must take time to gaze on His beauty. We must walk with Him constantly, and then we shall be transformed into His image day by day. This will not come to us all at once. We must be patient in waiting for its fulfillment. There is an instant when our sanctification is made sure to us. After that there is a gradual development of it in the life. There is first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.
So we are changed from glory to glory. We have not reached the full ideal yet. It would be a pity if we had. God comes to us this week with an infinitude of blessing for needs we have never felt before. There are heights and lengths and depths in the fullness of God, which we have not begun to measure. We can form some conception of the illimitable blessing there is in Him for us, by the measureless promise contained in Paul's prayer for the Ephesians, that ye 'may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.'
IV.
The last point is the artist who is carrying out this wonderful transformation. It is the Spirit of God. He is the photographer, and He is standing over His work, keeping the lenses right, and carefully finishing up the picture. The Holy Ghost is ever at hand to arrange everything, to color the picture and to put away and guard it so that the colors shall not fade. It is comparatively easy to take the picture, but we can't keep it from fading. We keep it in our hands; that is the trouble. We have had many pictures but they have all faded. Some vexing thing would sweep over us and they are gone.
Some of these views of Christ have been very clear and blessed, and we have thought we could never make a mistake in that direction again. But the picture did not last. Ah, dear friends, the Holy Ghost must be the artist and He must keep the picture if it is to last. Lay the vision over into His hands as soon as it is given, and say, 'Now, Lord, keep this for me, and keep me to it.' Raphael was for months among the dead before he ventured to paint the judgment. It has taken the Holy Ghost two thousand years to paint Christ on the dead hearts of men. Jesus Christ is the great copy before us, the Holy Ghost is the artist to do the copying, and the Father is the great original.
Let this glory be painted on us day by day. Bye-and-bye we shall be taken up into His palace to live with Him forever, and then we shall be like Him forevermore.
24. Girdles
"Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end." I Peter 1:13 AMONG the various articles of apparel much used in the Bible as a symbol of spiritual equipment and character there are few more important and striking than the spiritual girdle. Literally the girdle was a large broad scarf usually of costly materials which the owner wrapped around his person to keep his loose flowing garments in place. It generally contained many receptacles in which were carried small swords, knives and wallets, and various other small articles as numerous as those to be found in a boy's pockets. It was a very useful appendage to the costume.
It was sometimes made of plain linen, and sometimes of the costliest materials that could be obtained. The curious girdle of the High Priest was made with very great expense and unspeakable care and skill. The Lord Jesus was girded as a symbol of His priestly character. It has several special meanings'and it is indispensable for some uses. The Indian uses his belt to regulate his strength. Then too on long marches which were sometimes taken without food, as day after day passed, the ancients would lighten their belts and imagine that their hunger was satisfied.
Their loins being thus girded up they would press forward with fresh vigor. The girdle has several meanings for us this morning. The Holy Ghost is saying to us 'Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober and hope to the end.' He would equip us for the journey that is waiting us; or better, He would establish us and quicken us in the will of God.
I.
We read of the girdle as a symbol of official position, 'Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child, girded with a linen ephod.' One of the most wonderful promises concerning the coming Saviour is to be found in Isa. Xxii; 21-24.
'And I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand: and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah.
And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder: so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.
And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father's house.
And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house, the offspring and the issue.'
This has reference to Christ under the special type of Eliakim. He received a girdle as an expression of his being set apart for some definite work. If God has girded you beloved, He has given you something to do, He has given you some official standing and responsibility. It is a very solemn place you are called to fill. It is a place of service, discipleship and of witnessing for Jesus. God has made us stewards in trust for the world. There are multitudes of names for this figure of our high calling. Do you recognize the place to which you are called? Are you true to your trust? Have you got your girdle on? Are you fulfilling God's expectation of you in your work? Do you understand just what He wants of you? God help you to be faithful.
'Help me to watch and pray, And on Thy strength rely, Assured if I my trust betray, I shall forever die.'
This girdle of office is for every Christian. He gave 'to every man his work.' It is a glorious place to be in, a great privilege to be the stewards of the Most High God, the bearers of His messages to men; however humble that place may be.
II.