What Following Means (continued 2)

And the motive under the obedience is usually the decisive thing. If that motive be a personal passion for the Lord Jesus, then you only wait long enough to be quite clear of His leading, of what He would have you do. And then you go on, regardless of the personal loss or pain to yourself. The key-note of the "Follow Me" music is obedience, simple, sane, poised, full obedience.

How Much It Cost God.

One day out in Illinois, while visiting a small church college, I was told this story of one of the students. He had felt very deeply the need of the foreign mission lands, and the plea being made for men to volunteer to go out as missionaries. And after much thought and prayer he had decided to volunteer. But he felt he must first get his mother's consent. So he wrote of his purpose and asked if she were willing that he should go. In due time the reply came back. It was a mother's letter to her son, full of a mother's endearments. But the paper was marked with tear-stains. She gave her consent. She said, "I'm glad my boy wants to go, and I'm glad to have you go, but"—and here the writing was blurred with the teardrops that had plainly fallen as she wrote—"I never knew before how much it cost God to give His Son."

There was the whole story of sacrifice as it came to that mother. There was the sore need of the people in foreign lands for the Gospel of Christ. That need had not been met. The need in its sore pressure had become an emergency, largely an unappreciated emergency. The tragedy of an unmet emergency had moved the son's heart to action, under the touch of the Holy Spirit, and then it came to the mother's heart. The decision rested with her. Her inner heart told her the Master's desire. She obeyed, with exquisite pain in her heart over the separation, maybe separation for life, from her son. The key-note is obedience, even though it may mean cutting pain.

The whole test of love and of life is in sacrifice yielded to as the need may come. In God's first plan of life there is no sacrifice. God never chooses sacrifice as His first choice for any one, not even for His Son. But sin is here, an abnormal, foreign thing. Life is shot through and through with its ugly markings. You can't go a foot's length down the pathway of obedience without finding the keen edge of a knife, freshly sharpened, held across the path with its cutting edge toward you, challenging your advance, doing its utmost to hold you back.

And only as the breast is bared to the cutting until a bit of your red life stains the knife, only so can there be any of the power of God in, or through, or out of, your life. But turn that sentence around, and smile in your heart as you remember this, as you do push quietly on past the cutting knife, and say never a word about the knife or the sharp pain—the best folks never talk about their sacrifices, they are too intent on the Man just ahead,—as a man so does, there come into his life a fire and a fragrance that burns and breathes out wherever he goes.

It is sin that makes sacrifice. Sin did the carpenter work on the cross, our sin. Sin grew the thorns, and then served as weaver to make the mocking, cutting crown—our sin, yours and mine. Love yields to the sacrifice, His love for us, His love in us for the others. Sin is everywhere. Its finger-print is in nature, and its scar on human life. And sin's ravages make cruel need, and need intensified makes emergency, and these involve sacrifice as we rise to meet need and emergency.

And love is everywhere. That is, it would be, it will be, if it can find human feet to carry it. It will be if our Lord may have His way. Sacrifice is Love's healing shadow. Sacrifice is love giving the oil and wine of its own life to bind up the wounds that sin has made. The "Follow Me" road is marked red, so you trace His footprints who went ahead, and theirs who follow.

What Obedience Has Meant for Some.

But, no one can decide for another what obedience may mean for him. You may not tell me, nor I you. It is intensely interesting to note what obedience has meant to some. It led Paul to give up inheritance and family prestige, social standing, fellowship in university circles, a home life of scholarly quiet and research, and to be reproached and ostracized, to be homeless having no certain abiding place, dependent on his own hands for daily bread, as he went burning like a flame from end to end of the Roman world. And at the end it meant a prison, and block and axe.

I met a rare Christian nobleman in London, of an old, honoured family, of whom a friend told me this. This nobleman had a large inheritance. Among other things a certain estate. He felt led to place the estate on the market, get the best possible return for it, and then with his shrewd business sense, prayerfully to place the proceeds where he felt they would help best the cause of Christ. And to a friend who expressed appreciation and approval of such unusual action, he quietly said, "I want no praise for this; if the poor Jew had to give one-tenth, surely a rich Christian can do very much more." That was what obedience, at that point, meant to him.

I knew a Canadian woman who had been led to a higher level in her Christian life. A friend put into her hands a bit of manuscript, to which she had access, thinking it would help her in her new life. The manuscript was read, and returned through the friend to its writer. He had intended having it published with some others, if a publisher could be found willing to accept it. Then he had felt that he would do nothing with it until very clear leading came. He did not want to do anything, except as he was led. If the Master wanted to use the writing, it was there if He chose to give the word for its use.

Sometime after as the woman was busy with her nursing work she was on night duty, and had her quiet time in an interval of the night's round. As she was reading her Bible and praying, she said, "A voice said to me very quietly, 'Send Mr. Blank twenty-five dollars to publish ——'" [naming the title of the article she had read]. Twenty-five dollars taken out of her frugal savings would leave quite a hole. But the impression that came with the message was unmistakable. And so the money was sent. And it was received by the writer of the manuscript as the Master's answer for which he had been waiting. And that was the beginning of some little books whose messages have been graciously used to bring help to many lives. Her bit of obedience was a link in the chain, and so a bit of her life is in the printed messages the Master has been using. The tracing of red was on the gold, and on the messages sent out. That was what obedience meant that time to her. And obedience usually has its hardest time when its struggle is over a bit of gold.

A friend took us driving one day up in Scotland, and told this story as we passed through a beautiful estate. A few generations back it belonged to one who followed fully. And in response to the clear inner leading the estate was sold, and the proceeds used in sending the message of a crucified, risen Christ, out to the farther ends of the earth.

It was at the same time that a like incident came personally to me of another Scottish friend of our Lord Jesus. The beckoning call was so distinct, and the answering need so clear in its echo, that he planned a moderate annuity for the remainder of his life, and loosed out all the rest of his wealth on the same sort of errand. I do not say you should do something of this sort. And you may not tell me what I shall do. Only the Master has that privilege. But we can urge each other to have trained ears, and soft heart, and obedient will; ears for what the Master is saying, a heart softened by the warmth of His, a will gladly obedient to His slightest wish.

Necessity—Luxury.

And our Lord Jesus speaks very distinctly, though so quietly. His meaning is unmistakably plain to listening ears. He is quite apt to take you off for a little walk and talk. What kind of a house do you live in? What proportion of your income do you spend on yourself? What is in those safety-deposit boxes? How much would it mean to Him if your signature at the bottom of legal papers put some property at His disposal? Take a look through your wardrobe; who and what controls there? No, I'm not talking about money, nor about missions, only about a personal passion for the Lord Jesus, and about the passion in Him for His world.

"But," you say to yourself, "there's danger of going to extremes here, is there not?" Yes, there is; you are quite right. Extremes are bad, we should be on our guard against them. There is nothing more desirable in these days than sane, poised judgment, a sound mind. And be it keenly marked that the man who is really swayed by the Holy Spirit is peculiarly a sane, well-balanced man. That is one mark of the Spirit's presence.

Yet there's more to be said. Our Lord Jesus went to extremes. He went to a great extreme on the cross, did He not? Is there any extreme like that of Gethsemane? and Calvary? It is because He went to such extremes, and the West knows about it, that the West is so radically different from the East, and that you and I are redeemed from the slavery of sin, with a sweet peace in our hearts, and so much happiness in our lives.

The distressing thing is that there is so much of going to extremes. Go through the Christian homes of the western world to-day, and you find home appointments, wardrobes, safety-deposit boxes, bank books, title deeds, all spelling out one word, spelled in capital letters, EXTREMES. But that key-note, named several times already, gives the only safe way—obedience. We need to be on our guard, not so much lest we go to extremes at either extreme, but that we obey our Lord Jesus. That, and that only, leads to the wise, well-balanced judgment and action. Obedience to Him means true sanity.

Where do you draw the deciding line between necessity and luxury? How do you define those two words? What is necessity? And what is luxury? Simple definitions help much in getting clear ideas. The dictionary says, a necessity is something you must have. And a luxury, in its root meaning, is an extravagance, something "wandering beyond the proper boundary." The trouble is to know how to draw the line when it comes to one's own affairs. There is such a big difference between what you want and what you need. And often we don't want to go into such distinctions. They might bother our consciences a bit. It seems difficult to keep one's poise in such things. Some godly people go to extremes in not providing sufficiently for real needs. Most of us go to the other extreme. Where does the true dividing line come in?

Well, I think you can say truly that whatever keeps up and adds to your strength can properly be called a necessity. All beyond that line is luxury. It is the part of wisdom to provide carefully and well for necessities. Luxury is bad, for it really saps our strength. It makes a man less vigorous in every way. And yet more can be said. The question of need comes in. Luxury is wrong because of the crying need of men for what the money spent in luxury would bring to them. I think chiefly now of the need of their lives for what can come only through a knowledge of Christ. The bitter cry of the common people against Louis XVI, at the time of the French Revolution, was that the royal family lived on the costliest delicacies while many of the common people were actually starving. They thought that was the chief crime to be expiated at the guillotine.

What is necessary for one's strength moves on a sliding scale. As years come, and the sort of work one does and his strength change, his needs increase. What might at one time have been reckoned luxury is now a real necessity for his best strength and work. Whatever ministers to one's strength is a necessity. All above this becomes luxury, and so is both hurtful to strength, and wrong in itself.

A missionary returning to his home-land, on furlough, noted on his first return home that what had been considered luxuries before he left, were now reckoned necessities; on his second furlough he noted again that what had been reckoned luxury on his first return was now counted necessity. And each return home found this condition repeating itself.

It reminded me of the experience of Sir John Franklin in one of his Arctic explorations. His ship was hemmed in by an ice-field so that progress was impossible. All he could do was to calculate his longitude and latitude, and wait. The next day he was still hemmed in, and so far as he could see, was exactly where he had been on the previous day. But on calculating longitude and latitude again, he was surprised to find that the ship had drifted several miles backward from the position of the previous day.

It would be a sensible thing for us to make frequent calculations, and find out where we are, and prayerfully steer a changed course if we've been drifting. But we can't decide such questions for each other, and they can't be decided by what another does. They can only be decided alone on one's knees with the Master, with the Book, and perhaps a map of the world at hand. We need both the Word of God, and a view of the world of God to shape our judgment. No, it's not a question of money primarily, nor of missions, only of personal loyalty to our Lord Jesus, and to the passion of His heart.

Grafted.

Have you noticed the significance of that word "abide" which our Lord used on the night of His betrayal?^[85] "Abide" means a grafting process; we were branches in the vine, but we were broken off by sin. The only way to abide in that vine is by being grafted in. "Abide" means grafted. But the grafting process has two wounds. It means a knife used twice. It means a wound in the vine-stock, and our Master flinched not there. It means likewise a wound in the branch to be grafted in. Just as surely as the knife must make the incision into the stock, it must also cut the end of the branch before it can be grafted in. Our Master flinched not. How about you and me when it comes to the knife, with its sharp cutting edge, and slash and sting?

Perhaps this explains why there's so little life, so little sap-flow, so little fruit. If you follow along the narrow road your progress is sure to be barred by a knife thrust out across the path. And the whole instinct of our nature is to shrink from the knife. The sacrificial knife becomes the pruning, the grafting knife. There can be no life without that knife. Failure to obey cuts off the supply of life.

I became greatly interested in a young man whom I met in Japan. He comes of a noble, wealthy family. He attended a mission school to study English, learned to read the Bible, became intensely interested, and then decided to become a Christian. But his family was violently opposed, and pleaded earnestly with him. He would in time be the head of his family, but if he insisted now on being a Christian he would be disowned. He was to be trained in the Imperial University, and could have chosen a public national career including the probability of membership in the Imperial diet, but he remained true to his decision. And he was disowned in disgrace, cast adrift without a cent. Now he is devoting himself to mission work in the city where I met him, working among the neediest and lowest. I was told that the police gladly say that his mission has greater power than they in preserving order in that worst quarter of the city.

The night I stood by his side, speaking through his interpretation, a Japanese policeman dragged up a couple of youths who had been giving trouble, and pushed them in, saying, "Here's the place for you; now listen to that." And I have never been in a simple service where the quiet intense power of God was more marked. This is what obedience meant to him. And this too is what abiding meant. He yielded to the grafting knife, and the life of the vine-stock came flowing freely through, bearing abundant fruit.

A few years ago I read a simple story in "The Sunday-school Times" that brought a lump in my throat. The writer told of a south-bound train stopping at a station near Washington City. At the last moment, an old negro with white hair came hurriedly forward and clambered on the last coach as the train pulled out. He was very black, and very dusty, and single occupants of seats looked apprehensive as he shuffled along looking for a seat. But he did not offer to intrude, but stood at the end of the car, looking with big wondering eyes down the car. He was evidently very tired. Then a young man offered him space in his seat, for which he seemed very grateful, and with child-like simplicity began talking.

He was going back home "to Georgy"; had been up in Virginia for years with the rare old slave loyalty serving his old master between times, while earning his own way. Now his master was dead and he was going back down to the old home state, "back to Georgy," and the words came softly, while his hand tenderly patted the seat cushion. Clearly Georgia was the acme of happiness and content for him. As the train boy came through, the young man bought some sandwiches for the old negro. He was very grateful. Yes, he was hungry, and had walked several miles to get the train. He couldn't spend money for "victuals"; "money's too skase fur buying things on the road," he said, "I was 'lowin' ter fill up arter I done reach Georgy."

Then the conductor came in for tickets. The black man anxiously fumbled through one pocket after another, and finally remembered that his ticket was pinned to the lining of his hat. "Done tuk ebery cent I could scrape up to get dat ticket," he said, "but dat's all right. I kin wuk, an' fo'ks don' need money when dey's home." The conductor had passed on to the next seat behind. There sat a shabbily dressed woman, with anxious, frightened-looking face, the seat full of bundles and a pale-faced baby in arms.

"Tickets, please."

The woman's face flushed red, and then grew white and set, as she said, "I haven't any."

"Have to get off then; save me the trouble of putting you off."

The woman sprang up with terror in her big eyes, "Don't put me off; my husband's dying; the doctor said he must go South; we've sold everything left to send him; now he's dying; I must go to him. But I have no money, don't put me off. My God—my God—if you—" Her plea poured out in excited, jerky sentences. But the conductor could do nothing. He must obey his instructions, or be discharged. The woman sank back sobbing, in the seat. The conductor turned back to get the old negro's ticket.

"I'se feared you'll have to put me off, boss," he said humbly, "don't expect a pore ole nigger like me to raise enuf fur a ticket." The conductor harshly ordered him off the train at the next station, saying there was some excuse for the poor woman, but none for him. The train began to slow up for the station. The old negro quietly dropped his ticket into the lap of the woman, saying, "Here's yo' ticket, missus. I do hopes yo' find dat husban' o' yourn ain' so bad as yo'se afeared." And before her dazed eyes could take in what he was doing, the old man had shuffled out of the car, and as the train pulled on he was seen quietly plodding along, still "bound for Georgy."

And there was no mention of Christ in the story, but one who knows the old typical slave class to which he belongs needs not to be told of the motive down in his heart. That's what obedience, unanalyzed, undeliberated about, meant to him. Have you ever worn the "Georgy" shoes? Have you ever tramped to "Georgy"? If some of us might find out the old man's cobbler and get some "Georgy" tramping shoes! The way of obedience is a way of sacrifice.

4. The Hilltops—Experiences of Gladness and Glory

Valley Music.

There was a third group of experiences in our Lord Jesus' life. But it will be good for us to remember that the third comes after the second. There can be no third until there has been a second. It is impossible to take first and third and omit the second. The third can come only after the second. There can be experiences of gladness and glory only to him who follows all the way. The hilltop experiences come after going down through the valley. And there is no way of reaching the hills except through the valley.

But there is a hilltop roadway of exhilarating air and outlook for him who has been through the valley. The valley is only part of the way. There are heights, too, as well as depths. And if the depths have seemed very deep, yet remember the valley depth tells how high the height is. The only way up is down. And you go as high up as you have gone down, and then a bit higher. For you started down from the level of the main road, and you go up above the level. But you go up higher than you go down. The hilltops are higher above the main road than the valley is below. The glory comes to be more than the sacrifice.

Sacrifice is only one-half of a chapter, the first half; there is a second half, the musical half. There's a wondrous singing in the heart, even while the knife is cutting, such as only he knows who goes this way. There's a breeze from the hilltops that comes sweeping down through the trees, while you are slowly picking your way along the rough, narrow valley road. That breeze plays upon your inner strings and makes rare Æolian melody. It is the breeze of God playing upon the heart-strings of your soul. But this music is heard only in this valley road. Lovers of music say there is nothing to compare with it.

You remember the words, "who for the joy that was set before Him."^[86] Ah, the joy! As the Master's feet slipped down into the dark shadows—the shame, the cross, the tomb—there was something else under the pain He was suffering. There was a low underchording of sweet minor music, the rhythmic swinging of His will with His Father's. And that music still sang as He slipped down quite out of sight under the cold waters of the river at the bottom of the gorge.

The Transfiguration Mount.

There were three of these glory experiences in our Lord's life, with a fourth one yet to come. Midway in the last year came the Transfiguration Mount. In a sore emergency, for the sake of the leaders of His little band of disciples, the inner glory of His being was allowed to shine out through His humanity. The glory of God shined out from within Him. The usual fashion of His countenance was altered by the dazzling beauty-light shining out through it.

And this too will be true of those who follow truly. As we live with our faces ever held open to Him, the glory of His face will be reflected in ours, and we shall be changed more and more into His image.^[87] I have frequently told the story of the jurist who lived in our middle-west country two generations ago, a confirmed but honest sceptic, and who was converted by the face of a fellow townsman. The sceptic became thoroughly convinced that the thing in his neighbour's face which so attracted him was his Christian faith, and it was this that led the sceptic to accept Christ. Last year, I met out in the Orient a kinswoman of the man with the convincing face.

I remember distinctly one night, years ago, in northern Missouri, a young woman waited at the close of a meeting with her friend. We talked and prayed together and she made the great decision. I can remember looking after the two as they went out, wondering to myself how much it meant to her. I could not judge from her demeanour. But the next night they were back again, and instantly I knew that it had meant much, everything, to her. The transfiguring peace was upon her face. I would have called her face plain the evening before. Now it was really beautiful in the sweet clear light shining out of it.

Two things stand out sharply in my memory of Ping Yang, in Korea. One is the visit to the home of a Christian family, whose head was one of those being held in prison in the famous conspiracy case. I still feel the pathos of face and voice as the dear old mother, and the gentle wife, asked so eagerly, "When will he be back?"

The other, was the faces of certain of the women in the church service there. I found myself time and again turning to look at their faces as I was speaking. There was a sweet light that transfigured their worn faces, and gave them a real beauty. It was the more striking against the background of the faces one sees in those Oriental lands.

The story has been told in various ways of the European artist sent to a Salvation Army meeting to make a caricature. He was an infidel, with a sinful life, an uneasy conscience, and a sore heart. But the faces he saw there of those redeemed out of the depths of sin, convinced him that they had what he needed, and what he afterwards got, at the same place as they, the feet of Christ. One who has looked into the faces at some of the Salvation Army meetings has no trouble believing the story.

Now this is part of our Master's great plan for reaching His world. He comes in to us, if we let Him. He changes us as we yield to Him. The beauty of this wondrous One within shines out of face and eyes, and touches those whom we touch. His presence transfigures when He is allowed to dominate. We are changed from within. Though like Moses and Stephen we will not wist of the transfiguration, only of the Great One whose presence within it is that makes the change. We know the peace and music within; others know more of the change in face and life.

Resurrection Power—A Present Experience.

There is a second experience in this group. In sharpest contrast with Jacob's tomb stands out the Resurrection Morning. Our Lord Jesus rose up out of death. The strongest bars that death could make—and surely every one of us has some sore experience of their strength in holding dear ones from us—those strongest bars were snapped, as a woman breaks the cotton thread in her sewing.

Our Lord Jesus rose up again into life, and into a new, a higher, a different sort of life. The personal identity was unchanged. His disciples recognized His voice and face and form, as they talked and ate with Him. But the limitations were gone. The control of spirit over body was complete.

And it is a bit of His gracious plan that we shall follow Him here, too. When He returns in glory there will be a resurrection for those who have followed Him. As He comes down on the clouds, the dead bodies of those who have the warm vital touch with Him, that the word "believeth" stands for, will be touched into a new life and be reunited with the spirits that had lived in them.

There will be a wondrous meeting in the air with Himself, and an equally wondrous reunion in His presence of those bound to us and to Him by ties of love. Our personal identity will be the same, loved ones instantly recognizing loved ones. But the bodies will be of a new sort, free of all the limitations and weaknesses of our earth life. And our Lord's return is peculiarly precious because it is the time of this change and reunion.

But there is yet more than this. This is something future. There is a present meaning of the resurrection-life for us, to-day, if we'll accept it, and live in the power of it. There may be the resurrection life and power coming into our bodies now. As the need comes, it is our privilege to look up, and ask for, and experience resurrection power coming down into our bodies, overcoming their weaknesses and diseased conditions.

The subject of healing involves much more, for a full poised understanding of the Scripture teaching, than can be satisfactorily talked over in the brief limits here. But the great fact can be thus simply stated, that there is full healing for our bodies by God's direct touch upon them. But this means on our part living a real faith life, looking up moment by moment, receiving from His hand constantly what is needed, and using it wholly for Him. It is actually a living of the dependent life as regards the bodily needs.

Paul is clearly speaking of a present experience when he says, "If the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your dying bodies by means of His Spirit that dwelleth in you."^[88] But this resurrection power coming in to affect our bodily conditions is frequently in the midst of most difficult trying circumstances. It is as though a subtle hindering power were tenaciously at work, and this were being offset and overcome by the resurrection power.

It was under just such circumstances that Paul writes these words: "We who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also—the resurrection life—of Jesus may be manifested in our dying bodies."^[89] This as plainly means a present experience of power in our bodies, overcoming weakness, disease, and the tendency to death.

This is the present meaning of the resurrection for us. But it is possible only for those who will live the resurrection life of separation and of union; separation from all that separates from the closest union of life with our Lord Jesus. And it comes oftentimes through much conflict and difficulty. This bit of the road is much contested.

The Ascension Life—Power in Possession.

When our Lord Jesus had tarried long enough to make clear to His disciples His actual bodily resurrection, He ascended to the Father's right hand, and was seated there in the place of highest honour and power. So He began living the Ascension Life. That means two things, it is the life of fullest power in actual possession; and that power is exercised through prayer,^[90] His, and then—ours. Through His intercession with the Father, and through our intercession in Christ's Name, the power comes from the Father through Christ to us, and so through us.

Our Lord Jesus is eager to have us follow Him here also. Following this time means, actually using the power that has been placed at our disposal. It means receiving from His pierced hand all He has actually redeemed for us by His precious blood. There is so much that is ours by right that we do not take and use. Some do not take because they don't live where they can take. And some live where they can take, who yet do not take.

Since the Father thinks of us as risen with Christ and seated with Him in the place of highest power, we should seek to live up there, by His grace.^[91] The ascension life for us means simply living the actual life of power that has been made possible for us, and using that power through prayer.

It helps to remember here just how much may be included in that word "prayer." One cannot be all the time on his knees, praying with his lips. And it certainly was not meant that we should be. Yet there can be prayer "without ceasing." Prayer is an act, the kneeling, and giving voice to the desires of our hearts. Then the act grows into a habit, as this becomes one of the fixed things of our daily round. And the habit full grown, becomes a life. All the life grows out of that bit of kneeling-time, and all the life is carried to it. The hidden springs of the life are here.

And prayer becomes a mental attitude. You think of everything that comes up, opportunity, difficulty, emergency, crisis, plannings,—you instinctively come to think about each thing from the standpoint of the kneeling-time. And so prayer grows to be an atmosphere. You live your life in His presence to whom you kneel. He is always present. You come to recognize His presence, which means that His presence dominates all your life. He, this One whom you go to meet at the kneeling-time, He is always here with you, listening to the unspoken thoughts. By and by you come instinctively to think your thoughts as in His presence. Your longings, plannings, difficulties are held open before Him. Prayer becomes the atmosphere you breathe.

And so prayer comes to be a person. You are the prayer. The Father looking down comes to recognize you, by your very attitude of heart, as a prayer, a continual, walking, living prayer, as you go quietly about your simple, homely round. And the powers of evil, too, so recognize it. And the Man at the Father's right hand recognizes in you one whom He has redeemed, and who, by His grace, would be and do and have, in actual life, all He has gotten for you.

And through that six-fold continuous prayer, by the man who yields all, and reaches out for all that is now his, the power of God is being continually loosened out among men, and the Father's plan being worked out. So, our Lord's ascension life at the Father's right hand, finds its echo in the ascension life being lived by His follower on the earth.

The Coming Glory.

Then comes the glorious future experience, the Kingdom Reign and Glory. Some day our Lord Jesus will rise up from His seat, and step again into the direct action of the affairs of earth. Soon after that day He will begin reigning over the earth as its King. The later pages of the Old Testament are all aglow with the glory of that time. He shall reign from the Mediterranean, at the centre of the earth, out to the farthest sea-coast line, and from the Euphrates east and west to the most distant ends of the earth.^[92]

And those who have followed Him during these trying days of His absence, shall reign with Him over all the earth, and be sharers in His glory.^[93] He will give both grace and glory.^[94] Grace is the beginning of glory, and glory is the fulness of grace. It is all grace, free unmerited favour.

Now I have grouped these experiences in this way to get a clear understanding of them. But we must remember that they did not come in groups in Christ's life, and they won't in ours. The red and yellow threads, the dark and bright, are interwoven throughout the web, to make the beauty of the pattern. The minor chords come up here and there through the others, sometimes overcoming, sometimes yielding to, the joyous notes. The road of life runs valley and hill, valley and hill, up and down.

There were great crises in Christ's life, and there may be, there quite likely will be, crisis points in ours, but in the main the hard places intersperse with the smooth going. The weaver sitting at his loom runs in a dark shuttle-thread, and then a sharp blow of the beam puts it in place; then a bright thread and a sharp blow of the beam, and so, slowly, patiently, threads and blows follow each other till the design has been worked out.

Even so will it be in this "Follow Me" road. A glad, joyous experience may be followed by the one that is bitter and that hurts; and that again, perhaps, by something gladsome and cheery, while the daily round of life plods slowly on, day after day, week in and out, as the calendar works its steady way to the end, and then begins anew.

But all the while there's the presence of the wondrous One, unseen by outer eyes, but unmistakably real. And His presence gives peace. And there's an unfailing, guiding hand, whose grasp steadies you as you push along.

This is the road. And yonder, just ahead, is the Lone Man, whose wondrous face calls, and the reach of His pierced hand beckons. Let us take a careful look at the road, and a long look at the Man, and then——.