__________________________________________________________________ Title: To Be Near Unto God Creator(s): Kuyper, Abraham (1837-1920) Rights: unknown CCEL Subjects: All; Meditations LC Call no: BX9422.K8 LC Subjects: Christian Denominations Protestantism Post-Reformation Other Protestant denominations Reformed or Calvinistic Churches __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ Abraham Kuyper's To Be Near Unto God __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ Preface As in everything that risks itself in the depth of mysticism, so in the preparation of these Meditations lurked undeniable danger. The soul that seeks God involuntarily inclines to step across the boundary appointed of God, defined by the word "near," and to force an entrance into His Being. From the first I was on guard against this danger, and I believe I have escaped it. On the other hand, fear of this danger could not be allowed to repress that fervor and that spiritual warmth, which refreshes the soul only when the feelings are aroused and the imagination awakened. Mere thinking is not meditation, this is something quite different, and, in view of the wide-awake preparedness necessary to withstand the constant onslaught waged from the gates of hell against the Church of the living God, with a fierceness that neither respects nor spares, this other something, is an undeniable need of the soul. This onslaught puts one on his mettle to present counter arguments, philosophical refutation and keen-edged anti-criticism. But this, unless counter-balanced, confines our spirit to the world of thought, and thereby threatens to externalize our creed, our faith and our piety. Intellectualism produces, as it were, beautifully shaped, finely cornered and dazzlingly transparent ice-crystals. But underneath that ice the stream of the living water so easily runs dry. There may be gain in doctrinal abstractions, but true religion, as shown in the warm piety of the heart, suffers loss. This is not necessary. The Fathers of the Church have set us an example. With them we find a virile gift of argument; but it is always permeated with ardent mysticism. Contemplative thought, reflections and meditations on the soul's nearness unto God tend merely to correct the above-named error; tend to draw the soul away from the abstract in doctrine and life, back to the reality of religion; tend, with all due appreciation of "chemical" analysis of the spiritual waters, to lead the soul back to the living Fountain itself, from whence these waters flow. Stress in creedal confession, without drinking of these waters, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the hog of sickly mysticism. Only he who feels, perceives and knows that he stands in personal fellowship with the living God, and who continually tests his spiritual experience by the Word, is safe. He exhibits strength, and maintains, for his part, the power of religion in his home, among his associates and in the world at large, and inspires with reverence even those who are despisers of God and his word. My prayer is, that the Meditations here offered may establish, advance, or restore, such a healthy state of soul with many a child of God. To have reached this end in the case of even one heart would furnish abundant reason for praise and thanksgiving. The Hague, Netherlands. June 1, 1908. KUYPER __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ Devotions 1 - 28 __________________________________________________________________ 1. To Be Near Unto God WHEN in holy ecstasy the Psalmist sings: "I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my supplication," he pours out his whole soul in this song, but no one can analyze that love. To have love for God is something altogether different and something far weaker than to be able to say: "I love God." You have love for your native land, you have love for the beauty and grandeur of nature, you have love for the creations of art, from the sense of compassion you have love for suffering humanity, you are conscious of love for what is noble, true and of good report, and thus in all honesty almost every man can say that he also has love for God, and that his love for God even exceeds all other loves, since all good that inspires love is from God, and God Himself is the highest good. And yet while this love for God can be a lofty sentiment, can be deeply serious, and can even be able to ignite a spark of enthusiasm, the soul may have no fellowship with the Eternal, and have no knowledge of the secret walk with God; the great God may not have become his God, and the soul may never have exclaimed in passionate delight: "I love God!" Love for God, taken in general, is still largely love for the idea of God, love for the Fountain of Life, for the Source of all good, for the Watcher of Israel Who never slumbers, for the One Who, whatever changes, eternally abides. But when there echoes in the soul the words "I love God!" then the idea, the sense and the reality of the Eternal Being becomes personified. Then God becomes a Shepherd Who leads us, a Father Who spiritually begat us, a Covenant-God with Whom we are in league, a Friend Who offers us His friendship, a Lord in Whose service we stand, the God of our confidence, Who is no longer merely God but our God. Thus for many years you may have had a general love for God and yet have never come to know God. This knowledge of God only comes when love for Him begins to take on a personal character; when on the pathway of life for the first time you have met Him; when the Lord has become a Personal Presence by the side of your own self; when God and you have entered into a conscious, vital, personal, particular relationship - He your Father, you His child. Not merely one of His children, no, but His child in an individual way, in a personal relation different from that of the other children of God, the most intimate fellowship conceivable in heaven and on earth - He your Father, your Shepherd, your bosom Friend and your God! He who has not come to this, does not understand this. It goes too deep for him. And yet if he is religiously inclined, when he hears others talk about it, he senses that if he could attain unto such a love, his own love would be more tender than now he feels it to be. This tells him that as yet he misses something. It may awaken in him a longing for it; a craving in him for that which would be so beautiful to possess. And this craving can prepare the way for higher things. For when it comes to a meeting with God, the action proceeds from both sides. God comes to him, and he comes to God. First from afar, then ever closer, until at length all distance falls away, and the meeting takes place - a moment of such blessedness as can never be expressed in words. Then and only then comes the "nearness." For everything hinges on that nearness, on that feeling, "it is good for me to be near unto God." He also who has not entered into this secret, may say with others, "it is good for me to be near unto God" (Ps. 73:27), but as yet he does not grasp it. He says it without thought. He thinks it means a pious frame of mind, but feels no slightest burning of a spark of this mystical, most intimate and personal love in his own heart. Adoration, worship, prayer for grace are there, but no attachment yet of love. To be "near" is to be so close to God that your eye sees, your heart is aware of, and your ear hears him, and every cause of separation has been removed; near in one of two ways: either that you feel yourself, as it were, drawn up into heaven, or that God has come down from heaven to you, and seeks you out in your loneliness, in that which constitutes your particular cross, or in the joy that falls to your lot. That word "near" implies that there is, Oh! so much that makes separation between you and your God; so much that makes you stand alone, feel desolate and forsaken, because either God is away from you or you are away from Him, so that it leaves you no rest, and you can not endure it. Then everything within you draws you to Him again, until that which made separation falls away. And then there follows the meeting; then He is near you, and you know once more that you are near Him. Then there is blessedness again; blessedness that exceeds everything that can be imagined. Then it is good, Oh! so, good - above all things else - to be near again to your God. But this blessedness may be tasted only at rare moments in this life. And then there remains the blessedness in the life that is eternal, when that nearness to your God shall continue forever. Eternally near Him in the Fatherhouse. Cruel is the way in which the world thwarts you in this. To escape from the world in hermitage or cell was not the solution, but you can understand what went on in the souls of those who, for the sake of unbroken fellowship with God, took this course. It might have been the solution, if those who went out from the world had been able to leave the world behind. But we carry the world in our heart. It goes with us, because no hermitage is so well fortified, and no retreat in forests so distant, but Satan finds means to reach it. Moreover, to shut oneself out from the world in order to be near unto God, is to claim for oneself here on earth what can only be our portion in the Fatherhouse. It is true that in seclusion one escapes a great deal. Much vanity the eye no longer sees. But existence becomes abnormal. Life becomes narrow. The "human" is reduced to small dimensions. There is no task; no more calling; no more exertion of all one's powers. The conflict is avoided, and therefore victory in the struggle tarries. Nearness unto God here on earth yields its sweetest blessedness when it is cultivated in the face of sin and the world, as an oasis in the wilderness of life. And they against whom the world has turned most cruelly in order to turn them away from God, have attained the highest and the best, when in spite of every obstacle, and in the face of worldly opposition they have continued to hold tryst with God - like Jacoh at Penuel, Moses in Mount Horeb, David when Shimei cursed him, and Paul when the people rose in uproar against him. In the midst of the conflict to be near unto God is blessed, and also apart from the conflict with the world, or sin, or Satan, when clouds gather over your head, when adversity, loss and grief inflict wound upon wound in your heart, when the fig tree does not blossom, and the vine will yield no fruit, then with Habakkuk to rejoice in God, because His blessed nearness is enjoyed more in sorrow than in gladness, this has been the lesson of history in all times. Not when in luxury and plenty David pleased himself, but when Saul persecuted him unto the death, did he sing his sweetest song for God. Yet the world continues to be cruel. Its cruelty may assume an ever finer form, but in its refinement it becomes ever more painful. In former times there were many things that reminded people of the sanctities of life, which of themselves provoked thought of higher interests and called eternity to mind. All this is different now. In common life there is almost nothing that helps to retain the memory in the soul of the high, the holy and the eternal. In public life, every reflection of heaven is extinguished. No more days of fasting and prayer are appointed. No one may speak any more of God. No memento mori now reminds you of your death. Cemeteries are turned into parks. Sacred things are held up to ridicule. In conversation and in writing the dominant note is that heaven reaches no farther than the stars, that death ends all, and that life without God thrives as well, if not better, than life in the fear of the Lord. And this discounting of God in public life throws itself as a stream between your God and your God-fearing heart. Your faith is strained in the measure in which you try, against the current of this stream, to hold yourself fast by God. Especially to our young people, and to our dear children, this modern cruelty of the world is unspeakably dangerous. But be of good courage. God knows it, and in His eternal compassion He will come nearer, closer, and more quickly to you, and to your dear ones, in order that even amidst these trying conditions of modern life you and they may be near unto Him. But then there must be no peace by compromise, or more than ever will a vague love for a far distant God desert you. That which alone can save is taking part in that life of secret fellowship, which enables you to say "I love God," and then you will not remain standing afar off, but press on to ever closer nearness to God, in the personal meeting of your soul with the Eternal. __________________________________________________________________ 2. The Souls Which I Have Made THERE is subtle charm about the thing that we have made, and this is by no means always because of its intrinsic value, but rather because we have made it ourselves. He who has studied portrait painting and for the sake of perfecting himself in his art copies celebrated originals, puts a value on his copy, which in his estimation, the far more beautiful original does not possess. Flowers which a lad has gathered from his own little garden are more interesting to him than a bouquet from the florist. The country gentleman prefers vegetables from his own gardens or hothouse, even if the quality is nothing special as compared with that of the produce imported from abroad. A contributor to a monthly or quarterly periodical deems his own article, when it comes out, the best of that number. This holds good in every department of life. There is no end of interest in produce that we ourselves have raised. Cattle bred on our own stock farm are preferred to any other. We are more happy in a house that we ourselves have built. This may involve a little too much self-complacency, which especially in the transition period of life not infrequently breeds conceit. It must also be granted that affection for our own handiwork may go too far if from sheer egotism it makes us indifferent to better work from other hands. And yet, though too much self-complacency may play a part in this, this is not the principal trait that dominates the preference that is given to a product of one's own. This is felt at once when you reckon with mother-joy which revels in play with her own child in a way that no woman can in play with the child of another. Truly, self-delusion and selfishness play all too frequently anything but a subordinate part in this joy of the mother-heart over her own child; but history of all ages, and folk-lore of all lands bear witness, that an altogether different string from that of selfishness vibrates in this wealth of mother-love, and that the music peculiar to this other string is only understood when the sacred fact is brought to mind that it is she who bore the child. In her own child the mother sees, and is conscious of, a part of her own life. The child does not stand by the side of the mother as number one alongside of number two, but in the child the mother-life is extended. This selfsame trait asserts itself in every product of our own, whether it be our own thought, knowledge, exertion, will-power or perseverance; and whether it be our own article that we sent to the press, our own house that we built, our own picture that we painted, our own embroidery that we embroidered, our own flower that we raised, or our own hound or race-horse that we bred, there is always something in it of our own, a distinctive something that we imprint upon it, an individual stamp that we have put upon it, something that makes us feel about it as we can never feel about anything that we ourselves have not made. And by this trait of our human heart God comforts the sinner. That trait is in us because it is in God. And of this trait God says that it operates in the Divine Father-heart for our good, because where there is a soul at stake, God can never forget that He Himself has made it. "For I will not contend forever, neither wills I be always wroth; for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made" (Is. 57:16). As little as a mother can allow her just anger with the child of her own bosom to work itself out to the end, just so little can God's displeasure with a soul exhaust itself, because He Himself has made it. As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him (Ps. 103, 13). Though a mother may forget her sucking child, "yet will I not forget thee" (Isa. 49:15). The Father-name of God expresses completely this self-same richly comforting thought. It implies not merely that a father loves, and that God loves too, but that God's love for you springs from the same fact from which springs the love of father or mother for their children, to wit: the fact that God has created and formed you, and has made the soul that is in you. That you have been created after God's Image, declares that by virtue of your creation, God feels Himself related to you; that He finds something of Himself in you, and because you are His own product, His own creature, His own handiwork, you are, and remain, an object of His Divine interest. Because God has made your soul, there is something in it of God Himself, a Divine stamp has been impressed upon you; there is something of God's power, thought, and creative genius in you, as in no other. You are one of the Lord's own works of art, precisely like which He created none other. Imagine for a moment that you had ceased to exist, then something would be wanting in the rich collection of the Lord. And from this originates a tie between God and your soul, whereby you are a star in His firmament, which the Father of spirits can not do without. And therefore God seeks that which is lost. An artist who had a collection of his paintings on exhibition in a museum, and discovered one day that one of his pictures was gone, could not rest until it had been traced and restored to its place on the wall. So does God miss every soul that falls away from Him, because it is a soul that He has made; and what Jesus described in such touching and beautiful terms in the parables of the lost penny, the lost sheep, and the prodigal son, was born in His heart from the one thought, that God can not let go of the work of His hands, and therefore can not unconcernedly leave the souls of sinners as the prey of perdition, because they are His handiwork, and because He Himself has made them. And therein consists also the grievousness of sin. If on entering the museum one morning the afore-mentioned artist saw that under cover of night some ruffian had wantonly cut all his paintings with a knife, his bitterness of soul would know no bounds, not merely because of the treasures of art that had been ruined, but because that which had been ruined was what he himself had made. And this bitter grief is inflicted upon God, when a soul falls away from Him. The soul that He has made, has inwardly been torn asunder by sin, and is bruised and wounded almost beyond recognition. And more than this, as often as by yielding to sin we ruin our soul still further, it is at the same time, an injury done to Him because He Himself has made it. To ruin your own soul, or the soul of your children, or that of others by your example or by wilful seduction, is to spoil the work that God has made, and to wound Him in the likeness of Himself, that He has wrought in it. It is as though you took a child, and before the eyes of his mother struck him down, and maimed him for life. It is to defy the love of the Maker for His handiwork, willfully giving offense, and grieving the Maker in that about which His heart is most sensitive. To him, therefore, whose heart is fixed, this saying of the Lord's: "the souls that I have made," has a twofold meaning. First: the blessed consolation, that, provided you believe, the displeasure of the Lord with the soul that He has made shall not be without end. And secondly: the wholesome stimulus it gives not to restlessly poison the soul by sin, but to favor it, to spare it; not to sin against it, but to shield it from corrupting influences, because your soul is one that belongs to God, because He has made it. The confession that God created man after His own Image does not fathom the depth of the thought. The plummet goes far deeper. The saving and uplifting power of this article of faith is only felt, when every morning you begin the new day with the fresh realization of the thought, that the soul that dwells within you is a work of Divine art, and that your soul is one that God has made, in which His honor is involved, over which His holy jealousy watches, and which you can not make an instrument of sin, without laying violent hands upon that towards which God sustains a personal relation, because He Himself has made it. Forsooth, it does not say anything but that you should know that you are a child of God, but it says it in a more gripping way; it tells you that the child that in sin denies his Father, touches Him in His honor, and grieves His Father-heart. __________________________________________________________________ 3. Not Rich Toward God Jesus understood the seriousness of the conflict between God and money, which constantly presses itself upon us; and one may safely say, that in our Western lands this conflict is more fierce than it ever was in the Eastern regions where Jesus ministered. and where the ordinary wants of life are more easily satisfied than with us. We do not realize how largely life itself is dominated by money. Put all desire for wealth aside, love simplicity, and even then life is different and unfolds itself differently when financially you have a moderately free hand than when from early morning till late at night you have to work hard for sheer sustenance of self and family. To be intent upon making money may soon become a sinful passion, and at length may make the slave of money lose all sense of honor. Yet to be intent upon increasing one's financial means in itself is easily understood and entirely above blame. Only think how much this means with respect to the education of your children, your own development and the advancement of the Kingdom of God. Money is an extraordinary power; and in times of pressing need the lack of it makes one painfully helpless. The influence of money, therefore, upon a sinful, unconverted heart is exceedingly great. Again and again you see even a converted child of God caught in the snares. What then must be the fatal influence of money upon a human heart that, even though it entertain intentions that are more ideal, has never come to a definite choice of God and of His Christ. To ensnare such people, money and Satan join forces, and this gives rise to Mammon. At first one may try to separate money from Mammon, but in the long run it can not be done. Money is a power in your hand; but before you are aware it becomes a power over you, a power that dominates you and that, whether you will or no, draws you ever farther away from what is high and noble, and subjects you to the power of Mammon. Jesus saw this. He fathomed to the bottom the deep shamefulness of it, its desecration of human nature, and in Divine compassion for this gilded slavery He again and again called the multitude that flocked to hear Him, from Mammon back to God. Only in this sharp contrast lies the power of resisting the tyranny of money. If you are truly subject to God, money will be subject to you and will not harm you. If, on the other hand, you undertake to defend yourself against the fatal influence of your money and its seductive power, you are lost before you know it, and deeming that you are your own master, you have found your master in the money-power. Jesus therefore contrasts two kinds of riches with one another - riches in money, or riches toward God. Not that the one excludes the other. If you are rich toward God, it will not harm you to be also rich in this world's goods. For then you know yourself as steward of the Almighty, and the money will serve you, and, through you, it will serve God. You can also be rich toward God and poor toward the world, and be contented and happy, and revel in your far higher riches of soul. To be poor toward God and rich toward the world, on the other hand, is nothing but a false show, a parade of wealth and pleasures that envelope you without refining your inner self, and which at yourdeath, if not before, fall away and leave your soul empty and shorn. And it is still harder to he poor toward God and poor toward the world. Then there is nothing to supply the wants of life. Nothing to sustain you. Only a biting discontent, that ruins your entire inner existence. Then full of vexation and carping care, life to you is shorn of every attraction. What is it to be rich toward God? To understand this, imagine for a moment everything you call yours in the world as taken from you. Picture yourself abandoned and forgotten of all, in utter isolation alone with your own heart. And then ask yourself: What have I now? What do I now possess? When dying you will come to this. In solitariness of soul you will go into eternity. What then will you,.carry with you? Money and goods you must. leave behind. You must even part with your body, and retain nothing but your soul, your heart, your spiritual self within. Will you go into eternity poor or will your heart then he rich? It can no longer be rich in this world. It can only he rich in spiritual good. You will die poor, or you will die rich- toward God. If such will he the case at death, then examine yourself now; think yourself deprived of all you have; take your soul by itself and ask: "What have I now? What do I own? Do worldly possessions impart worth to me as man, or am I something by myself? Do I own anything in the hidden places of my heart, which gives worth and significance to myself, or am I by myself actually nothing?" Let no one deceive himself in this. Without avarice, it is possible for any one to enrich his spirit with knowledge, to develop a talent for art, to excel by cleverness and versatility. All this has worth and meaning, and is not apart from God. Only it is all merely concerned with this life, and when life here ends loses its meaning; only so much remains, as has imparted a higher, nobler bent to your character. Whatever has established and enlarged our personality, character and inward strength, that and nothing else has become our personal property, of which neither catastrophe nor death can deprive us. But without more this will not avail. A fully developed personality, a well established character, inward strength of spirit, and will-power, all these are only a benefit when you can use them for good. Satan is the most strongly developed personality imaginable. It is seen with great frequency to what lengths a man can develop himself in evil. Hence the question is, have you developed those powers of personality, and those traits of character, that are adapted to the life of eternal blessedness? If not, at death your other achievements will be of no use to you. There are strongly developed characters and cultivated talents in hell; but these bring no blessedness, they rather add to the misery, because they are apart from God and provide no riches toward Him. Thus your heart, by itself, can speak of "owning property" only when you have developed in yourself those powers and capacities that will be used in heaven, that will make you feel at home there, and that will enable you to develop still further powers in the heavenly realm. You can not acquire these powers save as you enter into fellowship with God. Through God the powers of the Kingdom must operate in you, which will fit you for heavenly citizenship. In Christ you must be reconciled to God; the Father must come and make His abode with you; and then that other life will spring up in your heart that is fed from heaven, that enriches you with higher power, and satisfies the cravings of your inner emptiness - with God. Then you become possessor of the riches which God pours out into your heart. To be rich toward God is to own God Himself, to be a temple of the Holy Ghost, to carry about in your heart the Holy and Glorious One whithersoever you go, and every morning and evening to be refreshed anew at the Fountain of the water of life. There is still on earth, Oh, so much that prevents you from enjoying this blessedness to the full; but it is nevertheless the privilege of being rich toward God that the more you become detached from the world the more these riches increase. And when at last the world fades from sight their increase will still be endless. It is a wealth that can not be used up, but ever increases itself. It is interest upon interest in the holiest sense. It is always the Fountain and never the cistern - a wealth which always exceeds boldest expectations, because it is to be rich in the Infinite. And then of course there is the inheritance. Again and again Scripture refers you to it. There is an inheritance of the saints in light, and he who is rich toward God is additionally enriched with this inheritance. The difference between being rich in God and this inheritance depends upon the difference between the inward and the outward life. Riches toward God are inward. "Now already in part. Presently yet more." But in addition to this inward state of being rich toward God, there also belongs a being rich in an outward state. And this as long as we are here we still lack; but that shall come when the inheritance shall be divided which now is being kept for you in heaven. An inheritance of glory. An environment of elect persons and elect angels only. A dwelling in palaces of everlasting light. A fruition in glory such as here has never entered the heart. No more sin and no more sorrow. Eternally in Christ with our God in the fullest, richest satisfaction of what our human heart in its best moments can desire or expect. Rich toward God and therefore rich through God. Oh! how deeply have we fallen, that this being rich toward God charms so few people, and that those who are charmed by it still hunger so often for the things that draw away from God and therefore impoverish our person. __________________________________________________________________ 4. In The Covert Of Thy Wings THE deepest question that governs our Christian life is that which touches our personal fellowship with God. And in the Book of Psalms, which is the richest outpouring of a devout heart, you see how the inmost longings ever and again go out after this Divine fellowship. Certainly there is in the Book of Psalms also a mention of the tie that binds us to God as the Creator and Supporter of all things; and of the relation in which by faith he who fears God stands to the Holy One; but both this tie and this relation are still something else than fellowship with the Eternal. The heart of him who fears God does not rest until it has come to such a conscious fellowship with its God, that between itself and the heart of God there is mutual knowledge, the one of the other - even the clear sense that God has knowledge of us and we of Him. What we between people call mutual companionship, intimate association, union of soul with soul in faithfulness and in love, is implied from of old in Psalm 25,14: "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will show them his covenant." Even as two intimately connected friends go through life together, and mutually unbosom themselves to each other, and in this intimate walk through life become the confidents of each other's secrets, so it is told of Old Testament heroes of the faith that they "walked with God." And although these are but figures and terms borrowed from those that are used to describe human happenings; and although, when we would describe our appreciation of our fellowship with our God, we should never use these terms and figures except with deep reverence for His Divine Majesty, nevertheless, it is equally certain that God Himself has pointed them out to us for this end. The Scripture sets the example in this, even to the extent that it borrows pictures from animal-life by which to illustrate this fellowship with God. As Jesus portrayed His tender love for Jerusalem by the figure of a hen that gathers her chickens under her wings, so David not only said that he would abide in the tabernacle of the Lord for ever, but also that he would trust under the covert of God's wings (Psalm 61:4). And why not? Is it not God Himself Who in the world of winged creatures has created this exhibition of tender fellowship, as the expression of what moved His own Divine heart? And is not every such expressive, touching picture of love's fellowship in nature a God-given help by which to interpret to ourselves what we perceive and feel, or only dimly sense, in the mystic depths of the heart? Even the vast range of creation falls short of material for this, and therefore the Lord has purposely placed still another picture before us, by which to illustrate the intimacy of fellowship with Himself; even that of living together in one house. The house, or with nomadic tribes the tent, was not, of course, a part of creation, but was mechanically constructed by human hands. When Jabal came to do this, the social life of man took an incredible step forward. The house, as the family dwelling, was foreshadowed in creation. Jesus called attention to the fact that foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests. And was there no deep sense of want expressed in the words that He, the Son of man, had no home of His own wherein to lay his head? Intimacy of life is only born from dwelling together under one rooftree; the family home is the nursery of love; it is the external hedging in, with the tie of the most intimate fellowship of life. And in Scripture the house, or dwelling, is presented as a means by which to make our fellowship with God assume a definite form. God also has a house; and the idea of dwelling in the house of our God is the richest thought that is given us, to set forth the most intimate and tenderest fellowship with Him. Purposely, therefore, the Tabernacle of the Lord is erected in the wilderness, and presently it is rendered permanent in the Temple on Mount Zion. Moreover, it is stated, that at Horeb God Himself showed Moses the pattern of the Tabernacle. Hence Tabernacle and Temple were actual representations of what exists in heaven. And in connection with this, the ardent longing to dwell in the house of the Lord finds expression in the Psalms. The Psalmist would rather he a doorkeeper in the house of God, than dwell in the palaces of the ungodly (Psalm 84:10). "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple" (Psalm 27:4). But this was not permanent. Tabernacle and Temple rendered only temporary service. They were a transient form in the rich unfolding of consecrated life. And when Jesus came He said: "Woman, the hour cometh, and now is, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father, but when true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth" (John 4:21, 23). This means that without emblems, symbols, or outward forms, worship shall be spiritual, as from heart to heart. If, therefore, we feel a holy sympathy for David's burning desire, to dwell in the house of the Lord, we may not apply this to any earthly house, not even to the visible Church. That would he the return to the dispensation of shadows. That temple is no longer a symbolic house of God made of wood and stone, but the majestic palace of God in the heavens. God dwelleth in the heavens. There is the Tabernacle of his Majesty. There is the Temple of his Honor. When Jesus teaches us to pray, "Our Father, who art in Heaven," He detaches the soul from everything earthly, and lifts up our heart on high, in order that we shall no more think in earthly terms of the Majesty of our God. To dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our life, means: every morning, noon and night to be so clearly conscious of our fellowship with the Living God, that our thoughts go out to Him, that we hear the sound of His voice in our soul, that we are aware of His sacred presence round about us, that we experience His operations upon our heart and conscience, and shun everything we would not dare to do in His immediate presence. The Psalmist goes one step further, which plainly shows that already under the Old Covenant, amid the shadows, the faithful grasped the higher reality. For, he adds, "I will take refuge in the covert of Thy wings" (Psalm 61:4 RV) To think of the glory of God above, to picture life in His holy Temple, to have walks among angels and saints before the white throne, is not yet enough. The house of the Lord may enclose our fellowship with Him, but in that house we shall look for God Himself. One must live with a person in his house, in order to enjoy his company, the house is nothing to us without him, and he is our first and chief concern in it. Such is the case with our search after fellowship with God. "Sursum corda!" - lift up your hearts. I will lift up my heart to the trysting-place of Thy holiness. But this is not the end. In order to find God, we must dwell in His house. To be near unto Him in His house is the sole end and aim of all godly desire and endeavor. And to express this in terms of passionate tenderness and daring boldness, David exclaims: "I will take refuge in the covert of Thy wings." Here soul meets soul; here is the sacred touch; here one perceives, and experiences, and realizes that nothing stands, between ourselves and our God; that His arms embrace us, and that we cleave unto Him. But his imagery is attended with danger lest it be taken too literally, and God, in an unholy sense, be interpreted in terms of matter. False mysticism has shown to what errors this may lead. But if you realize this, and are on your guard, this imagery is supremely rich and superbly glorious. It means that you possess God Himself, and that you have made fellowship with Him a reality. Provided that it is in Christ, by your Savior alone, that you, the impure and unholy, are initiated into this tender fellowship with your God. __________________________________________________________________ 5. When He Turneth Himself Unto Prayer How is this? Does the Lord turn Himself unto our prayer only after long delay? Is not He omnipresent? Is not every whispered and stammering prayer known to Him, before there is yet a word in the tongue? How then can the All-knowing One at first indifferently stand apart and only gradually become aware that we are praying to Him, and turn Himself to the prayer which He temporarily ignored? And yet without doubt this is what is meant. The Psalmist stands before a closed heaven. In sorrow of soul supplication is made, but trouble is not removed, and God contends against the prayer of His people. The arch enemy does not pray, does not understand God, but in this he is encouraged by Jehovah. God's own covenant people continue to be repulsed. God hides His face. And the Psalmist cries: "O Lord hear my prayer and let my cry come unto Thee. Hide not Thy face from me. In the day when I call, answer me speedily" (Psalm 102:1, 2). This relieves his troubled mind. With prophetic daring he forecasts the day when the Lord will hear the prayer of his people again, and inspired by this thought declares: "When the Lord turneth him unto the prayer of the destitute, and despiseth not their desire, then all kings of the earth shall fear him" (Psalm 107:17, Dutch Ver.). Thus in fact he was still in a period, when the Lord holds Himself deaf to His people, and the future still holds the moment in which the Lord shall turn Himself unto the supplication of His people. What do you think? Has not the Psalmist felt and known the objections that rise from the very Being of God against this human representation, and do you stand on a so much higher plane that thoughts arise in you, that were foreign to him? But pray, who has portrayed in terms of finer imagery than he the omnipresence and omniscience of God? Are not the expressions in which you clothe your prayers borrowed for the most part from his writings? Did not he propound the question: " Shall he who planted the ear, not hear?" and did not he say in the hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm, "There is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I can not attain unto it?" In fact, it is the Psalmist who has described the virtues of God in behalf of all Christendom, and the secret things of the Almighty are nowhere placed before us, veiled or unveiled, more clearly than in his language. And when this eminently saintly poet over and over again speaks to us of God, also in connection with this matter of prayer, in a way that is so purely human, what else then can it mean, save that the terms of intimacy between man and man retain their significance in the secret walk with God; and that therefore there are moments, when God turns Himself away from our prayer, and that, Praise His Name, there are moments when He turns Himself unto our prayer. You believe in Christ, and in the truth of His saying: "He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father, and how sayest thou then: show us the Father?" You yourself kneel down before Him, saying: "My Lord and my God," and what is the Incarnation of the Word other than that God became Man? And what profit can this be to you, unless you feel that, in Christ, God has come to you in a human way. Until the birth in Bethlehem, God spoke to you in human words, but in Christ God appears to you in human nature. He reveals Himself to you as the Son of Man. A human heart here speaks in human language and in human motions. St John declares: "In Jesus we have seen and heard not only what is God's, but we have touched and handled, and actually seen before our eyes the eternal-Divine in human stature and in human form." The whole Christian faith, the entire Christian confession rests upon the clear conviction, that God has not laid it upon you to lose Him in endless abstractions, but, on the contrary, He would come to you ever more closely in human form and in human language, in order through your human heart to make warm, rich fellowship possible with Himself. Moreover, you must understand that all this rests upon sober reality. It is not semblance, but actual fact, because God created you after His Image, so that with all the wide difference between God and man, divine reality is expressed in human form. And that, when the Word became Flesh, this Incarnation of the Son of God was immediately connected with your creation after God's Image. And you would undo all this when in the place of this warm, rich fellowship with God which can not be practised except in a human way, you would put a whole system of abstract ideas about the immensity of God, and so create a distance between Himself and you which excludes all intercourse and fellowship of soul. Leave this to philosophers who do not practise prayer; to theologians, dry as dust, who are no children of their Father in heaven. As for you, love God with a love, of which childlike fellowship with Him is the warm expression. You know yourself that the practice of prayer puts the seal upon the words of the Psalmist. At one time, heaven is open to you, and as you pray angels descend and ascend to present your petitions at the Throne of God. At another time your prayer is formal and your words come back upon yourself, and the circuit of heaven, as Job (22:14) calls it, is closed against you. Then the turning point is reached in this oppressive isolation, and you perceive that the gate of heaven opens once again and your prayer obtains free access to the Throne of the Almighty, and you understand from your own experience what the Psalmist here affirms regarding the blessedness of the moment in which the Lord turns Himself again unto the prayer of a soul that is utterly destitute. But is the solution of this apparent contradiction as impossible as it seems? By no means, provided you have eyes to see the workings of God in your prayer-life. Yea, when you deem that prayer originates with yourself; when you do not believe that the spirit of prayer goes out from your God within you, and you think that God's active part in your prayer only begins when He hears and answers it, then indeed you face here an insoluble riddle. But if you take it in the other, truer way, and make it clear to yourself that your prayer-life too is quickened, directed and carried on in you by God, then light shines in upon you. The farmer sows the seed in the newly ploughed furrows, and leaves it quietly to do its work, in order that when dew and sunshine from heaven have caused the seed to sprout and send the blade upward, and ripen the corn in the ear, he may return to the field and gather in his harvest. And is not this the case in our prayer-life? Here too our Father Who is in heaven takes the initiative by sowing the seed of prayer in our heart. Then follows a slow process. That prayer-life must come to development in us, and prayer in our soul must ripen. And only when this result has been obtained, and prayer has unfolded itself in us into that higher form, the heavenly Hushandman turns Himself again to the prayer-life in us; and then comes the rich hearing and answering of what went up from our soul to Him. Such is the case with our prayer-life taken as a whole. Through foolish prayers we come to purified prayers. Through earthly prayers we come to those holier ones, which have been watered with dew from above and which radiate sunlight of a higher order. And such is the case with individual, particular prayers. These, too, are not at once purified and made perfect. These, too, go through a process in the soul. These, too, spring up from a root, and only by degrees develop themselves into prayer such as our Father Who is in heaven expects of His child; prayer which is not merely a sound of the lips, but rises from the depths of the heart; prayer, in which one's own sense and inclinations agree; prayer in which not merely a spontaneous thought but our whole person expresses itself; prayer, in which in very truth the soul pours itself out before the Holy One. For this, God allows us time. It is not done all at once. If His response were immediate, no prayer-life would be developed within us, and no single prayer would be sanctified in us. Weeds that spring up between our prayers must first be rooted out. Every sort of infectious germ that creeps in must be removed. And prayer must refine itself, it must sanctify itself, so that in a heavenly sense by faith it may be able to ripen. Therefore God leaves you to yourself for a time, so that by the trial of His seeming indifference the development may the better be prospered. And when at length your prayer has reached that degree of perfection which renders it meet, as a prayer of a saint of God, to be laid on the altar, then He turns Himself again to your prayer; and you offer thanks to your Father in heaven, that He has trained you in that holy school of prayer. __________________________________________________________________ 6. Hearken Unto Me, My People. Give Heed To Me, O Lord! IN times past it was commonly believed that sound itself came from the throat, and that its power was but limited. Hence a word could only be heard at a short distance, farther away it could not be heard, and so we were cut off from those with whom we desired to speak. He who had anything to say from a distance, sent a messenger, and later, when the great invention of writing was made, the message was carried by a letter. Since then, however, all this has been changed. Now it is known that our throat has no sound of its own, but it enables us to make vibrations in the air, and these vibrations find in the ear of him who listens an artistically constructed instrument that receives them. When we speak, we transmit our thoughts in these vibrations. Along the airwaves they glide to the ear of him who hears us, and through the ear they quicken the selfsame thoughts in him. Thus we speak. But this is not all. It was discovered that apart from throat and ear, and at a very much farther distance, communication could be established by means of visible signs, and thus telegraphy originated. Then it was found that a like contact of throat upon ear could be obtained along an extended metal thread; which discovery brought us the telephone. And now still greater advances have been made. It has been demonstrated that intelligent communication can be transmitted through the air, without the aid of wires, and thoughts have been exchanged at distances of thousands of miles. Thus things which in former times were altogether unthinkable have now become reality. And when we consider how quickly these more and more wonderful inventions have followed one another, it is plain that still further developments can be looked for, and that dealing with people at incredible distances will yet, perhaps, become the common practice. This now comes to the help of our weak faith. That the Lord is simultaneously a God at hand and a God afar off (Jer. 23:23) expresses in prophetical language the fact that before God all distance falls away, and that He can speak to us and can hear our voice, even though heaven is His throne and we kneel here on earth; yea, though we whisper a prayer under our breath, which he who stands by our side can not hear. Faith had no other explanation for this than the question: "He that planted the ear, shall he not hear?" and shall He Who formed the voice, not speak?" (Psalm 94:9). Confidence was based upon the confession of God's omnipresence, and upon the fact that He is the All-knowing One; but there was nothing in this that supported and carried the imagination. And it is this which has become altogether different. Now that it has become possible for us, impotent creatures, to extend our voice across whole continents and make ourselves intelligible to one another; now that, even without the help of wires, exchange of thought has become possible at distances of many thousands of miles; and everything tends to show that this is but the beginning of a communication which shall be yet further developed, we now can have some idea of the way in which this communication can at length endlessly extend itself, and how the Lord our God, Who has the absolute disposal of all these means, inasmuch as He created them, from the Throne of His Glory can look down upon us and can whisper to us in the soul. And how,on the other hand,when however weak, our voice goes out to Him in supplication, it can be heard by Him, since all distance that separates us falls away. As regards the life of glory among the redeemed, it becomes more and more clear to us, that in that life communication shall not only be possible from time to time with a few. but that when once every limitation of our temporal life falls away and that life of glory begins, communication with all God's saints shall be possible at one and the same time. Even then, it will all be the expression and the working out of the fact of our creation after the Divine Image. It will not be in the same way that God has communication with us now, but it will be a communication in a similar way. And now that even we ourselves can speak with our fellowmen at such incredible distances, it seems to bring us closer to God in our prayer, and God Himself closer to us when He speaks. And the "Hearken unto me, my people," followed by the prayer, "Give heed to me, O Lord," has become more real to us. In our secret walk with God, if we may so express ourselves, there is still a wholly different phase, even that of sacred ardor that springs from the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in us. As often as this indwelling operates, there is no distance between us and God. Then the Lord speaks to us in the inner chamber of the heart; then we are aware of His holy presence, not afar off, but close by, and our speaking to Him is the confidential whisper as from mouth into ear. Such is the case at close of day, when higher peace fills the heart, and the blessed enjoyment of being God's child brings us a hushed ecstasy. But we do not deal with this phase now. We here speak of the man who truly believes, but who, either by sin or trouble, has in part lost the consciousness of being God's child, and finds himself at a far distance from God, and God far distant from him; a condition of the soul that constantly presents itself in this life, even with those who are most saintly. And then it seems that at first God does not hear, and as though we have to call on Him that He may hear again the voice of our supplication. "Give heed to me, O Lord," is the soul's cry of him who feels as though God pays no attention to his prayer. And in the same way, when by Isaiah God says: "Hearken unto me, my people," it means that at first the people give no heed to the speaking of the Lord. Both these cries, therefore, belong to the phase of temporary estrangement, when fellowship between God and our soul, and between our soul and God has been interrupted by sin or by sore trial. Then communication must be established again. In the parlance of the telephone, God then rings us up, and we call up God, that He may listen to us. And so the broken connection restores itself. Communication, fellowship with God, is the great sanctifying and protecting power, that holds us up in life. It is not we apart here below, and God far distant in heaven above, so that but a few moments of the long day we remember Him on our knees; but it is constant, continuous fellowship with our Father in heaven, as little as possible disturbed or broken, and this is the secret of the faith-power of God's child. In former times, when life was less hurried and less busy, this was easier than now. Life in the present time subjects our nerves to so great a strain, and overwhelms us restlessly with such new sensations, that the quiet collecting of the soul before God becomes ever less frequent; and it is for this reason that in our times the hidden walk with God suffers loss. But there lies a counterpoise in these new discoveries of world-wide communication. They help to impart a feeling of reality to our effort to restore the broken connection, in a way that was not possible before. And so these discoveries of science become a support to the life of our devotions. Our hearkening unto God can gain by them, and our prayer, "O Lord, give heed unto me and hear the voice of my supplication," can derive strength from them in our approach to the Throne of God. __________________________________________________________________ 7. That Which I See Not Teach Thou Me THE knowledge which you have of yourself, or of your inner existence differs according to its source; a part of it you acquired yourself, and a part of it you received from God. If you ask wherein these two parts of your self-knowledge differ, then call to mind this difference. You diligently acquire knowledge of the good there is in you, whereas the evil that dwells in you must be brought to your remembrance and pointed out to you by God. You see this in a child. The praise he receives is readily accepted and fondly cherished; but when he is corrected, he resents it, does not believe that he did wrong, and makes light of it. And he continues in this course until his conscience taught by God, awakens his self-accusation. In later life, this goes on more covertly, but in reality the process is the same. The heart then is not so much carried on the tongue as in childhood's years, though some succeed in making their inner life manifest to the eyes of others. But no sooner is the personal life disclosed to the ear of a friend, than the same result is reached. There is a part of our self-knowledge which we have acquired ourselves; but there is also another part, which we ourselves perhaps had neglected. but which through hard lessons in the conscience has been taught us by God. At times this difference is strikingly evident, because for the most part we begin not only by not seeking this instruction from the conscience, but by not desiring it, and we only submit to it when God inculcates this knowledge against our will. In some instances God is obliged - we say it reverently - to force this self-knowledge upon people all their lives; they simply will not learn it; yea, and even worse than this, they deliberately reject a part of what God taught them about themselves, by forgetting it. There are others, on the other hand, men and women who in all honesty want clear self-knowledge, and who sincerely seek to know the truth regarding themselves. Nathaniels, who do not court flattery, but shun it; who hate the false image of themselves which they see dimly in the glass, and who can not rest until they know themselves as they truly are. When God speaks in the conscience there is with them a willing, listening ear. They take this lesson of God as a warning, and they profit by it. Add higher grace to this, and the gains will be still greater. Then the ear is not merely willing to listen when God speaks, but the lesson of God in the conscience is earnestly sought, and the level is reached of the pregnant prayer: "Aside from what I myself see and discover in myself, teach thou me, O God. " (Job 34: 32, Dutch Ver.). You find these two parts of our knowledge in every domain. There is always on the one hand a part that we acquire ourselves, and on the other hand a part that God gives us. To see is to observe, and commonly therefore we call this first part of our knowledge that which is founded upon observation. By the side of this stands another part of knowledge, which man never could have acquired of himself, but which God has taught him. This is the case with all human knowledge. Everywhere and in all ages man observes, gains information, investigates, enriches his experience, and thus acquires a certain knowledge of nature and of life, which he turns into profit. With respect to this, one nation has a keener eye, a finer ear, higher powers of invention and more perseverance; in consequence of which it makes greater strides in development. But in the main all this knowledge rests upon what man sees. It is founded upon observation. It is developed by thought. In addition to this there is a further knowledge which God imparts directly, and in a twofold way. In the first place, by raising up among nations men of genius; and in the second place, by the grant of discoveries. Men of genius are creations of God which he bestows upon a people, and by these men of superior endowment human knowledge has been deepened and enriched in a measure such as would never have been possible without them. The same is the case with the great discoveries, in which there is always a mystery; discoveries which open up entirely new realms of knowledge; discoveries which we owe to what unbelief calls chance, but which he who believes gratefully attributes to Divine appointment. Here another thought presents itself. When idealism is shown by individuals or peoples, that high aim is one of the strongest possible motives to seek after truth and knowledge. He who misses this idealistic sense may have a thirst for plain, materialistic knowledge, but the knowledge of the higher things in human life leaves him cold and indifferent. A money-fiend is an adept in the knowledge that promises gain; but what does such a gold-slave care for the higher knowledge of the nobler elements of our human life? As little as a deaf man cares for the wondrous creations of a Bach, or a blind man for the art of a Raphael or Rembrandt. As this is true of individuals, so it is also true of nations. When a people fail of this idealistic sense they degenerate into materialism and sensualism, and shut themselves off from all higher life. They make no advance and can not enrich other nations. They even deteriorate, and not infrequently in their own decline drag other nations down with them. In this, one age may differ from another in the same nation. In the sixteenth century the Netherlands stood especially high and was an inspiration to all Western Europe. In the eighteenth century, on the other hand, they degenerated, and have in no way blessed other nations. Whether such an idealistic sense operates strongly and inspiringly in a people, depends upon God. When He sends forth the breath of such higher aims upon a people, they begin to live for nobler ends, and become enriched with the knowledge of purer human existence. When He takes that breath away, understanding is dulled and all nobler knowledge fails. Through this idealistic sense, God can draw a people unto Himself, and can communicate to them something of the warmth of His own Divine Life; but He can also withdraw Himself from a people, surrender them to themselves, and then they must pay the price of the loss of all higher and nobler knowledge. So we arrive again at the same result. There is a part of our knowledge, which we, looking around and observing, have in our own power; but there is also a part of human knowledge, even a knowledge of a higher and nobler order which God alone imparts unto a people. Apply this to yourself, to individual persons, and you feel at once that the knowledge which God brings springs by no means exclusively from the conscience, but altogether differently and on a far larger scale it comes to you partly from God's counsel, and partly from the relation which He sustains to your spirit. You may have been born of your parents and find much of them reproduced in yourself. Yet it is the Lord Who created you, and the formation of your person, together with your disposition, your character and predominating tendency is His work. Hence, when you discover in yourself a thirst after higher knowledge, and a predisposition to nobler learning, the impulse that is born from this is an impelling operation of the Spirit of God in you, and thereby you obtain the fruit of a knowledge that does not come to you by your power, but by virtue of the higher impulse which He quickens and maintains in you. Circumstances co-operate with this. You may have a friend whose nobleness of character becomes your inspiration. You may have experiences and contact with people which stimulates you to study higher things. Onerous duty, bitter grief, or grave responsibility may be laid upon you by which you make unusual advances. And again it is God alone Who appointed all this in your behalf. But above all else, you may feel the rise of a strong drawing in yourself after God, so that He leaves you no rest, liberates you from earthly vanities, and in a mystical way makes you aware of an inward Divine insistence, which compels you to concern yourself with the higher things of life, causes you to mature therein, and over and over again enriches you with them. If this be so, it is not you who have thus lifted up yourself to God, but it is God Who has thus drawn you up to Himself, even you, not someone else. Why you, and not another? This is a mystery. We know not. Nevertheless the fact remains, that in this way you too possess two parts of your knowledge; that which you owe to your own sight and observation, that other and higher knowledge, which God has taught you. This unfolds itself most richly when higher grace operates in your soul. Not that every grace-endued child of God advances thereby to such higher learning. Here too there is diversity of gifts. Some believers lack almost every capacity to enter into the mysteries of the higher life. Some practice mysticism along the way of the emotions, but continue limited in knowledge. Some acquire a wealth of learning regarding the way of salvation, but remain indifferent to the higher, nobler knowledge of human life. But there are others, too - and this is most glorious - who, of warm sensibility, rich mysticism, and clear insight into the knowledge of salvation come in addition to that inner unfolding which extends their knowledge to the nobler parts of human learning, and makes them not only deeply religious, but also men of exalted idealism. Then such a one stands at the summit of the mountain of God's holiness. A light above the light of the sun dawns upon his horizon, and his knowledge becomes that of the saints made perfect. This goes hand in hand with the deepest sense of absolute dependence and a thirst after ever larger knowledge; a longing which utters itself in the prayer of God's child: "O God, aside from what I myself see and discover, teach Thou me. Instruct me ever more in Thy holy fellowship." __________________________________________________________________ 8. God, My Maker, Who Giveth Me Songs In The Night NIGHT is a mystery in our life, and remains a mystery. For years together, sleep to most people is a provisional going out from life, in order after some seven or eight hours to come back to it. When they fall asleep, which most people do immediately after their head touches the pillow, they are gone, and when the hand on the dial of the clock has moved on a given number of hours, they rise and resume their part in life. At most they have an occasional remembrance of a dream that entered into their sleep, but for the rest it is all a blank. The seven hours during which they were lost in unconsciousness passed by unobserved, and as far as their remembrance of them goes they amounted to no more than two or at most three hours. Thus a third of life is taken out of their existence. When they are thirty years of age, they have actually lived but twenty, and the other ten years are wrapped in the haziness of sleep. This sleep, however, was not devoid of purpose. He who was weary on retiring, rises girded with new strength, though as far as his consciousness goes, he was idle. His thinking, feeling, willing, working, have all been at a stand-still. This absolute surcease of life is the normal state of things, for as long as man is well, in the fullness of his strength and not oppressed by cares, he sleeps as long as nothing disturbs him from without. Why this was so ordained, remains a riddle. For though it is true that after hours of work our strength becomes exhausted and demands rest to recuperate, this does not solve the problem. For at once the question arises: "Why this exhaustion of strength?" God, our Maker, after Whose Image weare created fainteth not, neither is He weary. The heavenly hosts of angels do not sleep. Of the New Jerusalem we read: "And there shall be no night there" (Rev. 22: 5). Thus, a being who does not continually exhaust his strength, and hence is in no need of sleep, is conceivable. Why God, our Maker, appointed a life for us with continual exhaustion of its power to be restored by sleep, remains a mystery. This ordinance of the Lord has not been promulgated without a purpose and a wise design, though no one understands it. A third part of our earthly existence is subtracted in unconsciousness from life that is known without our knowing or understanding why. But does not Scripture say that in the night our reins instruct us, and does not sleep obtain from this a higher significance? Undoubtedly! But though such was the case with David, it is by no means ordinary experience; and if it were, a regularly returning period of seven or more long hours for a spiritual instruction in the secret places of the soul would be out of all proportion. Only think how large a part of the day it is from nine o'clock in the morning until four in the afternoon. And yet, this is but seven hours, and these, out of every twenty-four we sleep away. This is only modified by sickness, by pressing cares or by old age. By these three causes, sleep is shortened or disturbed or deferred, and a part of the night is struggled through without sleep. Then, indeed the night obtains an entirely different significance, because one can not get to sleep, or because sleep is too frequently broken, or too soon ended. Dreams also can not be said to have no significance. There are dreams that show us what we are; and others from which a helpful thought goes out with us into life; dreams again, that afford us momentary fellowship with our beloved dead, which gives us a sad pleasure. God may even use a dream by which to reveal something to us. But in spite of all this, most dreams are forgotten on waking and when they leave a memory, nothing but vague, vanishing and mixed images float before the mind. Even the petition from the ancient evening hymn: "O God, in sleep let me wait on thee, In dream be thou my joy!" does not define, save in rarest instances, the content of our dreams. This does not deny, however, that without our being aware of it, the Spirit of God works upon our spirit while we sleep, and builds up our inner life. Here again the mystery of our life by night hides the mighty workings of God. We can not count with. them, because they go on outside of our consciousness. At times on waking, an insight may come to us into difficult problems which troubled us the night before, and he who fears God will praise Him for it, but this also is a work of God which eludes our grasp, and of which we can but say with the Psalmist: " We see it, but we understand it not " (Psalm 118:23, Dutch Ver.). No, our life by night obtains a conscious significance for us only when sickness, care, or age come to disturb our ordinary sleep, and Scripture witnesses to this when it says: "My reins also instruct me in the night seasons" (Psalm 16:7); and "In the night I commune with mine own heart" (Psalm 77:6); and when Isaiah (26: 9) with his soul desires the Lord in the night; and so likewise when Job (35:100) confesses: "God is my Maker, who giveth songs in the night." This constitutes a school of learning, which should be reckoned with more seriously. Sleeplessness is an apprehensive phenomenon, that casts its shadow upon all of the next day; but it is an evil that leads either to sin or to glory according to the way in which our faith-life spends such sleepless hours. If sleeplessness makes you do nothing but utter gloomy and peevish complaints by day, and rebelliously turn yourself over and over on the bed by night, then it becomes sin to you. If, on the other hand, such hours of wakefulness are used to confirm your fellowship with God, to make it more intimate and to strengthen it, then it glorifies the inner life of the soul. Moreover, such devotional use of sleeplessness is medicine that invites sleep, while rebelious restlessness only increases wakefulness. To struggle against God in such an hour makes for restlessness and feelings of oppression, which drive sleep ever farther and farther away from you; while, on the other hand, conversing with God in such a sleepless hour, brings restfulness and calm and induces sleep's approach. This result, however, is merely a by-product; the main thing is, that a sleepless night is of itself an appointed time to seek the Lord, and to apply to your wakeful hours the Psalmist's word: "It is good for me to be near unto God. " That which in our busy life draws us continually away from God and estranges us from Him is our strenuous activity, the multitudinous sounds on every side, the constant interviews with people who address us. All this ceases at night. The absence of things that absorb attention gives rest to the eye. The stillness of night puts the ear out of commission. No work presses in upon us. Chase and hurry have given place to calm. There is nothing to divert us, no one to tire or to detain us. All the conditions are there, a hushed mind, and this stillness, to help us to hold converse with our God. Such an hour of night invites us, more than any other, to enter into the Tabernacle of God. The night-time has something in it of the solemn stillness of the Sabbath. This stillness is introduced by your evening reading of God's Word, by your evening prayer, when on your knees you have poured out your soul unto your God. And now you are at rest, and your one concern is, either to set aside the cares of the day which you brought with you to your couch, or, in fellowship with your God, so to take them that He carries them for you. But this is not in your hands. It is not enough that you think of God and make approach to Him. Fellowship must come from both sides, and if God does not simultaneously draw near to you, you can not enjoy His intimacy. To think: "God is always ready, He is waiting for me, so that it depends on me alone whether I will meet Him," shows no dependence on your part upon Him, nor sufficient humility. To think of God is no enjoyment yet of His fellowship. Fellowship is something far more ardent, and whenever it falls to your lot, it is an operation of grace, a favor extended to you, for which you owe Him thanks. It is not that you are so good and devout as to lift up yourself to God. but it is of His Divine compassion that He comes down to you, in order to enrich and bless you with the consciousness of His nearness. The gain is so great, when your last feeling before you sleep is that of joy in the tenderness of the Lord, and when on waking in the morning you feel your first conscious thought to go out to God. This accustoms you to God, and prepares you to go into the night of the grave, in order that you may never more be disturbed by anything in your fellowship with God. In the night, upon our bed, when we can not sleep we feel small, far smaller than by day when we are adorned by our garment, and our word makes our influence count as we struggle to make or maintain our place in life. But we lie upon our bed and stand no more upright. We are motionless and do not move. And this smallness and insignificance of our appearance makes us more fit to meet our God. Then God becomes so great to us. Then we feel indeed that He is our Maker. His faithfulnesses present themselves to us. The arms of everlasting compassion underneath bear us up and encircle us. Joy expels the somber temper of the soul; gladness the carping cares. We come into the atmosphere of the worship of God's everlasting love, and when His Spirit inwardly imparts His touch, the note of praise rises from our inmost being, and it becomes a literal fact with us that "God our Maker giveth us songs in the night." __________________________________________________________________ 9. I Cry, But Thou Hearest Not To get no answer! when we stand at a closed door and it is not opened, makes us feel anxious. We then knock harder and harder, and when this brings no response, we call louder and louder; and when still no sound is heard, and there comes no answering voice, fear strikes the heart that something has gone wrong with the child, or perhaps brother, whom we know must be inside the room. To get no answer! when in need and distress we have called for help and have waited, and still wait for an answer that does not come, how often has it turned hope into despair. To get no answer! It makes us so restless, when there are fears about the welfare of child or brother far distant, and we write, and write again for information, and the information does not come; and then we telegraph with answer prepaid; and still no answer comes. To get no answer! It sends a chill to the heart, when one of the family is dangerously ill, and we approach his bedside, and call him by name, first in a whisper, then louder and find that he does not hear us. To get no answer! It is overwhelming in the case of an accident in a mine, or a landslide in the digging of trenches when victims are entombed, and people from without call, and call again, and listen with bated breath for some sound or answering sign of life, and the silence continues unbroken. To get no answer! It caused such anxious fears when not long ago Martinique was overturned by an earthquake, and telegrams were sent to inquire about the condition of things there, and no sign of any kind was returned. On Carmel the Prophets of Baal knew what this meant, when from morning until noon they cried: "O Baal, hear us! and they leaped upon the altar and cut themselves with knives, but lo! there was no voice, nor any that answered" (1 Kings 18:26). And their hearts were more troubled still, when Elijah from his side cried out. "Hear me, O Lord, hear me!" and obtained the answer, and fire from above consumed the sacrifice. And yet he who loves God has not always obtained an answer. Read the complaint of Asaph in Psalm 83:1, "O God, keep not thou silence; hold not Thy peace as one deaf and be not still, O God!" Consider David's distress in Psalm 28:1: "Unto thee do I cry, O Lord, my Rock, hold not thyself deaf to me; lest, if thou hold thyself silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit." Or, what is stronger still, remember the Lama Sabach- thani of Golgotha, echo of the prophetic complaint of Psalm 22: 2: "O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season I will take no rest. " Here is the difference between the nominally religious man of the world and the devout believer in God. We have nothing to say of one who is an out-and-out man of the world. Such a one does not pray at all. Still less does he "cry to God," or expect an answer. But the people of the world are not all like this. A great many are not wholly irreligious. That is to say, they are still attached to some form of religion. They have not wholly abandoned prayer. True. it is mostly a matter of habit. They may say grace at meals, which consists mainly in a whispered utterance, and upon retiring at night a prayer by rote, of thanksgiving and petition. In days of trouble, however, and in moments of anxiety (when a loved one at home is sick unto death, or reverses in business bring one low) this sort of prayer revives itself. Then such a one does really come to pray and to cry unto God. And when that cry proves of no avail, and the danger is not averted, the prayer that has proved futile falls back heavily upon the heart embittered by disappointment. With the devout believer in God, it is altogether different. He seeks his Father. He knows by experience that it is possible, even here on earth, to hold fellowship with that Father Who is in heaven. He has knowledge of "the secret walk with God." From blessed experience he knows that in this secret walk, fellowship is mutual, so that not only he seeks his Father, but the Father also lets Himself he found of His child. Then although he can not say "God is here, or there" he feels and senses that God is close by. He can not prove that God addresses him, and yet he knows that he hears the voice of the Lord. Here is no semblance, but reality; no self-deception but rich actuality. And in the lead of the Good Shepherd he follows on, comforted by the rod and staff which he hears ahead of him. With the nominally religious man of the world this is pure materialism; with the devout believer in God this is sacred and most blessed mysticism. But in this holy mysticism there is a tale of suffering. Not once, but constantly it happens that the fellowship with God is broken off. In times gone by there was no way of illustrating such invisible communion. Now there is, since we are in touch with people thousands and thousands of miles away from us, and can speak from a great distance with those whom we do not see, and hear the voice in return. Now we have advanced so far that wireless telegraphy permits communication apart from any visible, tangible guidance, and now we can understand how such communication can be disturbed, interrupted and broken off. God's saints on earth have such a mystical communication with their Father Who is in heaven; a mystical telegraph, a mystical telephone, a mystical communication without wire or any guidance. And as little as primitive man can understand our telegraphic communication, so little can the man of the world understand the mysterious communion of the believer with his Father, Who is far off and yet close by. But for this very reason it is true, that this communion can be interrupted, and sometimes entirely broken off. There are moments when the soul cries after God, seeks Him; the heart goes out to Him, and nothing comes back; no sign from above is vouchsafed, it seems that God is away; nothing but silence remains, and no voice comes. There is no answer. Why at such times God withdraws Himself from His child, can be surmised but never can be fathorned. The cry of Jesus: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" remains an impenetrable mystery. Yet even here surmise may prove of value. You awake in the morning, and ordinarily your first thought directs itself to God. This gives you a blessed sense of His nearness, as at His hand you begin the day. But see, one morning it is different. You are not aware of God's nearness. There is no connection between your heart and the Eternal. And pray as you may, there is no fellowship. "O God! hold not thyself as one deaf, why dost thou not bear me!" Yet even in this feeling of desertion you are aware that grace operates, for the loss of communion with God makes you unhappy. This break may be accounted for by sinful inclinations of the heart, secret sins which disturb communion; or, your heart may be troubled about many things, so that the Lord has been removed from the center of your inner life. Then this loss is for your good; it makes you turn in upon yourself and bring your heart again to fear His Name. Physical conditions also can interrupt this feeling of fellowship, as when a headache depresses you, and hinders the free utterance of your spirit, or lessens your susceptibility. This provides a motive for not neglecting bodily rest and calm. At other times, again, the failure to get an answer can not be explained from any cause whatever; there is nothing in your inner life that enters a complaint or an.accusation against you, and yet God withdraws Himself from you. Even then we may make a conjecture as to the cause. All too readily the believer overestimates his piety, becomes accustomed to the love of God, and begins to take it as a matter of course that he is granted this secret walk with Him; sometimes he may even count it as a special holiness that he seeks this fellowship. This can not be tolerated, for this would make of grace a common thing, whereas it is, and must always be, holy grace. And it is the lesson of experience that the full appreciation of this fellowship with God is strengthened by nothing so much as by the temporary want of it. When for a long time the soul has had no hearing, and at length an answer comes again from God, then there flows into this hidden tryst a still more intimately tender blessedness, and the soul bathes itself in the fullness of the love of God. __________________________________________________________________ 10. Seek Ye My Face IN bygone days nothing was more common than to hear an aged, godly man tell with affectionate delight how he came to know God. At such and such a time "I learned to know the Lord," was then the manner of expression. Afterwards this changed, and they would say: "in such and such a way I was discovered to myself;" or, "I was converted then and there; or, "it was then that I surrendered my soul to Jesus;" or, "it was thus that I found my Savior" - or whatever terms they might choose by which to tell what had transpired in their soul. Every one of these forms of expression has its own significance, but it can scarcely be denied, that the former way of saying, "I learned to know the Lord," is by no means inferior to the later ways in truth, depth and fervor. Jesus himself said: "This is life eternal, that they know thee" (John 17:3), and He thereby but confirmed the plaintive cry of the Prophet about this decline in Israel, that there is no knowledge of God in the land (Hosea 4:1). And yet, it can not he denied, that in the long run the saying: "I have learned to know the Lord," can not satisfy because, without being observed, it has been separated from its mystical background and made to consist in external, intellectual, doctrinal knowledge. To know God has more than one significance. Surely he does not know God who lacks all knowledge of His Being, Attributes and Works. Neither can he be said to know God who has not learned to worship Him in His Holy Trinity. Again, in connection with this, the saying of our Savior should not be lost sight of: "No man knoweth the Father save the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal him" (Matthew 11:27); a revelation which must undoubtedly be taken to include the light that shines out upon us from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But as readily as we grant this, it should be maintained with equal stress and emphasis, that this does not exhaust the knowledge of God; that it contains a spiritual reality which goes deeper than intellectual acumen, and employs the abstractions of dogma and doctrine merely as a means by which to clarify impressions received, the perceptions of the soul and spiritual experience. The latter has gradually been forgotten, although knowledge of God in the abstract has been retained. This knowledge became a collection of formal and doctrinal expositions. And at length he deemed himself as most advanced in sacred learning, who was able to give the most impressive, clever and exhaustive interpretation of some dogma regarding God. This could not permanently satisfy, and then the soul's experience of the life of grace passed to the other extreme and mysticism began to seek religion altogether, or nearly so, in the work of redemption by Christ, in conjunction, of course, with what applied to oneself. Was this a gain? Undoubtedly in part. Far better an inward condition of soul that warmly refreshes itself in the work of salvation and glories in the walk of the way of redemption, than a sort of Christianity that merely weaves webs out of doctrinal intricacies. But it is not the highest way. Old time worthies occupied a far more exalted vantage-ground when they learned to know the Lord both in a doctrinal and mystical way. From this viewpoint it was God Himself Who ever remained the. center, and religion (which is the service of God) came far more completely, more fervently, into its own. Created after the Image of God, it is natural and necessary that in our relation to Him, as far as possible, we should have apperception like to that in our relation to our fellow man. There is a language in nature; there is a language that addresses us from the animal-world, but altogether different and far richer is the language that is addressed to us by man, even though his voice be silent. The face, the countenance speaks; speaks by its entire expression, but especially through and by the eye. The eye is as a window of the body through which we look into another's soul, and through which he comes out of his soul, to see us, scan, and address us. The rest of the body in comparison to the face is dumb and inanimate. It is true, expression is effected by means of the hand, and especially the people of southern Europe have the habit of emphasizing and guiding every word with a motion of the hand; and it is also true that with violent emotion the whole body acts, giving expression to feeling. All this does not alter the fact that the higher a level a man has reached, the more the rest of the body remains composed and calm, letting the face alone do the speaking, thereby imparting to it a far richer and finer expression. A ruffian in the market place speaks with both hands and feet; a prince upon a throne says far more by look, and majesty of face. From this it necessarily followed, that in speaking of our intercourse with God, "the face of God" was given the prominence, and that distinction was made between what proceeds from His mouth, what expresses itself through His eye, and what breathes in anger from His nostrils. We reveal ourselves in the highest sense by speaking face to faccy and so our walk with God could not be illustrated otherwise, than by the privilege of being permitted to meet God face to face. This may not be taken in a materialistic way, such as has even led to the representation of God, the Father, in the form of an aged man. It is known that even Moses fell into this snare, when he prayed that he might see God's face. A bold prayer, that received as answer: "Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live" (Exodus 33:20). Thus this remains forbidden. Never should we think of the holy God in an earthly way. The imagery which here must lend supoort remains wrapped in mystical dimness. A visible face exhibits what is corporeal, and God is spirit. The fact is this. When we look any one in the face so intently that at length we grasp his inner self, then the external face has only been the means by which to attain knowledge of his internal existence, and it is conceivable that if all the external fell away, we should still retain the knowledge of his person. Knowledge of God is reached in another way. Here no physical auxiliary enters in between. Here our spirit enters directly into the spirituality of God as soon as God's Spirit enters into us. In like manner, nay, far more effectively, we obtain a spiritual knowledge of the being and nature of God; and in order to describe this knowledge we merely use the imagery of the face. The main thing is that we no longer satisfy ourselves with a conception of God, a scientific knowledge of God, or a speaking about God, but that we have come in touch with God himself; that we have met Him, that in and by our way through life He has discovered us to ourselves, and that a personal relation has sprung up between the Living God and our soul. This mystical knowledge of God is expressed in Scripture in all sorts of ways. We read constantly of the secret walk with God, of dwelling in His Tabernacle, of walking with God, and so on; and the Gospel itself unfolds this in the rich, glorious thought that the Father comes and tabernacles with us. And yet the most frequently used term to express the higher knowledge of God is, "the face of God." Of Moses, the man of God, this stands recorded as the highest distinction that marks him off from all the Prophets, that God spoke with him face to face, as a man speaketh with his friend. What face here signifies is obvious. Hence when Scripture brings us the Divine exhortation: "Seek ye my face" (Psalm 27:8), it contains a profound significance. We can perceive one at a distance, we can bear him spoken of, we can become aware of his presence without yet having approached him, and placed ourselves before him, so that he looks at us and we at him. But there is a moment in the life of the child of God when he feels the stress of the inability to rest, until he finds God; until after he has found Him, he has placed himself before Him, and standing before Him, seeks His face; and he can not cease that search until he has met God's eye, and in that meeting has obtained the touching realization that God has looked into his soul and he has looked God in the eye of Grace. And only when it has come to this the mystery of grace discloses itself. __________________________________________________________________ 11. My Solitary One SOLITUDE is something that has to be reckoned with, when you consider the effect it has upon the mind. This is most evident with a little child, who in solitude becomes afraid and begins to cry. If less striking, yet this impulse to seek or shun solitude marks itself with adults with sufficient clearness, for us to infer from it something about their character. Some people, whenever possible, escape from their busier surroundings in order to bury themselves in solitude; while others, when left alone, feel oppressed, and only find themselves again in the company of others. This portrays itself in a threefold way. The most striking example may be borrowed from the choice that the heart has made at the cross-road of good and evil. In order to do wrong, one hides and conceals oneself. Evil works by night. But when the wrong is done and the conscience is awakened, solitude becomes oppressive and diversion is sought in others' company. Less striking, yet sufficiently evident is the way the liking for or dislike of solitude shows itself respectively in the more meditative or more active disposition. One lives more within himself, thinks and ponders and feels deeply; another lives in externals, runs and slaves, and likes to make a show of his activities. Even among nations, this difference is apparent. One people lives within doors, another, whenever possible, in the street; a difference for the most part determined by climate and nature. And in the third place, this seeking or shunning of solitude finds its cause in the consciousness of power or the lack of it. Diffident, awkward, inwardly cowardly natures are almost afraid of company, and draw back with downcast eyes; while he who is clever, energetic and courageous, mingles freely among all sorts of people. There is more to it than this. Solitude is loved by the man of study; it lures the old man more than one who is in the strength of his years; in feeble health, with weakened nerves, people shrink from too much excitement. These causes, however, are accidental, and are no index of character; but in connection with them it is striking that the Psalmist twice calls his soul "the solitary one;" once in the passion psalm, prophetic of Golgotha (22:20): "Deliver my soul from the sword, my solitary one from the power of the dog; " and again in Psalm 35:17: "Rescue my soul from their destructions, my solitary one from the young lions." Your soul is - your solitary one. This expresses its preciousness. To parents that have but one child, this solitary child is more precious than the seven of which another may boast. If this solitary child dies, the generation dies and the lifeline of those parents is cut off. Applied to the soul, your soul stands apart from your property and your body. However much you are attached to your goods, if they are lost other goods can replace them, and though once your body shall be lowered in the grave, presently you will rise in a glorified body. But such is not the case with your soul. Your soul is your solitary one. It can not be replaced. If lost, it is lost forever. For this reason, Jesus warns us so solemnly: "Fear not them that can kill the body, but rather fear him who can destroy your soul, yea, I say unto you, Fear him" (Luke, 12:4, 5). All loss can be made good except the loss of "your solitary one." And therefore here the consciousness of your self separates itself from your soul. You, who view yourself, who think about your self, find a busy, active world round about you, and see yourself.in a decadent, visible body that grows and flourishes, or is sick and pines away. But you have still something else within you, hidden in your inward being, and that hidden something, that "solitary one" within, is your soul, which you must love, and which at your death you must return to your God in honor and holiness, because from Him, and from Him alone, you received it. From this comes the sense that the soul within you dwells alone. Truly, your soul can approach the world and the world can approach your soul. God endowed you with senses, which, like so many windows, enable you to look out upon the world and communicate with it. God has endowed you with feeling and fellow feeling, whereby, though others may be far away, you can sympathize with them, rejoice with them, and suffer on account of their sorrows. God has endowed you with the gift of speech, whereby your soul can express itself, and the soul of another can speak in your ear. Speech has been.committed to writing, and, thanks to this glorious invention, which likewise has been given us of God, your soul can have fellowship with preceding generations, or with contemporaries whom you have never met. And, not least, you have a sense and knowledge of a higher world above, and it is as though angels of God descended upon you and from you ascended again. And best of all, in your heart you have a gate that opens into your soul, through which God can approach your soul, and your soul can go out to God. But in the face of all this, your soul itself remains distinct from that world, from that nature, from those angels and from God, and in a sense separated. And so, taken by itself, your soul within you is your solitary one, that is something and has something which purely and solely is its own, and remains its own, with respect to which the loneliness within can never be broken. One of two things here happens. Either the soul is too lonely, or you yourself have too little knowledge of the soul in its loneliness. The soul is too lonely within you, when you are bereft of what supported you and gave you companionship. This is the loneliness of sorrow and of forsakenness, which oppresses and makes afraid. Your soul is disposed to sympathy, to society, to give and win confidence, to be man among men, and to spread wings in spheres of peace and happiness. And when these do not fall to your portion, when hate repels and slander follows you where love should attract and sympathy refresh you, then shy and shrinking your soul draws back within itself. It can not unburden itself nor express what it feels. Shut up within itself, it pines away in sadness and grief. Or when the joy of life takes flight, and care makes a heavy heart, and sorrow comes upon sorrow, and the outlook darkens and the star of hope recedes behind ever-thickening clouds - then, in oppressive isolation the soul is thrown back upon itself and pants for air, while Satan sometimes steals in with the suggestion of suicide. But as the soul. can be troubled and oppressed by too great solitude, it can also suffer loss when you do not fully appreciate the significance of its solitariness. This is the common result of a superficial, thoughtless existence that is weaned of all seriousness. Then the soul is not understood nor honored in its own solitary, independent existence. Then there is the chase after diversion and endless recreation; with never a turning in upon oneself, never the collecting of the soul for the sake of quiet thought, never a seeking after the soul for the soul's own sake, while the soul itself continues always haunted, always a slave to its environment, never coming to rest, inward peace and self-examination. And so you see people in the world go out in two directions. On one side the wretched and distressed pining away in inner solitariness; on the other side, the laughing, always busy, hurried and self-externalizing crowd, which neither ever seeks solitude nor harbors a thought about its own solitary soul. Against this giving way too much to solitude, and this not entering far enough into the appreciation of the soul's solitariness, one remedy alone is offered unto us, and that is, the coming into the loneliness of our soul of the fellowship of our God. In our soul there is a holy of holies, a holy place and an outer court. The world makes no closer approach to our soul than this outer court. There it remains, and neither observes nor understands anything of the deeper secrets of the soul. Intimate, spiritual friendship makes a closer approach; a small circle of individuals about us, who understand us better, who see through us more clearly, and thereby are able so much more tenderly to sustain and comfort us, enter the holy place. But even they do not enter the holy of holies. There is always a deep background, where they can not enter in, and where in utter solitude the soul abides. There is only One Who can enter this holiest and most intimate recess of our soul, and He is God, the Lord, by His Holy Spirit. And therefore He alone can break the soul's loneliness, and comfort him who is caught in the snares of death, and save the soul of him who diverted himself in the interests and pleasures of the world. __________________________________________________________________ 12. God Created Man After His Image FROM the fact of your creation after God's Image springs all true religion, all genuine piety, all real Godliness. You have passed the stage of the milk-diet of little children, and live on solid food. Thus you understand that calling upon God and walking in the way of His commandments does not by itself make you religious, devout and godly, and that the secret of salvation in all its hidden amplitude is not revealed, until your soul has come to fellowship with the Eternal Being, and you abide in the covert of His wings. The more outward form of worship is not devoid of worth. Provisionally it is even the only attainable one; and if it does not build for heaven, it exerts a binding influence upon thousands and thousands for the life that now is, and prevents the dissolution of society. But the plant of genuine godliness outgrows at length the outward form, and in the words of the Apostle goes on unto perfection. It comes to blossom in the gleam of God's Majesty. It is fostered by the outshining of His glow and watered with dew from above. Thus it comes to a personal knowledge of the Lord, as a man knoweth his brother; to a dwelling of the soul in the Tabernacle of the Lord, and to an indwelling of the Holy One in the temple of the heart. This requires fresh emphasis. Every outward form of religion can change and pass away, but that which remains the same and which till the end of your life does not weaken but gains in strength, is the blessed fellowship of your soul with your Father in heaven; so that by night you retire with God, and at early dawn find Him again, and follow after Him as your Good Shepherd all the way of your pilgrimage here below. In this alone consists the more intimate communion of saints. Truly, it binds you to others when you learn that they are one with you in the faith, that they belong to the same Church, that with thern you break one bread and pour one wine. But yet on the great journey to the courts of everlasting Light you prefer as fellow travellers those who, under whatever form, have intirnated to you that they live in the communion of holy converse with the living God. This goes back to your creation. This means that real religion, yea, the possibility of genuine godliness, springs solely and alone from the fact that you have been created after God's Image and after the likeness of God Almighty. That you have been conceived and born in sin does not alter this in the least. There is no genuine religion without regeneration, and in re-birth the fundamental trait of your creation after God's Image revives again. Hence the fact that you have been born in sin needs no consideration here. The subject in hand is the conscious, actual fellowship with your Father in heaven. And this rests upon the necessary harmony which prevails between the original and that which the image shows of it. The solidarity of the original and the image is felt and understood at once. There is no image apart from the tie that binds it to the original. See it in the case of a portrait or picture. If the portrait is good, it is so because it is like the person whom it represents. You feel this even more strongly with a photograph than with a painted portrait or marble statue. With a painted portrait, or with a bust, the painter or sculptor comes in as a third between you and your picture. But not so with a photograph. Then it is you yourself who by the operation of light upon the sensitive plate create your own picture and form the features after those of your own face. And what in this way your own person effects in photography expresses only very inadequately what God did when He said: "Let us make man after our likeness," and then so created him. Only with one's equals one has close fellowship. But there is also a more distant kind of association. When spring opens, an impressionable mind holds conscious communion with nature in her nameless beauty. This communion is more tender with the world of plants and flowers and fruits than with the starry hosts of the firmament. It is closer still with the world of animals, especially is there a fellow feeling for the horse that you ride, the dog that meets you with a joyful bark, the lark who sings his morning song with tremulous beat. But yet, with mountain and stream, moon and star, flower and domestic animal it always remains a fellowship at a distance. However intelligent and expressive a look a faithful animal may give you, you do not understand his life, because it is of a different nature from yours. It only comes to actual fellowship when you come in touch with man. "What man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him?" Paul asks the Corinthians (1 Cor. 2:11). And this is so. Man alone can understand a man, and the more human you yourself are, the better you will understand humanity in others. The more you are like another, the more the two of you exhibit a selfsame likeness, the more intimate your fellowship will be. A compatriot comes closer to you than a foreigner. One of the same generation, of like business, of like position, of like circumstances and experience in life, comes closer to you than one who in all these particulars differs from you. Among men, like alone fully understands like. Hence when God said: "Let us make man after our Image and after our Likeness," this expressed of itself the Divine intention, to create beings that would be able to practice fellowship with God, and that would be capable of receiving His glorious communications. If then it is so, that genuine, exalted, glorious religion consists in this mutual fellowship, then it follows that when God created a being after His own likeness He thereby at the same time created religion. In the creation of nature God glorified His omnipotence, and the more this life in nature was refined from its chaotic state till the splashing of waters ascended to the wing-beat of the nightingale, the more majestically Divine omnipotence revealed Itself in splendor. The whole earth is filled with His glory (Psalm 72:19). But in all this, there was as yet no self-conscious, responsive fellowship for God with his creation. God stood above nature and nature was subject to His Majesty, but there was no comprehension, no knowledge, no understanding of God in it, and from it rose no note of thanksgiving, of worship and of fellowship that went back to Him. There was Power there; but what was still lacking was the thrill of the fellowship of Love. And this also the Holy One desired, His creation must needs address Him, and He it. Intimate, hidden mutual fellowship with His creation had to come. Knowing, loving, seeking - the Eternal Father willed to be known, to be loved, to be sought. The flame of religion must inwardly gleam through His creation as the sun gleams through the earth in the sphere of externality. And this could not be, this was neither conceivable nor possible unless He created a being after His own Image and after His own Likeness, a being that would be of Divine generation, that would be His child, and would cleave to Him as Father. A being that although separated and distinguished from the infinite Majesty by unfathomable depths would yet in its own life feel and know the life of God, would company with God as a friend with his brother, having been introduced and initiated into the secret "walk with God." Thus, not for your sake but for God's sake, religion is founded in your creation after the Image of God. Your serious practice of the hidden walk with God is to realize the purpose that was expressed in your creation after His Image. For though it is true that this exalted endowment renders you supremely rich, happy and blessed, though it anoints you priest and king, baptizes you as child of God, and ennobles you as a princely creature in the sanctuary; yet you fail dismally if you take this to be the root of the matter. First in rank and order here also is, not, what makes you blessed, but that which causes your God to accomplish His purpose; and that purpose always is that He wills to be known, loved, sought and worshiped; that He wills to have conscious, worshipful fellowship offered Him at the hand of His creation; that He wills not merely to be great, but to be known, as such, and believed, and loved. For this He created man. For this also He created you. And for this also He created you after His Image and Likeness. __________________________________________________________________ 13. None Of Me THE new paganism, which is broadly on the increase. is in one point altogether different from that against which prophets and apostles joined issue: it has no idols. Metaphorically it has. It is said with good reason, that a mother makes an idol of her child, a wife of her husband. One worships his idol in art and the other in Mammon. But however common it may be to speak in this way metaphorically of an idol, yet all this is something entirely different from the heathen's idolatry, which has visible idols, builds temples and pagodas for them, appoints priests in their honor, burns sacrifices and orders festivals. Ancient paganism with its visible idolatry was personal; modern paganism soars in vague enchantments. In Paris and London and, as report has it, in New York, societies have been formed of men and women that hold meetings in pagan-like chapels, and kneel down and mutter prayers before images of idols. But these are not the people who lead the new pagan movement. These, for the most part, are persons who have spent part of their life in heathen Asiatic countries, and now in Europe or America imitate what they have seen in Asia, and in which they took part while there. This is a little oil flame on top of wide waters, and is utterly without significance with respect to the great movement of spirits. The modern heathen movement, on the other hand, is driven by an entirely impersonal object, has no thought of setting up images of idols. and scorns idolatry proper as it is still known in India, China and Japan. That which drives this new heathen movement is two-fold; negatively, it is the denial of a personal living God; positively, it is the doting either on vague ideals, or on sensual pleasure and money. This makes warfare against this new form of heathenism far more painful and difficult than that which Prophets and Apostles waged against idolatrous heathendom. Of old it was name pitted against name, person against person, image against image. Not Baal, but Jehovah. Not Jupiter, but the Lord of Hosts. Not the image of the great Diana. but Christ, the Image of the Invisible God. Thus the personal character which heathendom borrowed from visible idolatry compelled the setting up by the side of it an equally personal object of worship. It was Zion pitted against Basan, Jerusalem against Gerizim, priest against priest, and, in the same way, God, the living God, the eternal and adorable Jehovah, against Moloch and Baal. Hence the scorn of idols: "ears have they, but they hear not. Eyes have they, but they see not. Mouths have they, but they speak not. They who make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them. But thou, O Israel, trust thou in the Lord" (Psalm 115:6, 9). But now this fails us. The modern pagan dotes on humanity, is zealous for art, feels impulse and love for high forms of life, or takes part in the chase after sensual pleasure and wealth, and obeys the spur of passion. This has the sad result, that they who in other ways are still faithful Christians have too largely abandoned the personal element in their worship of the living God, and in turn dote on the beautiful ideals of love and mercy, of peace and higher good, without feeling any longer that deep, personal cornmunion with the personal, living God, in which lay the power and strength of the faith of our fathers. Of course it is entirely true that the immortal ideal of love and mercy means nothing else than the expression of Divine attributes; but the trouble is that instead of confessing, God is love, or love is God, one forms an idea of love for himself, turns it into an ideal (behind which the living God is lost from sight), dotes on that creation of his own thought, and becomes a stranger to God. Apply this more closely to Christ, and you reach the same result. In the place of an image of an idol, God has set up the Image of Himself in His only-begotten Son, as the Christ is revealed in the flesh. By this, the idea is repressed, the ideal is relegated to the background, and in the foreground, in clear and transparent light, stands the Christ, the incarnate Word. All the enthusiasm, wherewith Christianity was carried into the world, sprang from this heaven-wide difference. With philosophers of Greece and Rome, it was zeal for beautiful ideals, but with the Apostles, it was passionate love for the living Christ, the tangible Image of the living God. It is this personal attachment of faith to the living Christ in very Person, in which the secret of their power consisted. It was a love of heart to heart, by which the world of that age was won. It was love and affection for the Mediator between God and man, that brought heathendom to its fall. When Thomas kneels down and exclaims: "My Lord and my God!" there reveals itself all the power of the personal worship of God in Christ by which the Church of Christ became what it is. But this too is being lost. First it was weakened by a sentimental holding fast to Christ as man, whereby God, if not forgotten, was obscured in His Majesty. And now even among Christians it has come to this, that putting aside the Person of Christ, an ideal in Christ is loved, presently to develop into a stronger tie than that to the Person of Christ Himself. Admiration of the ideal breaks down the faith. This now is the complaint of the Lord in Asaph's song (Psalm 81: 11) : " They would have none of me. " It can not be put more personally than this. They love my creation, they enjoy the world which I called into being, they admire the wisdom which I made to shine as light in the darkness, they dote on love and mercy, the feeling for which I made glow in their heart; but Me they abandon, Me they pass by, of Me they have no thought, to Me they give no personal love of their heart, with Me they seek no fellowship, Me they do not know; my personal converse does not interest them; they have everything that is mine, but they would have none of me. The complaint is often heard that an acquaintance enjoys what is yours, satisfies himself with your goods, honors your ideas, adorns himself with flowers from your garden, even praises what you do, but remains a stranger to personal attachment, no trace of affection for you is discovered in his heart, no sympathy with you is shown, and of yourself he desires to know nothing. The reason for this is found all too frequently with the person himself; so that one admires him, honors him, praises his deeds, and yet feels bound to say: he is not a man to invite personal affection. But of course, with God this does not hold. He alone is adorable, the highest Good, Love itself, in every way loveable, eternally to be desired. And when in the face of this a complaint comes from God: "they would have none of me," it is a piercing complaint against our heart, against our faith; it expresses deepest feeling aroused by gross misappreciation. "I am the Only One Whom they should desire, and lo, they would have none of Me. They love Me not, they cleave not unto Me with heart and soul. For their personal affection I, their God, am not the potent, all compelling point of attraction." Here is complaint against the superficiality, vagueness, and unreality of our piety, against the diminished and weakened conception of our religion, against the actual faithlessness of our heart; in brief, against a religious decline which expresses itself in our lack of holy ardor, in the quenched fires of our higher enthusiasm, in the congealing of the waters of holy mysticism. This is partly a personal wrong, springing from too high an opinion of self, from too potent a self-sufficiency, from lack of dependence and proper trust; but it is also an evil of our times, a common, contagious disease, whereby one poisons the other; an apostasy of the world of spirits, which turns our heart away from the living God. This must be resisted. The struggle must be begun against our own heart first, that we may attain again personal fellowship with the living God. This struggle must be extended over our entire environment, in order to repress all false religion, with its vague ideals, and replace it by personal affection for the living God. This battle must be waged with enthusiasm and untiring fidelity in our preaching and devotional writings and in ardent supplications, to call the living God back into our personal life. And then this struggle must be carried out into the world to call it back from fancy to reality, from the idea to the essence, from religion to the Only Object of our worship, from doting on the abstract to the love of the faith that directs itself solely to Him who has revealed Himself in Christ as the personal living God. __________________________________________________________________ 14. A Sun OF a dear child, especially if it is a girl, father and mother often say. "Our little darling is the sunshine of our house and of our life." But however grateful one may be who may own such a miniature sun to brighten the home, especially in seasons of trouble, infinitely higher is the praise in which the Psalmist indulged when he gloried in Jehovah as the Sun on his pathway of life, and sang in the ear of the saints of all time: "The sun of my life is my God." To this tender, deeply passionate language of Scripture-poetry our Western heart should be more accustomed. The music of the Psalter is always uplifting and inspiring. "The Lord God is a sun and a shield" (Psalm 84:11). Whenever read or sung it finds an echo in our heart. But this does not come to us from ourselves. Everywhere, among rich and poor alike, a sunny child in the home is a ready topic of conversation, but when do you ever hear one tell from deep, personal experience: "My God has been a sun unto me all my life, and will be till I die." The figure is still in use, but preferably in a doctrinal way, almost exclusively in the limited sense of "Sun of Righteousness," whereby righteousness is given the emphasis at the expense of the rich imagery of the sun. And yet, this luxurious imagery of the sun contains such transcendent riches. It is not a mere comparison, for when you truly realize that God is the sun of your life, this blessed knowledge is a treasure, that brings you closer to God, casts a sheen upon all of life, and imparts a reality to your Christian knowledge which liberates you from barren abstractions. Truly, the sun is not to us what it was to the Psalmist in the East. The firmament there glows and glitters with sparkling radiancy, the splendor of which our Western eye does not surmise from afar. The skies flooded both the land from which Abraham emigrated, and the land God gave to him and to his seed, with a sheen of heavenly brightness, compared with which our sky seems wrapped in twilight. A sky such as the shepherds saw by night bending over Bethlehem, was, as it were, prepared and appointed for the arrival and reception of the angelic hosts, and where the stars enchanted the eye in such a way by their magic beauty, and the moon filled the mind with such ecstatic animation, what in such a country must the sun be, of which the Psalmist sang (19:6): "His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." If then there ever was an idolatry that is intelligible, it is not the worship of images, nor of spirits, but that hushed worship, in that glorious region, with which the wandering Bedouin by night looked up to the stars, and by day looked up to the dazzling brightness of the sun; in his rapture at length imagining that that wondrous, majestic, all-pervading and all-governing sun, was not a mere heavenly body, but even God Himself. This error the Psalmist in Israel has righted. That sun in the sky is not God, but God is my Sun, even the Sun of my life. The sun has been appointed of God Himself to bless us in nature, and also to provide a glorious, rich imagery of what God is to us in the emptiness of our life. It is not original with us, to compare God with the sun; we have not chosen the sun as an image of God, but the sun is the image in nature of what God is to us in our life. He himself speaks to us in that sun and in His operations in the whole round of our existence. And when with all your analytical studies of the virtues of God, and with all your reasonings about His Providence, you have at length reached barren, distinctive definitions, and are past feeling and can no more get warm, it is as though suddenly the glow of the higher life communicates itself to your entire inner being, and you epitomize everything in this single phrase of delight: "God is my sun, he is the sun of my life." This holy imagery is peculiarly effective in this particular, that it places before our eye so clearly and vividly the penetration of the hidden power of God in our inner existence. The sun is heaven-high above you, and yet right by you, round about you; you feel and handle him; you escape him in the shade, and shut him out of your room by blinds; he is a power far off and equally close by; and of this power, this working of the sun, you know that it enters into the earth, and there underneath the ground, hidden from every human eye, it causes the seed to germinate and sprout. And the same workings and the same contrast apply to God. In the heavens, far above you is His Throne, and yet the selfsame, exalted God with His Presence everywhere is even close by and round about you, and enters into your heart, fills its deepest places, works within you with hidden power, and if ever holy seed has germinated in you or ever a sacred flower has budded on the stem of your soul, it is God, your Sun, who with power worked this in you. Imagine for a moment that the sun had gone out of your life, and a condition such as is found at the north pole would prevail in nature round about you. Everything that lives would die, every plant and every herb; every tint would pale, and all would be covered over with one immense shroud of snow and ice. And that this is not so, that everything lives and pulsates, and exhibits color and glow, that food springs from the ground and the flower-cup bends upward, and sweet loveliness breathes throughout the whole of nature, yea, the whole of life-is the result of the sun alone that pours out life and warmth, and by it, as by magic, brings life out of death and turns the barren wilderness into a fruitful land. And such is the case with your soul and God. Think for a moment of your bereft and desolate soul deprived of the gracious inward shining and working of your God. It would be for your heart as though life were departing from you, and all glow and warmth were leaving, and that icy cold would cause your soul to freeze. Not one flower more would unfold in the garden of your heart, no holier motion would anymore stir itself in your soul; all would wither and die, and the heart within you would cease to be a human heart. Whether it is said: "With thee, O Lord, is the fountain of Life," or whether the Psalmist cries: "In thy light shall we see light," or whether the heart exultingly sings: "God is my Sun," one dominating thought is expressed. With God there is life, without God there is death in my soul. From Him, and from Him alone, I derive all life, power and animation. That which makes the sun so rich toward the whole creation, enriches my heart, and my whole human existence. With Him I am aboundingly rich, blessed and supremely happy; without Him I am poor, empty and cold. But there is more. The sun not only cherishes life by his warmth, he also colors and exhibits it by his splendors of light. With the lengthening of shadows by night everything becomes, pale grey, and vague and nebulous till dissolved in darkness, but sunrise brings friendly light, which makes you see proportions, measure distances, perceive forms and tints and colors, and nature catching these splendors speaks clearly to your heart. And this is what God, your Sun, effects for you in your inner life. When He is hidden to your darkened eye, your life is nothing but somber greyness, a life without point of departure, direction or aim. Then all knowledge and insight fails, there is no courage to go forward, no inspiration to finish the course - a groping for the wall as one blind, a being shut up as in oneself, without cheerful, friendly association, without knowledge, without self-consciousness, without color or form, a life as among tombstones where weeds thrive, snakes lurk about and the shriek of the night-bird startles. But when God breaks through the mists, and the sun rises again in your soul, then everything becomes different as by a holy magic wand. Light dispels your inner darkness. Peace in its kindly way rids your troubled mind of oppression, and seeing with heavenly clearness, by the light of God's countenance, the way before your feet, bravely you walk on while the Sun from on high cheers and sanctifies your heart. The image of the sun is also significant in that the shining of God on the heart is no unbroken brightness. As day is followed by night, and summer by winter, it has ever been the same in the life of God's saints. Now a time of clear conscious fellowship with God, so that life from hour to hour was, as it were, a walking with God, and then again, a time of overwhelming activities which exhaust mind and body - difficulties that absorb the soul, cares that burden the heart. Then a change in the spiritual life as of day and night. And it is well with him who can say, that in every twenty-four hours his estrangement from God has lasted no longer than the hours of his sleep. But apart from this rise and fall almost every day in the intimacy of our fellowship with God, there is a drawing back of the shining of this Sun, and then again a drawing near, whereby also in the life of the soul summer and winter alternate one with the other. Blessed, uninterrupted, ever equally intimate fellowship with God is not of this earth; it only awaits us in the palaces of everlasting light. Here on earth there have always been and always will be changes and turns, whereby one year yields a far richer harvest than the other; difficulties through which the soul struggles in order to climb from a lower to a higher viewpoint, trials which make it pass through the depths of gloom and darkness, whereby for weeks and months the soul is covered, as it were, by a layer of ice. The sun then is not gone, but thick clouds prevent his breaking through. And this keeps on until God's hour is come. And then gradually the clouds dissolve, until at length they entirely disappear. It becomes spring again in the soul. That spring is the prelude to a glorious summer. And in the end we thank God for that cold dearth of spiritual winter, which now makes our enjoyment of both spring and summer so much the richer. There is still another trait of comparison that should not be ignored. In nature the selfsame beat of the sun has this twofold effect upon the ground that, on one hand it warms and cherishes, which causes germination and fruition, and on the other, that it hardens the clod and scorches it, and also singes the leaf and withers the blossom. This describes God's working on our conscience. When we glory in God as the Sun of our life, it implies that the love and the grace of God are never abused with impunity. Hardening of the heart is a thing to fear, and yet it came upon Israel and frequently comes upon us now. Hardening, because the heat that radiates from God upon us does not soften and inwardly warm us, but repulsed by resistance within us attacks and sears our outward religious life. Here we would rather not mention that mortal hardening which leads to an eternal ruin. He who is in this state will not read our devotional meditations. But there is also a temporary hardening which as long as it lasts dangerously retards the process of our spiritual life; and it is this temporary singeing by grace, this temporary hardening by God's love, this temporary scorching by the outshining of God's faithfulness, which is all too frequently observed. Then it is either a sin from which we will not break away, a sacrifice we will not bring, a step we will not take, an exertion from which we shrink or a sin in the sensual, domestic, public or church life, which we try to unite and harmonize with the enjoyment of God's grace. And this is not possible, in the nature of God it is unthinkable, and when we go on in this, the sun keeps on shining, even fiercely sometimes, but the result is that there is no more striking of root, and the very heat of God's grace hardens us. "Thou Lord art the Sun of my life!" Oh, it is glorious language wherewith to enter eternity; beware, lest at some time it will witness against you. For the "fall and rising again" applies here also. __________________________________________________________________ 15. Under The Shadow Of The Almighty EYERY creature is the product of a thought of God; hence all created things can serve as emblems of the Divine. It is not of ourselves that in winged creatures we hail a figurative expression of the Divine life; but Scripture does it, and now, accustomed to it, every devout believer readily acknowledges that this imagery warms the heart and enriches the mind. In what Jesus said of Jerusalem this comes within every one's comprehension. The hen with her chickens is a figure of Divine compassion, which moves every one by its beauty and tenderness. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not" (Matt. 23:37). Yet this word of Jesus has a far deeper meaning than he who merely admires it imagines. Truly it speaks of protection and compassion, for this is the purpose here of the gathering together. But there is more in it than this. It also implies that the chickens belong with the mother-hen; and that nothing else than return to her can render them safe against the dangers of cold, and prowling vermin. Yea, it also contains the striking figure that by nature the chickens are appointed a hiding place close by the mother-hen, and that they find shelter and protection of life only in the immediate nearness of the mother-life, under the outspread wings that will embrace and compass them. Thus, this striking saying of Jesus is taken bodily from Old Testament imagery and in turn is explained by it. When in Psalm 91 it is said. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall lodge under the shadow of the Almighty, " we deal with the selfsame figurative representation. It is the epitome of what the Psalmist elsewhere expresses (61: 4).. "I will make my refuge in the covert of thy wings." It is the same thought that was expressed by the wings of the cherubim over the mercy-seat of the ark of the Covenant. It is ever the one idea: God created a fowl that gathers her brood under her wings and with these wings covers and cuddles them; and now this richly suggestive picture is held before us in order that our soul might seek refuge under the shadow of the Almighty and hide in the covert of His wings. Not from what moves in the waters nor from what creeps or prowls on the ground and hardly ever from fourfooted beasts is this imagery borrowed; but, in the main, only from winged creatures that can lift themselves above the earth and, as it were, live between us and heaven. Angels before God's Throne are pictured with wings as Seraphs. With the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Son of man, there is mention of the form of a dove. That it might have wings to fly upward is the secret prayer of the soul that is bound to the dust. And so it conforms to the order of creation, it corresponds to the Divinely ordained state of things, and it therefore appeals to us as something that is entirely natural that in order to express the tenderest and most mystical kind of religion, the winged creature is held up to us as a symbol. and that boldest imagery serves to picture to us what it is "to be near unto God," to make it, as it were, visible to our eyes and perceptible to our feelings. But this symbolism must not be carried too far. Our heart must ever be on its guard against the danger of all sickly mysticism that interprets the holy things of God in a material way. God is a Spirit, and every effort that seeks contact, fellowship and touch with Him in any other than a purely spiritual way avenges itself. This exaggerated symbolism leads to idolatry by which one makes a material image of God out of stone or precious metal; or makes one lose himself in pantheistic mud, mingling spirit and matter, and at length in sensual excesses, first defiling and then smothering what began spiritually. But however necessary it is, for this reason, to keep fellowship with God purely spiritual, spirituality must not he confused with unreality, and this, alas! is the mistake of many a soul, in consequence of which it withers away. For then we only see what is before our eyes; nature round about us; the blue heavens above, us; our own body with its powers; and all this is considered real; this has form, body and matter; this is tangible and has actual existence. And then, in addition to this is what we think, what we picture to ourselves, what we work out in our spirit; this is the abstract part of it, our world of thought; a world without reality; and the center of this unreal world is then our God. A God Who exists merely in our thought, in our spirit, in our idea, and with Whom fellowship is only possible through our processes of thought. In this case there is no mysticism of the heart; no uniting of our heart to fear God's name, (Psalm 86:11); no experience of the hidden walk with God; then God has no independent existence for us outside of our thought; and for this self-sufficient soul there is no "being near unto God" nor dwelling in His tent. Against this danger, every deeply spiritual life in Holy Scripture protests, to wit, the lives of Psalmists and Prophets. They did not find God to be a product of their own thought. They found Him to be a real, living Gody Who drew near unto them, compassed them with the arms of His everlasting compassion; a God Whose holy glow they felt burn as a fire in the marrow of their bones, yea, a God with Whom they found peace, rest and cheer of soul, as they realized how wondrously they were privileged to hide in the covert of His wings, and to pass the night under the shadow of the Almighty. You can not analyze this thrice blessed state of mind. You must experience it. You must enjoy it. Having it, you must watch lest it slip away from you again or be interrupted, but analyze it, dissect or explain it, you can not. This would allow the wedge of your critical judgment to enter in, which would chill the glow that comforts you. The way to obtain it is to learn that your self-sufficiency deceives; that highminded self-sufficiency is the canker that gnaws at the root of all religion. It is the futile dream of a small insignificant world, of which our little self is the great person, whose mind understands everything, whose will disposes everything, whose money governs everything and whose power carries everything before it. Thus your own self becomes a miniature god in a diminutive temple, and then in your sinful isolation, of course, you are deathly cold - frozen - away from the living God; and all passing of the night under the shadow, of God's wings is impossible. If you can truly say: "such is not my case, I realize that I am powerless, forsaken and in need of help," then the way to fellowship with God is to learn that to lean upon people for support is sinful. Not by any means all leaning upon your fellowmen. The faith of others is a prop to your own faith; the courage of others shames your cowardice; the example of another may double your own strength. By nature we are disposed to be gregarious in matters of life and belief. But what you must rise above is the sinful leaning on others; and sinful in character is the kind of leaning on people that sees in them something else than an instrument for our help, appointed of God, for as long as He allows it. Never should it be a leaning upon man as long as one possibly can, without seeking help from God until all human help fails. From God must be our help at all times, whether power to save springs up from within ourselves, or comes to us from others. Even when at length all human succor fails us, we have yet lost nothing whatsoever, because our God is the Unchangeable One, and unchangeably remains the same. And in this confidence of faith you will stand, provided you are continually bent upon eradicating, root and branch, the doubt, which gloomily makes you ask, whether in very deed there is support and help, whether there is deliverance and salvation, for you. This doubt, allowed but for a moment, unnerves you altogether. Then you are as the little chick that anxiously looks around and nowhere sees the mother-hen and now helplessly flies hither and thither, until the hawk observes it and snatches the lost fledgeling away. Then all your feeling of lofty assurance is gone - gone your perception of your calling in life, gone your faith that God has hitherto led you and shall lead you further still. Then all your strength fails you. The prophecy in your heart is dumb. And at length your fellowship with Satan becomes more intimate than your hidden walk with God. Notice carefully that the Psalmist does not merely glory that he rests in the shadow of his God, but that he hides in the shadow of the Almighty. This must needs be added. The symbolism of the helpless chick that the mother-hen protects from the hawk - even to the extent of flying at it and chasing it away - is the image of a power that makes us think of the Almightiness of God. Otherwise your resting on the Father-heart of your God avails you nothing. He who rests under the shadow of God's wings but does not trust, puts his God to shame. For what else is it than to entertain the fear that one mightier than God will snatch you away from under the Divine protection? Unbelief, when you are far distant from your God, can be atoned for, insofar as you fly to Him; but still to harbor it in the heart after you have sought refuge with God, is a fatal wrong, which profanes the love for which God looks to you. Hence blessed peace, hallowed rest, quiet and childlike confidence, such as even in seasons of bitterest trial God's elect have enjoyed, is not the result of reasoning, not the effect of deliverance, but solely and alone the sweet returns of taking refuge in the covert of the Most Highest, of holding close to the Almighty, of the knowledge and enjoyment of being near unto God. Do not imagine therefore, if thus far you have been a stranger to this fellowship with your God, that when danger comes and storm gathers over your head and all human help fails you, you shall at once he able to find your hiding-place under the shadow of the Almighty. In the hour of calamity and dismay this has been tried by those of a transient faith, but they have never succeeded. The way to find it is the reverse of this. Not in the hour of need, as a means of deliverance, does one find the secret walk with God as it were ready at hand, but he who in happier days has practised it knows the wings under which deliverance can he found, and when snares are laid for his soul finds rest and safety under the wings of His God. It is not a mother-hen with no brood of her own, that spreads her wings for whatever will seek refuge beneath them, but it is her own chicks,which she herself has hatched, whom she knows, and for whom she will risk her life, that will find help and protection with her. And such is the case with this shadow under the wings of the Almighty. They are his own whom He calls and awaits, they that are known of Him He will cover with His everlasting love. He who is at home under the wings of God, shall in the time of danger pass the night under the shadow of the Almighty. __________________________________________________________________ 16. When The Air Is Astir VIOLENT storms did not rage in Paradise. In the garden of Eden no other breeze blew than the soft stirring which in softer climate brings morning and evening cool. Hence in the narrative of Paradise nothing is said of a quickly rising wind, but of a fixed, periodic stirring of air (in Gen. 3:8, it is called "the cool of the day," and in the original, as given in the marginal reading "the wind of the day") which announced to Adam and Eve the approach of God. The symbolism is still intelligible. Amidst the luxuriant stillness of Paradise, where everything breathes rest and peace and calm, suddenly a soft rustic is heard, sighing through the leaves, just such a sound as strikes the ear, when, seated near a grove, we hear one come through the underbrush, whose tread pushes light twigs aside, makes the leaves quiver and causes a soft noise to go before him. When in Paradise this rustle is heard through the leaves, a soft breeze caresses the temples, and it seems as though Adam and Eve feel themselves gently touched. And with this quiet rustling and this touching emotion comes the inward address of the Lord to their soul, and thus the representation arose that the voice of the Lord came to them, walking in the garden at that time of day when the air was astir. To look upon "the wind" as a bearer and symbol of what is holy, has thus gone forth from Paradise into all of Revelation. Of God it is said (Psalm 104:3), that He walketh upon the wings of the wind; and in Psalm 18:10, that He flew quickly upon the wings of the wind. When at Pentecost the Holy Ghost came to the Church, a sound was heard from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind (Acts 2:2); and when Nicodemus received instruction regarding regeneration, the Savior purposely applied the symbol of the wind to God the Holy Ghost. Thou hearest the sound thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth (John 3:8), and thus it is with the Holy Ghost. In a northern land like ours where the wind is a common phenomenon, this is no longer so deeply felt. But in the regions from whence sprang Revelation, where weather conditions were more quiet, and the rise of the wind, therefore, more noticeable, the wind in its stirring has ever spoken of higher things. Natural philosophy had not yet come to analyze atmospheric currents. The storm, as it arose with black clouds in the sky, and with its violent boom and roar made the whole forest tremble - that terrible windpower was still explained as coming from above. It came as a mysterious, inexplicable force; it was felt but could not be handled; it was heard. but could not be seen; it was an enigmatic, intangible force, pushing and driving everything before it; and the impression went forth that it acted upon man immediately from God, without any connecting link, yea, as though in that gale God with His Majesty bent over him. "The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind," said Nahum (1:3), "and the clouds are the dust of his feet. " This symbol of the wind is the reverse of that of the temple. The temple speaks to us of a God Who dwells in us as His temple; Who is not afar off, but close by; Who has chosen His abode in our heart, and Who from its depth quickens, reproves or comforts us. Thus the temple symbolizes the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the secrecy of the heart. It represents the intimacy, tenderness and closeness of fellowship. And though there may be a veil in the temple, and fellowship with the indwelling Spirit may sometimes be interrupted, the renewal of love never comes from without. but always from the depth of our own being. It is and always shall be: "Immanuel, God with us;" in Christ with all His people; in the Holy Ghost personally with His child. In contrast with this is the symbol that is borrowed from the wind. Softly the wind of day, as a slight stirring of air, enters Paradise from without; it approaches unobserved, but always comes from without, and thus comes to man who at first does not even perceive it. Here also it begins with a distinction. As symbolized by the wind, man at first is without God; God is separated from man. And not from man in prayer, but from God in the air astir, proceeds the motion whereby He approaches man, awakens him, and at length entirely fills him. Both of these symbols have the right of existence; our Christian life must concern itself with both; and only he who allows these two to come to their own, lives in vital fellowship with the Eternal. Between God and us the difference is so radical in every way, that we can never think of God in His Majesty otherwise than as highly exalted above us; He as having established His Throne in heaven, and we kneeling on this earth as His footstool. This is the relation pictured in the symbol of the wind; the wind striking us from the clouds, and we sometimes feeling the cutting effects of it in the marrow of our bones. But between God and His child there is also a free fellowship which defies distance; which removes every estrangement, and presses toward intimate union. And this relation is pictured in the symbol of the temple. Our heart is a temple of the Holy Ghost, God Himself indwelling in the inner life of our soul. The temple represents the overwhelming wealth of all-embracing love. The gale remains the symbol of the Majesty of the Lord. And only where these two operate completely, each in its own domain, is there both the most blessed worship of God's Majesty, and, at the same time, the most blessed enjoyment of His eternal Love. Thus let the pendulum in the inner life of the soul ever move to and fro. When you feel that for a time you have abandoned yourself too lightly and too easily to the sweetness of mysticism, and in dreamy cornmunion with God might lose the deep reverence for His Majesty, then with one pull snatch your soul loose from this easy familiarity, in order that the greatness of the Lord Jehovah, in contrast with the smallness and the nothingness of your creaturely existence, may appear again in all its sublime loftiness. And, on the other hand, when for a time you have been strongly affected by the Majesty of the Lord so that you know full well the Holy One above, but feel yourself at heart deserted of your God, and that all the more intirnate love of God in the soul threatens to die, then likewise with supreme effort you.must bring your frozen heart under the glow of the everlasting compassions, that fellowship with the Eternal may be tasted by you again. But it is a gain when this swinging of the pendulum is not continued with too much force, and the intimacy of the "Our Father" and the reverence of the "which art in heaven" follow each other rhythmically in the daily experience of our inner life. A life of mere dreaming and super-tender perceptions will not do; he who abandons himself to this weakens and slackens his spiritual existence, becomes unfit for his Divine calling in the world and forfeits the freshness of the life of his piety. With a healthy state of heart there is here constant and regular alternation. There is constant and serious application to our calling, and with it God above us from Whom comes our strength and in Whom stands our help; and then again the search after God in prayer, the losing of oneself in the Word, the becoming inwardly tender by a feeling of sacred love. Our God a God afar off and yet a God near at hand ! Taken this way, the wind obtains still another one than a natural significance. Every day of your life forms a whole by itself, and every day of your life in everything that happens to you, that impresses and affects you, there is a plan and direction of God's. First those hours and moments when nothing speaks to your heart and everything loses itself in the ordinary run of things, and it seems that this day has no message for you. And then sometimes in the most trifling matter there is something that strikes you, that arouses your attention, that makes you think, and causes thoughts in you to multiply; something that a child calls out. to you, a friend whispers in your car, something that of itself comes up from your own soul; or something else that you hear, some message that is brought to you, something that brings color and tone into the dullness of the day and is for this particular day "the stirring of the air" in which the Voice of God comes near unto you. Thus God the Lord comes every dayseeking after us. So the Voice of our God follows after us throughout our life, to draw us, to engage our interest, and to win us for Himself. And therefore lost is every day in which in the stir of the air the voice of your God truly passes by you, but does not affect and awaken you. And also blessed is each day of your existence in which in the gentle stir of the air God makes His approach to your soul, and that approach bears fruition with such intimacy of fellowship that with fresh draughts you may enjoy again the eternal love of your God. __________________________________________________________________ 17. Thou Settest A Print Upon The Heels Of My Feet IT always affects us like a discordant note when in Psalm 39 we read those grievous words of David: "O God, turn away from me, that I may refresh myself !" Is there a more unnatural cry conceivable? Man and God constitute the deepest contrast, and all true religion, springing from our creation after God's Image aims solely to put man into closest cornmunion with his God, and where this is broken to restore it. And here the Psalmist, who still counts as the singer who has interpreted the religious life most profoundly, prays and cries, not for the approach of God; but that God will go away from him, leave him to himself, give him rest, and thereby refresh the closing hours of his life: " Hear my prayer, O Lord, hold not thy peace at my tears, turn away from me, that I may be refreshed, before I go hence, and be no more seen." In Psalm 42 he says: "As the heart desireth the waterbrooks: so longeth my soul after thee, O God," and here the very opposite: "Turn thee away from me, that my soul may refresh itself." On one hand, deepest longing for the joy of the presence of God, on the other, the agonizing cry for deliverance from God's presence. Confess, does it not seem at first hearing as though the one literally contradicts the other? And yet this bitter wail of David does not stand by itself alone. In Job you find an expression, that is even still more painful, of this crushing consciousness of the presence of the Lord, when in order to pour out his consuming anguish in fullest measure, he despairingly exclaims: "Thou puttest my feet in the stocks and thou settest a print of thyself upon the heels of my feet" (Job 13:27). By itself there is nothing strange in this. The ungodly, too, are familiar with this agonizing dread. When unprepared, suddenly a mortal danger overtakes them, they handle, as it were, with their hands the power of God that forces itself upon them. In case of shipwreck out at sea it is seen over and over again that godless scorners, who but a few moments before over their wine-cups were making light of everything that is holy, suddenly stricken with terror spring from their seats with the cry . . "O God, O God!" and pale with fear struggle for their lives. And aside from these, with people who do not make a mockery of religion but in reality live without God - when serious sickness comes upon them or disaster overtakes them we see the same effect; to wit: that they also at such a time become suddenly aware that they have to do with the dreadful unknown power of that God Whom they have long ignored, and they tremble in their heart. In ordinary circumstances we are sufficient unto ourselves. We extricate ourselves from trifling difficulties. We know how to rise above reverses of lesser magnitudes, and when they are overcome, the triumph heightens the sense of our self-sufficiency. In such circumstances we feel free, unconstrained and unencumbered; we are our own lord and master. We are conscious of a lesser power that opposes us, but we push it aside and bravely continue the tenor of our way. But all this becomes different when anxieties, dangers and disasters come upon us that overwhelm us, which we can not face, which nothing can avert, and which render us painfully conscious of our helplessness. Then we feel thatwe are attacked by a higher power, that casts us down and makes all resistance futile and absurd. This power places itself before us as an unseen and unknown opponent, who in a mysterious way cuts the tendon of our strength, binds us as with bands of death, mortally distresses and perplexes us, and leaves us nothing but a shriek of terror. And however much the world has become estranged. from God, at such times there is even in the most hardened heart still some tremor in the face.of the Majesty of God. They have no faith in Him, but an anxious feeling steals upon them that now they must deal with Him, and the reproach that increases their terror is that they have so long ignored Him. But this sense of dread most strongly affects the godly man in the moment that his faith fails him and God loosens His hold of the soul. Then it seems not only that God abandons the soul but at the same time tightens His grip upon the body. A man such as Job could not imagine anything that did not come to him from God. He had partaken of peace as from a cup handed him by God. And now that the evil day had come, and calamity upon calamity struck him, he could not explain it otherwise than that each of these disasters was a new arrow from the bow of Divine displeasure, aimed to strike and mortally wound him. But just because Job was genuinely pious, this could not be the end.. While at first he had the impression that God in anger stood afar off and with arrow upon arrow wounded him from a distance, he now sees God coming nearer to him, and at length, as with the hand of His Almightiness lay hold of him. And at the moment when he feels that God has approached him in anger, as man against man laid hold on him, and is ready to throw him, his fear assumes a yet more striking character. A tyrant who attacked Job and overcame him might at most put his feet in stocks and thereby render him powerless, but now that God does this it can not be all. Now he perceives something that makes it seem as though God not merely stands before him and attacks him from without, but as though with His Almighty Power God enters into his very being, goes through him altogether and causes him to become rigid, so that at length he feels himself penetrated to the very heels of his feet by the Almighty One and crushed by the anger of the Lord. Such mortal agony as this can only overtake the saint. God in his anger is only felt like this by him who all his life most deeply realized the power of his God. Thus there is a twofold perception of God's august presence: at one time in the blessed fellowship which the soul enjoys with God, and at another time in the awful consciousness of God's dreadful presence in the fears that assail us. If now we were dealt with according to our sins and according to our deserts, this latter fellowship exclusively would be our portion, even the fellowship with the Holy One in his Divine displeasure. Thus it will be forever in hell. This is hell. Here on earth diversion, pleasure, all sorts of means are at hand to put the thought of God far from us, and in addition to this, the godless here enjoy the terrible privilege, that they can sin, excepting at rare moments, without being troubled in their conscience by the presence of God Almighty. While here on earth they can put a screen between themselves and God and thus be far distant from Him. But in eternity this is not possible. There they stand from moment to moment in the presence of their God. And this awful consciousness of the presence of their God will be "the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched." It is different with those who already here on earth have known God in His peace. They have received grace. In their behalf, God withdraws Himself in such a way that He covers His displeasure, veils His terrible Majesty, and, in spite of their sins, makes converse and communion with Himself possible without mortal fears. Then between God and the creature there does not stand the screen of worldly vanities, but Christ, the Reconciler, the Redeemer, the Mediator of God and man. Hence already here on earth blessed and sweet communion with God can be enjoyed in Christ. But if for one moment faith fails you, the shield of Christ is removed, and you feel yourself suddenly face to face again with the naked Majesty of God in His anger, and then the agony of soul in God's otherwise devoted children is more awful than the children of this world ever experience on earth. Then for a moment the child of God is caught as in the snares of hell. Such was the case with Job. That was when he exclaimed: "O my God, thou brandest thyself in the heels of my feet. " That was when David prayed: "O my God, turn thee away from me, that I may refresh myself before I die." And herein is grace, that at such moments the Comforter comes to our soul, that again the shield of Christ is put before us and God, Who made His anger flash for us, again reveals Himself to His tempest-tossed child as Abba, Father. __________________________________________________________________ 18. My Shield IN the national hymn of the Netherlands the words are still sung by patriots in public assemblages, and in the streets: "My Shield and Confidence, Art Thou, O Lord, my God." And they but echo the utterance of the Psalmist's soul of thirty centuries ago: "The Lord is a Sun and Shield" (Psalm 84:11). With us the shield no longer plays any part. A battle now is fought at a great distance, with cannon and rapid-firing guns, against which soldiers to protect themselves cover themselves in the ground or behind breastworks. But in those days when David wrote his psalm, fighting was mostly done man to man, at close range, sometimes foot touching foot, the sword of one clashing against that of the other; a struggle that could not end until one of the two was bathed in his own blood. And of course in such a struggle the shield was one's life. Without a shield, while in contest with another who had a shield, one was lost. Hence among the nations of antiquity it was the main thing in fighting, even as to this day it covers the African savage. The shield caught the arrow; it broke the blow of the lance, and parried the stroke of the sword. Therefore when those thousands and thousands in Jerusalem who had handled the shield themselves, and owed their life to it, raised the song of praise in the outer courts of Zion, and gloried in Jehovah as "the shield of their confidence," they felt, in a way we can never fully know, what it means to rejoice in God as in one's Shield. A shield was a cover for the body which, mark you, was not held in front of the combatant by another, but even in extremest danger was handled by the man himself. The shield grasped by the left hand was held before the arm and was in fact nothing else than a broadening of the same. In case of assault one involuntarily raises his arm, and at the risk of having it wounded, tries to cover his face and his heart with it. In order in such encounters not to expose the arm and to cover the larger part of the body the passionate desire to save life invented the shield; first the long shield, which was as long as one was tall, and then the short shield or buckler, with which to parry the stroke of the sword. But always in such a way that the man who handled the shield moved it himself now this way, now that, and held it out against the attack. "The Lord is my Shield" does not say, therefore, that God protects us from afar, and covers us without effort on our part. "The Lord is my Shield," is the language of faith. It sprang from the sense that God is close at hand, that our faith lays hold on Him, that we use Him as a defence against the assailant, and that thus by faith, one with God, we know and feel that we are covered with His Almightiness. In a time of mortal danger a mother can stand before her child, so as to cover her darling with her own body, and then it can be said that that mother is a shield to her child. And so God is still the shield of the little ones who as yet do not know Him, and can bring no faith in Him into action. But this holy imagery did not come from this. It originated with the man who in hard and bitter struggle had handled the shield himself and had saved his life by it. The shield is to the man what the wing is to the eagle. It belongs, as it were, to the body of the warrior. It is one with his arm, and his safe return from war hangs by his dexterous use of it. And so the Lord God is a Shield to those who trust in Him, to those who believe, to those who in times of distress and danger know the never-failing use of faith, and who by reason of this faith understand that God Himself gives direction to their arm. The shield points to battle and to struggle. To the struggle against everything that rises up against us to destroy us in body and in soul. He is our Shield against contagious disease, against the forces of nature, and against danger of death by accident. But, mark you, not in the sense that we should passively submit to it, and leave it to God to cover and protect us. The imagery of the shield allows no such interpretation. On the contrary, that God is a Shield against disease and pestilence, against flood and fire, implies that with utmost exertion we must use every means of resistance that God has placed within our reach; that by prayer we must steel our nerve to act; and that in this way by faith we have God for our Shield, a Shield that we ourselves must turn against the assailant. And this is not different with our soul. No weak interpretation has a place here. We should not say that we must avoid sin, no, we must strive against it. We should know that in sin a hostile power turns itself against us; that back of this power lurks the planning spirit of Satan, who stealthily presses upon us and aims to kill the soul, and who, if we have no shield to lift up against him and no skill to handle it with dexterity, will surely overcome and throw us. Truly, still more than in the struggle for the body, God is your Shield in the struggle to save your soul; but then this demands, that you yourself must fight for your soul; that you yourself must catch the eye of the assailant who aims to destroy your soul, lift up the sword against him and meanwhile cover your soul with your Shield. That God is your Shield in the struggle for your soul means that you yourself must stretch out your hand to God, that you yourself must engage in this warfare with every spiritual means of resistance at your command, and that then you will find that God is your Shield, Who by faith you hold up against Satan. We speak of an escutcheon (by which we mean a shield) on which the man who owns it has engraven his blazon. This is a sign of personal recognition to those who know him, telling who it is that hides behind it. Thus the shield expresses the person; it becomes something by itself; a personification; by it is known the greatness or smallness of the power of defence. Thus God is the Shield of those who trust in Him, a Shield on which human pride has not engraven for itself a lion's or a bull's head, but one on which in deep humility, in trustful meekness, looking away from self, and in confidence in his Father Who is in heaven, he who believes puts nothing but the name of Jehovah. To take the Lord as your Shield, is to hold before the forces of nature and of Satan the Name of the Lord; to show to the world in characters of flame that we belong to the hosts of the living God; that we do not fight by ourselves, but that the Hero who leads us is the Anointed of the Lord; a proclamation that ours is the highest power of every human soul, the invincible power of faith. Thus you see how far this scriptural imagery reaches. We saw it in the confession that God is our Sun, the Sun of our very life. Here you understand that God is our Shield and our Buckler in the struggle to save our life. And then you also feel and know that it means nothing if exultingly you sing of God as your Shield, unless in every emergency, in every form of struggle, instead of leaving this Shield hanging on the wall, you put this sacred Buckler to use by a living, zealous and heroic faith. __________________________________________________________________ 19. Immanuel WITH many, nothing stands quite so much as an obstacle in the way of the practice of intimate fellowship with God as the saying of Jesus to the Samaritan woman at Sychar "God is a spirit, and.they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24). In all our attempts to make representations of things, and no less in all our processes of thought, we begin with what we can see, hear, smell or taste. Our thought has no grip on that which is not material, and when we want to talk about it, and try to picture it to ourselves, we have no way of doing it except as we compare what is invisible with something that is seen. We know that we have a soul, but no one has ever seen his own; and even the question in which part of our person our soul dwells, can only be answered approximately. It is the same with the spirit-world and with the spirits of the departed. Good as well as bad angels are bodiless. They have neither shape nor form by which they can be recognized. Whether an angel needs space in order to exist, no one knows. Whether in illness our sick-chamber can hold a thousand angels or not, no one can tell. Only when in order to appear to us an angel receives form is the difficulty lifted. As long as he is pure spirit without form, he utterly escapes our observation. And it is not otherwise with those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. The dead exist until the return of the Lord in a purely spiritual state, in separation from the body, and we can form no idea about the souls of the departed. And we are troubled by this selfsame obstacle when we try to lift up our heart unto God. God also does not discover Himself to our visible eye. He is Invisible because He is Spirit and the Father of spirits. And for this reason, in the way of our ordinary knowledge and discovery, God is never found or met. The touch of our soul with God takes place in a spiritual manner. It takes place of itself in Immanuel. What is it that makes us feel at once at home, when in foreign parts we unexpectedly hear others speak our own language? Is it not the sense that this language is common property with us and our fellow-countrymen, a language by which we live, and by means of which we come into closer touch with others than is possible in a foreign tongue? We are similarly affected, only far more strongly by the company of animals. Highly organized animals approach man at a high level of intelligence. In the association of a shepherd or hunter with his dog or of a horseman with his horse, it comes not infrequently to a very significant relation. And yet, however close sometimes an animal may come to us, when we join company again with a fellowman, at once another and a far richer world discloses itself to us. He is flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, a soul like our soul. This creates fellowship and makes it more intimate. This is especially marked when we come in touch with people who are of the same mind and aim with us. There are groups among us, classes, professions and a number of other distinctions. And if one desires to become acquainted with us and to know us more closely, so that there is a mutual opening of heart to heart, he must belong to the same group, to the same kind, and, as it were, be embarked with us on the sea of life in the same boat. And this is the significance of "Immanuel." In the Babe of Bethlehem God Himself makes approach to us in our human nature, in order in our language, through our world of thought and with the help of our imagination, to make Himself felt in our human heart according to its capacity. In our nature: This means that it is not required of us that we shall go out from our nature in order to find God by a purely spiritual existence. No, God, our God, wills to bless us, and from His side makes the transition which is spared us. Not that we go to Him but that He comes to us. Not that we must lift ourselves up to Him but.that He descends to us, in order afterward to draw us up to Himself. He enters into our nature, takes it upon Himself, and lies in the manger in the ordinary condition of our human nature. Here the distance between God and ourselves is taken away. The effort is spared us of trying to grasp this by becoming purely spiritual. What we receive, is human nature. What we hear, is human speech. What we observe, are human actions. Through and behind all this, there plays and glistens an unknown brightness, a mysterious loftiness, a transparent holiness, which now does not repel us, but rather attracts and fascinates, because it approaches us in our human nature. So the human nature of Immanuel is not merely a screen to temper the too dazzling-glories. No, it is the means and instrument to bring the Divine life naturally and intimately close to our own heart. It is as though the human nature in us identified itself with the human nature in Jesus in order thus to bring God and our soul into immediate contact one with the other. We do not say that this by itself was necessary. It rather seems that the fact that we are created after God's image supplies us with everything that is indispensable to our fellowship with God. But bear in mind that sin ruined this image of God. And now in this weakened, undone estate only a gift of holy grace could fill in the gap, and this has taken place in Immanuel, in the coming of our God to us in the auxiliary garb of our human nature. That this was necessary, even idolatry affirmed when it imaged the Lord of heaven and earth after the likeness of a man; and therefore the Christian religion could undo idolatry and paganism, since in Immanuel it alone presents the true Image of God anew. Is it not true that only under Christ this intimate fellowship with the living God has been brought about, which has so gloriously expressed itself in psalm and hymnody? Apart from Immanuel, there is merely a philosophy about God, denial of God, or, at most, idolatry and cold deism. In and through Immanuel alone there is a life in and with God, full of warmth, uplift and animation. In Immanuel God draws near to us in our own natural existence, and through Immanuel our soul spiritually mounts up from this nature to the Father of spirits. In Immanuel is the passage, not the goal. It begins with Jesus but it ends with the fact that the Father Himself makes tabernacle with us, when also the day breaks on your soul of which Jesus said (John 16:26): "In that day I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father himself loveth you." Then unfolds itself the rich activity of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, Who could not come until after Jesus had been glorified. Let there not be anything artificial, therefore, or conventional, in our seeking after God. No intentional, premeditated, going out after Jesus with our suppositions, in order thus to find fellowship with our God. What Immanuel brings us is reconciliation, so that we dare draw near again, and, at the same time, the Divine in human nature, so that we can draw near again. What we owe Him is the Word, the rich world of representations and thoughts, the result of His work as our heritage, the supply of powers of the Kingdom which inwardly renew us. But with all this, it is always the personal touch, the actual fellowship with our God that remains a hidden spiritual motion, so that inwardly we hear His voice, and we can say with Job (42:5): "Now mine eye seeth thee." This is fellowship with our God as man with man. Jacob at Peniel ! __________________________________________________________________ 20. In The Light Of Thy Countenance In moments of tense joy the human face is radiant. When the soul is cast down the face expresses gloom, the eye becomes darkened, and it seems that instead of showing itself in the face and speaking through it, the soul turns the face into a mask and hides itself behind it. So there is a relation between color and states of mind: with joy we associate light, with sorrow somber shades, and mourning expresses itself in black. This same contrast presents itself when we enter the world of spirits. Satan is pictured in greyish-black tints; good angels appear as kindly appearances of light. In the Father's house above there is everlasting light; for Satan is reserved the outer darkness. The righteous shall shine as the sun in the firmament, clothed in garments of light. And when on Patmos the Christ appears to S. John, the Apostle beholds a sheen of glory that blinds him. Could it be otherwise than that this selfsame rich thought of light as the expression of what is exalted, holy and glorious should likewise find expression for itself in the world of our worship by application to the Majesty of God? God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. He dwelleth in light unapproachable and Father of Lights is His name. Hence after the creation, God could not appear in the world that He had made save as He first sent out the word: "Let there be light." The Majesty of God revealed itself in a column of fire at the Red sea, in a cloud of light in Jerusalem's temple. When Moses is marked as ambassador of the Lord, a blinding splendor shines forth from his face. On Tabor the Savior showed Himself as in a radiating light enveloping His entire Person. When the new Jerusalem is portrayed, its highest glory is that there shall be no sun and no moon there, because of that world of glory God Himself shall be the Light. Sacred art for centuries expressed this by portraying the head of Christ and of saints surrounded by a halo, and their person in glistening robes. We do not treat this from its material side. It is well known that certain people are strongly impregnated with magnetism and can make electric rays of light to radiate from their finger-tips; and doubtless in moments of great joy, the radiancy of face is connected with material operations; while the source of this facial light is not in the magnetic current but in the spirit, in the soul, in the hidden self, and all the rest is merely used as vehicle and means of direction. He who carefully watches a child - who never conceals anything - in moments of its exceeding gladness, observes in the outward play of countenance that the eyes dilate and increase in brightness; that the complexion heightens so that it glows; and that it is by supreme mobility that this expression of the soul portrays itself in the face. In part, this portrayal of the soul upon the face is even permanent. In contrast with the noble countenance of self-sacrificing piety, there is the brutish, dull, expressionless face of the sensualist. Especially with young persons of constitutional delicacy, with the fire of youth in their eye, and of transparent complexion,the expression in the face of true nobility of soul is sometimes unsurpassingly sympathetic. Thus the language of Holy Writ that speaks of "walking in the light of God's countenance" (Psalm 89:15), receives a voluntary explanation from life itself. With God everything material falls away, but what remains is the utterance of the spiritual, the rich, full expression of the essential. God can not step forth from His hiding, save as everything that reveals itself of Him is Majesty, animation and glory. It is evident that this revelation may also be an exhibition of anger, but this we let pass. We here deal with a soul that seeks after God; a seeking soul that finds God; a soul which, happy in this finding, looks into God's holy Face, in order to watch in blessed quietness everything that goes out from it. This brings but one experience, to wit: that that which beams out from God is never darkness, never somberness;,that it is all light, soft, undulatory, refreshing light, and in that light of the Divine countenance the flower-bud of the heart unfolds itself. This is the first effect. Gloomy people may be pious but they do not know the daily tryst with God. They do not see God in the light of His countenance and in its brightness they do not walk. When they who are otherwise brave of heart get hard lines in their face, it only shows that they have wandered out from the light of God's countenance - and how difficult it is to regain it! A human face that beams with genuine kindness and sympathy is irresistible, and draws out the glow from your face which expresses itself first of all in a captivating smile. But this is far more strongly the case with God the Lord. You can not look adoringly at God in the light of His countenance without the gloom in your face giving way to higher relaxation. In the light of His countenance you learn to know God. When this beams forth, His Spirit emerges from its hiding and approaches your soul in order to make you see, perceive and feel what your God is to you. Not in any doctrinal form, not in a point of creed, but in outpourings of the Spirit of unnamable grace and compassion, of an overwhelming love and tenderness, of a Divine pity which enters every wound of your soul and anoints it with holy balm. The light of God's countenance which shines on you also envelops you. It encloses you. It lifts you up into a higher sphere of light, and you feel yourself upborne, as it were, on the wings of this light by the care of your God, by His providence, by His Almightiness. In the light of God's countenance everything, including your whole life, becomes transparent to you, and from every Golgotha experience you see glory looming up. Also this: The light of God's countenance penetrates every part of your inmost self and leaves nothing of your sins covered in you, though these are covered by grace. Of course it can not be otherwise than that as soon as you are aware of the light of God's countenance shining through your person, every effort to hide sin is futile; altogether different from X-rays, the light of God shines through your entire self, your life, including your past. Nothing is spared. It is an all-pervading light which nothing can resist. The light of God's countenance ought to frighten you, but yet - it does not do this. It can not do this because it lays bare to you the fullness of the grace that is alive in the Father-heart of God. Hence, if there is one who does not yet believe in the perfect forgiveness of his sins, from him God hides His face; only when fullness of faith in the Atonement operates in you, does the light of God's countenance shine out to you, compass and penetrate you. And then follows the walking in that light. Walking here implies that not only occasionally you catch a beam of that light, but that it has become constant to you. That it is there even when you do not think of it, and that it is ready at hand whenever your soul longs for it. And then you continue the walk on your pathway of life from day to day in that light. No longer led by any phantasies of your own, or spurred by worldly ideals that have proved themselves false, with no more darkness of sky above you in which at most a single star glitters, you pursue your way by the light that is above the light of the Sun - even by the outshining of ever fuller grace in the light of the countenance of your God. __________________________________________________________________ 21. Seek Thy Servant A SEARCHLIGHT projected from a tower over city and plain is a striking image of the flashing out of the All-seeing Eye. Amidst shades and darkness with the velocity of the twinkling of an eye, a ray of clear white soft light darts out from a single point as its source, spreads itself over an ever increasing surface of country below, and immediately every object and form in the track of that light stands out in sharp outline. Nothing remains hidden. So from the All-seeing Eye above, heart and soul-searching light beams forth, laying bare the deepest folds of the conscience. It is not this seeking and searching, however, which the Psalmist refers to when he prays (Psalm 119:176): "Seek Thy servant." Scripture here employs the figure of the shepherd who is out on the hills seeking the lamb that wandered off from the flock and is lost. The Psalmist himself tells the story: "I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost; seek Thy servant; for I do not forget Thy commandments." This figure from country life stands far higher than that of the searchlight. Here is love, the yearning to possess again what was lost; and then the inability to let go what belongs to the flock; the motive of the search, or, if you will, the stirring, impelling passion of the heart. Here also is reciprocity. The lost sheep bleats helplessly for the shepherd the while the shepherd scans the moun tain side to find it. The lost sheep wants to be found, and the shepherd wants to find it. The bleating is the call: "Seek me, O shepherd!" and by bleating, the sheep itself co-operates in the finding. So here we have the beseeching cry of the soul: "Seek Thy servant;" the prayer to be found, and at the same time an outpouring of soul, which itself makes the finding possible. He who prays like this is not the child of the world, not the man who, far distant from God, is engrossed in the pursuit of worldly wealth, or who in his heart worships himself as his idol. There is no reference here to the unconverted. He who here prays knows that he is God's servant, that he has entered upon the service of the Almighty; that he has been with God, from Whom now he has wandered away. This is clearly expressed in the image of the shepherd with the lamb. He who has wandered away from the flock has been with it; he who calls for the shepherd has known him. "Seek Thy servant!" is the direct cry of God's child that has known his heavenly Father in His love and for want of this love feels himself lonesome and sick at heart., and longs for the tender enjoyment which it has tasted in the nearness of God. Hence do not misunderstand the mystical sense of this cry of distress. It is not a call for conversion, but for return. He who is not converted can not pray like this. He who so calls, fell away from a love that was once known, and with all the tender yearnings of that lost love he longs that he might have it back. This is a frequent occurrence. One had entered in through the narrow gate; he had seen his path sown with higher light; the sense of new life had thrilled the heart; powers of the kingdom coursed through the arteries of the soul; he knew that he was alive, for the cup of reconciliation, full to the brim, had been handed him; he rejoiced in God his Savior; blessedly within him unfolded the intimate fellowship-life with God in Christ. But it did not last. Fogs rose across the inner sky. From walking in the way he began to wander in by-paths, and presently lost it. Things began to be uncertain, and the heart restless and comfortless. Influences from beneath repressed holy influences from above. How far God seemed to be distant again! how weakened the tie of faith in Christ which was once so firmly strung. So it was all dark again for the soul, a feeling of loneliness and of being forsaken took possession of the heart, until it could endure it no longer, and yearning again after God, it set itself assiduously to the task of seeking after God. This seeking, however, did not bring the finding. No sign marked the way. Going now in this direction and now in that, he remained equally far away from God, or wandered off still farther. No, it has not been put in your power when once you have tasted God's love, to make light of it; first to win it, then to let it go, and then to take it again. He who has known God and has forsaken Him, does not of himself find Him again. So you learn to understand your utter impotence. Of yourself you can do nothing. But this you know, you can not do without God. The absence of His love creates an aching void in your soul. Until at length it is realized: "I can not seek my God again, but He can again seek me." And then comes the anxious bleating of the stray sheep, the call from the depth of the soul to the God that has been lost. The suppliant cry: "O God, seek Thy servant!" This deep longing to find God again can sometimes take a wonderful hold upon a man's heart. There are those who in childhood were graciously permitted to enjoy the love of God, even though they were then but partly conscious of the fact; they were regenerated but conscious faith never reached the fuller knowledge of His Name. This obtained the unusual condition of soul that, though God operated in it by His power, yet doubt entered the mind and the heart. You know certain people who have not as yet been able to grasp the faith, but whose noble qualities of mind and heart render them peculiarly interesting and refreshing; frequently they are far more attractive to you than many a confessed believer. They are as flowers in the bud that can not come to bloom, but this half open bud exhales exquisite fragrance. They are souls that are inwardly consumed with longing after God, and do not understand the nature of their longing. They are not aware that already they belong to God, they are only deeply conscious of nameless drawings after Him. They do not pray themselves, but others who can pray, pray for them: "Lord seek this Thy servant - this Thy handmaid - for every utterance of their lives indicates that they rightfully have a place in the ranks of Thy servants and handmaidens." They are children of the family who have not yet discovered their Father. And such prayer is heard; not prayer from the lips, but from the soul, in behalf of ourselves and of those whom God has laid upon our heart. Then God seeks them, and finds them, and lets Himself be found of them. How this proceeds no one can tell. To bring it about, God employs a man's natural lot in life. He uses a written thought which He makes us read. He works this by means of affliction that heavily burdens the heart, hard and perilous times which try us to the utmost, contact with different people who meet us by the way, impressions of angels which He makes to hover round about us, inworkings which He causes to operate immediately upon our heart. It is the embroidering of God upon our soul of an holy work of art in all sorts of colors and in all sorts of designs. But however different and inscrutable these operations may be, the outcome is assured. God seeks us, and finds us, till at length we discover that we have been found, and the nearness of God is enjoyed vitally, strongly and sweetly again in our heart. Only, in this seeking of God, do not hinder the finding. Not merely doubt, but the very inclination that prefers doubt is sin against God's love. When God seeks you and places His hand upon your shoulder do not draw back, but fall to your knees, offer thanks and adore. __________________________________________________________________ 22. Strengthened With Might NO ONE questions any longer that the atmosphere in which we breathe and live exerts an uncommon influence upon our health. Fresh air builds up and invigorates. You see this with mountaineers, how the fresh mountain air puts iron into their blood; and, in the same way, with those who dwell in marshy regions, how the air, charged with poison from the swamps, keeps them below par and makes them pine away. How can it be otherwise? Is not breathing a restless inhaling, always with full draughts, of what swarms about us in air and atmosphere; and not alone our breathing, but, if in lesser measure, the absorption also of the thousand and ten thousand pores in the skin is a drinking in of the atmospheric elements, and this opens the way to influences that affect our entire system? Hence the pale and the anaemic are always urged to seek fresh air and to breathe more healthy atmospheres. Hence, equally, in hot, sultry summer days the panting for relief which evening brings, and, if within easy reach of the shore, the longing for a breath of the cooler, more invigorating air of the sea. Now, we consist of body and soul, our being is twofold; and so this mighty influence upon our constitution of the atmosphere in which we live naturally finds a counterpart in the strong influence which the moral character of our environment exerts upon our own moral development. This, too, is above question. Sad and joyous events continually show both how injuriously low moral standards affect character, and how life amid moral and healthy surroundings quickens one's moral sense. Education is, perhaps not altogether, but very largely influenced by the surrounding atmosphere - the light and shadow of environment; and the secret of our mother's influence upon the formation of our character is largely due to the fact that as children we were longest in her presence. The moral life, too, has laws and ordinances. It expresses itself in facts and deeds. It reflects itself in writings and conversations. But apart from all this, moral life is still something else, a sort of spiritual air, a moral atmosphere which is either healthy and bracing, poisonous and. injurious, or neutral and weakening. And though your character may be strong you, too, undergo these several influences to your spiritual profit or loss. This is not all. There is not only in the air you breathe a power that affects your bodily health and, in your moral environment, a power that operates upon your moral life, but there is also an atmosphere of person which counts. Constant association with a sensually disposed person of little elevation of character has a depressing effect upon your own. On the other hand, daily intercourse with a person of higher principles, of more seriousness of thought, of holier aim in life, stimulates you. Such a one is like a good genius to you. Such environment holds you back from what would otherwise pull you down. This is especially evident when this person is indeed a man of sterling character or a woman of a dominant spirit. Persons exercise an attraction upon one another which has a levelling effect. The one is stronger than the other, and the stronger molds the weaker into uniformity to his own nature. Imitation lies at the bottom of human nature, and unobservedly and unintentionally the weaker inclines to be and to act like the stronger, even to the extent sometimes, of the inflection of voice and kind of conversation. And this personal influence of itself leads to the influence of the religious atmosphere, which is distinctly different from the moral. All religion is personal at the core. Moses has put the print of his personality upon all Israel. Christendom has been carried into the world by the Apostles. S. Augustine has inspired the Middle Ages. The Reformation on the Continent of Europe and in the British Isles bears the stamp of its spiritual fathers. And in every community, to this day, in which a strongly animated religious life is dominant, you can point out the persons from whom this bracing atmosphere has emanated. It is, then. fire from the heart of one that kindles fire in the heart of the other. The child of God that is robed with the beauty of holiness, as with a garment, also wins souls for God in his environment. Now we come to the highest rung of the ladder which, as a rule, is too little reckoned with. There is a breathing-in of mountain air and sea air. There is a drinking-in of the moral atmosphere that surrounds us. There is an appropriation in ourselves of the animation that comes to us from a finely-strung heart with which we are in touch. But there is also, and this is the highest, a hidden walk with God Himself; and it is the influence that goes out from this hidden walk which for the strengthening of our heart far excels all others. S. Paul prays for the Ephesians (3:16), that they might be "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man." This, then, is the highest, richest, holiest atmosphere that can and must work upon you inwardly. Suppose that Jesus were still on earth and that you, say for the space of a month, could see Him every day; you would feel yourself transferred thereby into an atmosphere of noble and holy living which in an unequalled way would strengthen you with might in the inner man. To live for three long years in this holy atmosphere was the all-surpassing privilege of the Apostles, so that afterwards, strengthened in the inner man, they were enabled, even without the visible presence of Jesus, to witness against the world. This is not possible now. We know Jesus no more after the Flesh. But through Him we have access to the Father Himself, and the daily, personal, hidden converse with God is open to us. If, now, you take this to mean that it all ends with the short moments that you pray, then you remain in this holy atmosphere only a short time. All your prayers together, as a rule, do not occupy more than one half hour in every twenty-four. But this is not the way the Scripture takes it. Already David sang (Psalm 23:6). "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." And all the saints who before and after the royal harpist have sought, found, known and enjoyed this hidden converse with God, understood by it, a frequent thinking of God, a continual lifting up of the soul to Him, a pondering on all things with an eye to Him Who loves us, an ever being near unto Him, and a continual experience of blessedness in His holy, courage-inspiring and animating nearness; a personal appreciation of His omnipresence; our whole life and our whole existence being immersed, as it were, in the holy nimbus that shines out from His Divine Being - a feeling in our own heart of the throbbing of the Father-heart of God. Churches with such a motive-power are alive; others that lack this, though dogmatically they may be sound, are dead. A preacher who brings this atmosphere to his congregation is an ambassador of God. Preachers who have no eye for this, because their heart does not go out after it, are as tinkling cymbals. When to be near unto God is your joy and your song; when you dwell in His tent, and the hidden converse with Him is daily your delight, then your whole person undergoes day by day the mighty, strengthening influence of the holy atmosphere above; of that atmosphere in which angels breathe and from which departed saints drink in the never-fading freshness of their soul. Thus the powers of the kingdom communicate themselves unto you in the inner man. This is heavenly ozone that fans your soul; power that restrains in you what is impure and unholy; draughts from the Fountain of life which make your breast swell with vitality and vigor; even the Holy Ghost in whom God Himself touches you and inspires you to nobler exhibits of power. O! what a change would overtake all of social life if every soul could breathe this holy atmosphere. But this is the sin in point. When you say to one who is anaemic. "seek mountain air," or "seek sea air!" he at once considers the means to do it. Everyone is willing to do this! But when you say to one who is spiritually weak: "Withdraw yourself from your surroundings and seek an atmosphere of a higher moral character," then you may move a single individual, but by far the greater number continue to delight themselves in their own evil ways. And when you go further and say: "Practice the hidden walk with God, and drink in the atmosphere of the life above!" - then no one moves except as God Himself draws him. This is a proof of the very high grace that has been ministered to you, if you indeed do know this secret walk. O, bend the knees, even as S. Paul, unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that this glorious privilege may not be taken from you, but that rather from this hidden walk you may continually obtain might to strengthen you in the inner man. __________________________________________________________________ 23. To Whom Is The Arm Of The Lord Revealed ? There is no thought that lifts us more effectually above the power of the dust, and consequently, also, above the temptation of the senses, than the confession, that God is a Spirit; and from this a second thought follows naturally: that they that worship Him can not and must not worship Him otherwise than "in spirit and in truth." This leaves no room for introducing anything whatsoever into the worship of God's Name. that is material, sensual or bound to form. God is a Spirit. That is the truth which liberates your existence, your soul, your spiritual being from every tie that inwardly would bind and distress you; always, of course, on this condition, that you worship also personally in spirit and in truth with all the love of your heart this God, Who is Spirit. God is a Spirit. That is the undoing of all idolatry, of all worship of the creature, of all homage paid to images in unholy form and the expulsion of all the sensual cruelty which idolatry brought with it, and which hastened the downfall of the nations of antiquity. God is a Spirit. That entails a lifting up of your human existence above the whole visible world, and a lifting up of your spirit to those higher spheres of the invisible world, where God dwells in inapproachable light. For if God is a Spirit, then He is independent of this whole visible world; then He existed before the mountains were brought forth; then there is an eternity in which nothing material had been created; and then it follows that all things visible occupy a secondary place. Then the dying of your body is not the dying away of your existence. Then you can continue to be, to exist, even when for a while you yourself will be nothing but spirit. And then you can enjoy already here on earth the deep satisfaction that, if necessary, you can afford to despise the whole world, and yet maintain high spiritual standing, and spiritually be supremely rich in God. But however potent and superlatively rich the confession that God is a Spirit may be, it, too, has been corrupted by sin. You feel this most strongly when for a moment you think of Satan and of the whole world of demons. It is true that some people who take pride in the thought that they are "civilized" and "highly developed" take Satan and his demons as mere fabrications of weak minds. All they who believe, agree in this matter that Jesus knows better than these quasi enlightened minds, and that in the Our Father He taught us to pray: "Deliver us from the Evil One," and wove the good rule into it, when He put the prayer in our lips: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." "In heaven" must mean, "by thy angels." What are angels, except bodiless beings who are only spirit? And if Satan, as can not be otherwise, was not created evil, but was originally a good and brilliant creature of God, who belonged to the world of angels, what else can we do than confess of him that he too is a spirit, and that his demons also are spirits? Does this make sin purely spiritual, and does this exclude it from the world of sense? By no means. It does say that all sin, including voluptuousness and drunkenness, originates in the spirit, and that the Psalmist was correct when he prayed (Psalm 19:13): "Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me; then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression." Nothing is more deplorable, therefore, than that in society at large "immorality" is taken almost exclusively to consist in drunkenness, riotous living or adultery, and that pride, self-glorification, and the consequent low estimate of others, bitterness, anger and the passion of revenge in nowise seem to detract from the good name of celebrated men. According to this theory, the glorious confession that God is a Spirit, is then abandoned to the most dreadful pantheism, presumptuous pride leading at length to such an exaltation of self that one dreams that he himself is God. And from this, and this alone, even among christian people the monstrous madness has evolved that having "the new man in the spirit" all responsibility for whatever sensual sins "the old man" might have committed can be thrown to the wind. This is precisely the error which is now alive again in the school of Maeterlinck - that the pure soul within obtains no stain from the sensual misdeed done by the body. All this Holy Scripture subverts, by impressing upon the soul, on one hand, that God is a Spirit, and on the other hand, with equal emphasis, that all the doings of God are personal doings, operations of a Person Who stands over against and alongside of us. God is a Spirit, and therefore not a latent force, not a spiritual impulse pervading the whole creation, not a vague, elusive, inapprehensible working. No, thrice no; but a God Who is our Father Who is in heaven, Who speaks to us, Who listens to our prayer, in Whom throbs a heart full of Divine compassion; a personal God, Who companies and converses with us as friend with friend, Who turns in to pass the night with us, and Who allows us to dwell in His holy tabernacle. Hence the constant picturing to us of the works of God as personal deeds, and the references to the face of God, to the mouth of the Lord, to the ear He inclines toward us, to the footsteps of the Holy One, to the hand which He lifts up in blessing upon us, and to the arm of power wherewith the Lord our God breaks all resistance. All this is to a large extent personification, i.e., an application to God of what is found in man. But there is more in it than this. "Shall not he," the Psalmist asks (Psalm 94:9), "that planted the ear not hear? Shall he that formed the eye not see?" Our eye, ear, mouth, hand and arm are nothing else than bodily manifestations of our inward powers, even those which God so created in us because He fashioned us after His Image. Hence when we say that God hears, sees, speaks, blesses and fights, this is not metaphorically expressed after the manner of men, but it means that all this is original in God, and appears in us merely after His Image. When Scripture therefore makes mention of an "arm of the Lord, it means that there is not merely a vague outflowing of power from God, but that God Himself governs this indwelling and outflowing power, that He directs it to a given aim, that He uses it or leaves it unused according to His good pleasure; and that when God employs His power, either in our behalf or against us, this is equally, and in a still higher sense, a personal deed, as when we men lift up our arm in order to protect the helpless, or to ward off an assailant. When Isaiah (53:1) asks: "To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" and we direct this question personally to you: "Is the arm of the Lord revealed to you?" then this does not mean the general, vague question as to whether you believe that there is a God, and that there is a power of God, and whether you acknowledge that this power of God operates; but the question means whether in your experience of life and in that of your soul, you have come to the discovery that this Almighty God deals personally with you, that as God He has turned Himself personally to your person, that He has come in touch with you as a man deals with his friend or with his adversary, and whether in this severe personal relation you have discovered the arm of the Lord, at one time lifting up itself to cover and to protect you, at another time turning itself against you to resist and to vanquish you. And this is what is lacking in the spiritual life of most people, alas, even among professed followers of the Lord. They lack that which is recorded of Moses; that he endured as seeing the Invisible. They do not understand when of Jacob it is written, that he wrestled with God as with a man. They have a vague sense of influences, of operations, of powers that go out, but they do not see the Holy One, they have no dealings with God as with their Father Who comes to His child, looks upon that child with His eye, listens to it with His ear, lays His hand upon that child and covers it with the arm of His power. They pray to God, they praise Him, but do not meet Him on the way, they do not feel Him near upon their bed, they do not feel His holy breath go out upon them, they do not see that "arm with power" in which lies all their assurance and salvation. Hence, it can not be insisted upon with sufficient urgency that Bible reading be made a more serious business; that we wean ourselves from the false tendency to take everything in Scripture metaphorically. The Scripture, the Word of God, is the lamp before our feet and the light upon our path, because it alone engraves these two things upon our soul, both that God is a Spirit and that this God, as our Father Who is in heaven, comes to us by the way, meets us face to face and deals with us as a man with his neighbor. Invisible and yet seen. __________________________________________________________________ 24. That They Might Know Thee "THIS is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God!" (S. John 17:3). No deeper meaning nor more exalted aim can express itself in human words. Indeed it is not spoken by a seer to us men, but by the Son to the Father; a word that must ever be overheard anew by him who seeks God, since for this purpose it was intended, and for this purpose has come to us. Of the prayers that Jesus prayed here on earth during more than thirty long years, in Joseph's home in Nazareth, on the mount, or in desert places, in the morning and when the sun inclined to set, by day and at night - nothing has been handed down to us save a few outpourings of soul, and the cry of distress in Gethsemane. Here, however, in this chapter of S. John the high-priestly prayer of the Savior is given us in all its sublime tenderness, and He Who has given us the Scripture as a vade mecum on our pilgrim journey, has appointed and ordained that what Jesus here prayed to the Father can evoke an echo from our own praying heart. Suppose that all the prayers of the Savior had been preserved in book-form, it would be a treasure that could not be exhausted. First the child-prayer from the newly unfolding soul-life which already at the age of twelve had opened up so divinely that, even in its still limited form, it immediately breathed and grasped perfection. Then the period in the prayer-life of Jesus from the twelfth to the thirtieth year, spent in retirement and preparation for the undertaking of the great work of redemption. And then that third period of three years, so brief, so quickly past, and yet by far the richest because of the storms that raged and were battled with through more than a thousand days; and who shall say how many hours of the night were spent in agonizing prayer each week that linked one Sabbath to another. And yet, of all this wealth of prayers nothing is given us to overhear, nothing has come to us, practically nothing has been recorded, save this one: "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." And now, here, in the high-priestly prayer, this holy diadem that has been handed down to us unimpaired and unabbreviated. is at heart the selfsame thought: "This is eternal life that they might know thee, the only true God." In S. Matthew (11:25): "Not the prudent and the wise, but babes:" here in S. John (17): "Not the world, but those whom thou hast given me out of the world." In each case: The knowledge of God, that which has been revealed of the Holy, is taken as the highest. And in all this the one thing to be adored is the good pleasure of God. An act of prayer, not as criticism of what is holy, but a receiving, a drinking in of holiness, and by this entering in of holiness into our life, to live not merely eternally, but with a life that in its own nature is eternal. There is life when something stirs within us and when, from this inward stirring, something enters into being. So it is with the pregnant mother who feels life because she is aware of motion within herself and by this knows that presently life is to he born from her. So, and not otherwise, it is with our person, with our self, with the inward existence of our soul within us. If everything remains quiet within you, if you hear nothing from your soul, if nothing stirs within your inmost parts, then it remains a secret to you whether or no your soul lives. You have a part in the life of the world, as the undulation of the waters at sea leaves no single drop at rest, but shares constant, restless motion with it. But this is for you no life as yet of your own; no inward stirring, the impetus of which springs from within yourself. Such undulation in conjunction with the undulation of the world can truly develop warmth within you and enrich you either intellectually or in the range of your affections, but it lacks in you any individual impulse, and therefore can give you no lasting possession. And when at length the moment arrives, in which death lifts you out of the undulation of the life of the world, you shake off this impersonal life that has been lived along with others, and you have nothing. The individual, personal life in you springs from a germ which God caused to germinate from the seed implanted in you, and this germ demands, in order to be able to develop itself, constant feeding, with nourishment suited to its nature. If this germ in you does not find this food, it becomes impoverished and shrivels. That it is surfeited with food foreign to its nature is no help. This it can not assimilate, can not digest. And in so far as it does enter into it, it is thereby denaturalized. Neither is it any help that, only once in a while and in certain measure, it receives food suited to its nature. To develop itself in full measure. it must be fed regularly and continuously with proper food; and this must not end until its growth and unfolding is completed. This is "eternal life" for the soul. Not merely a life hereafter, but an unfolding of your inner being according to its disposition, its nature and destiny; an unfolding whereby whatever poisons the inner life blood is expelled; whereby there is never lack of what the life blood needs; and whereby this inward feeding, strengthening and sanctifying is so constant, so permanent, so essentially eternal, that complete fruition is attained. This is eternal life. Eternal life for the inner being of the man created after God's Image. And this is the word of Jesus, that your soul finds; this feeding for eternal life only and alone in the Eternal Being Himself. "God Himself is my portion, my everlasting good" (Psalm 16:5). "What can my heart desire on earth beside thee?" (Psalm 73: 25). God is the highest good! "In thy light we see light, with thee is the source, the fountain of my life" (Psalm 36:9). Undoubtedly, everything is continually coming to us from God, everything is owing to Him, every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of Lights. From Him, through Him and to Him are all things. But the end and aim is that God Himself shall be all and in all. Glorious is the confession that our God is Lord of lords, King of kings, that He appoints, allows and governs all things; but deeper, infinitely deeper, is the experience of the entering in of God the Holy Ghost, who tabernacles in you, chooses you for His temple, prays in you and prays for you with unutterable groanings. In this alone the heart finds rest. All that grace apportions unto us is but outshining of brightness and glory; the burning hearth itself of all heat and glory is in God Himself. Every drop of the water of eternal life refreshes us, but the Fountain from which these waters spring is the Divine heart of the eternal Being. And, therefore, throughout the entire Scripture, throughout the whole Church, and in the souls of all saints, it is ever and always this one passionate outburst of song: "It is good for me, it is my blessed lot, to be near unto my God." Him the eye seeks,. Him the heart desires; and only when the soul within us has found in God its highest good, the germ within us revives from its withering, and the developing, the unfolding begins, whereby from the bursting bud appears the blossom of everlasting life. This can not be otherwise because of the nature of your soul. You have not made that soul yourself. The world has not formed its nature. Neither has it become what it is by chance. What the soul of man should be, God alone has determined. And as God has appointed it, so is the soul in its nature, and so it continues to be, irrespective of whether it he the soul of a Judas or the soul of a S. John. It can develop itself in a holy way, it can also wither and canker away in sin; but whether it develops in glory or by poison becomes corrupt, this development and this corruption both are what they are by reason of the nature of the soul as God has planned it. From God every creative plan has gone forth; a plan for the stars in the firmament, for the corn in the ear, for the lark that sings among the branches, for the angel that sings the "Holy, holy, holy," in the sanctuary above. But the creation of man's soul was of a different nature. With charming clearness the Scripture defines the nature of the soul in the single phrase, that you have been created after the Image of God. This includes everything. From this everything explains itself. From this it follows that the soul can never have its "highest good" otherwise than in Him after Whose Image it originated. And for this reason the further truth, that everything that directs the soul to another good, rather than to God, as the highest, wounds, corrupts and poisons it. It is painful to see that the nations in their seething masses understand nothing of this. More painful it is to see how many there are among serious people, who reach out after everything but God. And most painful it is to see that there are even many Christians who chase and press after everything, but show that they have never enjoyed their highest good. Yet Jesus does not despair. He continues even now above to pray for His saints here below: "Father, this is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only, true God," and ever and anon the inner soul-life in a child of God discloses itself, and responds to that prayer an. "Amen, yea, Amen!" __________________________________________________________________ 25. Show Us The Father IN this meditation also the main thought is the striking word of Jesus: "This is eternal life, that they might know thee, the Only true God." The meaning of this saying is too profound, too rich to be fully thought out at one time. So we come back to it now, and will do so again presently. We tried to make you feel what eternal life is. We did not undertake to epitomize it in one idea, neither have we analyzed the conception of it. We tried to interpret the idea of the life that is eternal more fully than as if it were merely a life without end. A life extending without end would drive you to hopeless despair; eternal life, something entirely different, inspires and rejuvenates. Now to the point. It does not say that he who knows the Father shall receive eternal life. It is not said: If you are religious and zealously seek to know God, your reward after your death shall be eternal life. It states altogether differently that, to know God is itself eternal life. And you realize that the difference is heaven-wide. Eternal life, taken as a reward for your painstaking efforts to learn to know God, is a superficial, mechanical and unnatural interpretation. On the contrary an eternal life that itself consists in knowing God is a thought so deep, that you, peering into it, see no bottom. Eternal life, interpreted as a reward for knowledge, represents it as a sort of school discipline. Much study, much memorizing, much taking notes of dictations, and then, as a reward, promotion from a mortal and passing existence into an ever-enduring, never-ending one - a kind of higher life-insurance. It then comes to consist of a piece of memory-work. A study of a subtly composed work on dogmatics, every part of which has been traced out in all its particulars, and which presents in an orderly form what in the course of ages has been systematized regarding the Being and work, the Person and attributes of the Infinite. And when at length everything has become dry and barren to the eye of your soul, till no more fragrance of life is perceptible anywhere, then this barren, dead knowledge is to receive the reward of eternal life. But the knowledge of God itself is eternal life. He who possesses this knowledge already possesses this eternal life now. On the other hand, he who dies without having found this knowledge of God here, will not find it in the hereafter. On him the eternal morning never dawns. You feel, you handle it. So interpreted (for so it must, so only it may he taken) this word of Jesus presses itself upon you as a power, as a strong power that enters into your very being and conscience, and asks you: "Have you already obtained this knowledge of God?" - as a power that urges you, now. before it is too late, to reach after this knowledge, until in the stirring of your soul you feel the swell of the undulation of this eternal life. And now comes Philip and asks naively: "Lord, show us the Father" (S. John 14:8). This was childlike in its simplicity, and yet he took the proper starting point from which to advance. He who so asks shows that he is in earnest. He wants to attain unto the knowledge of God. It is evident, from his saying that he desires no book-knowledge but life-knowledge of God. He wants to know God, God Himself. And what more natural than that he begins by asking: "Show me the Father." In some quarters the religious life has developed itself too dogmatically. This was inevitable, it could not be otherwise. Doctrinal expression was indispensable. But yet it is not without risk when it appears too one-sidedly in the foreground. It is the selfsame difference as between the Gospels and the Epistles; in the latter, dogmatic conflict is already in evidence. And even in the Gospels you have the same difference between the Sermon on the Mount and the controversy of Jesus with the Scribes. The early periods of Christianity were better than the later. What rapture marks the language of early creedal statements and liturgies, and offices of Holy Communion, and how comparatively barren and emaciated are later formulas. At first, life runs like a river. Later on there is nothing more than drained river-beds, with only some weak rill coursing through the sand. Oh, who can say how greatly this has impoverished the people of the Lord! Now, Philip knows nothing of these contrasts. He still faces it with childlike ingenuousness. God is to him really the Eternal Being. God is his desire, he seeks after God, and therefore it is the prayer of his heart that he might see God. And so in stress of soul he says: "Show us the Father." When some person is mentioned, and you are asked, "Do you know him?" then, if you do not know him, nothing is more natural than that you say: "I have not even seen him." Seeing is of first importance. To receive an impression by seeing, speaks for itself. This accounts for the fact that both in the Old and New Testaments this seeing of God appears always in the foreground. Even as early as Moses when he prayed: "Show me Thy glory!" and Jehovah answered: "No man shall see my face and live" (Exodus 33:18, 20). And you know how later on S. Paul exulted in the fact that: "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 (1 Cor. 13:12). This takes place, in a measure here; but more fully hereafter. "We shall see face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known." The life of Scripture throbs with such words as these. Here all barrenness is gone. It is full of reality. It is all for the sake of God, the living God; to see Him, to behold Him; and then ardently to rejoice in this life-giving insight. And therefore what Philip asked ("Lord, show us the Father") was a well chosen beginning, springing from the deep-felt thirst after the living God. But, alas! outside of you, God can not be seen, and why He can not be, is perfectly plain. You can only see that which is outside of you, when it presents itself to you in the world as a separate object, and is sufficiently defined to fall within the range of your vision. No one can see the world, but only such pieces and parts of it - now this part, now that - as may fall within your reach. But even if you could see the whole world, which is impossible, you would not be able to see God; for the world is finite, and God infinite, and the broadest conception you make of the world, sinks away into nothing when compared with the infinite God. And then you can only see whatever has form, figure, appearance, and falls within your range; and "God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth." To see God outside of yourself is therefore impossible. To want to see Him outwardly is to belittle Him, to give Him material form, and to deny Him as Spirit. And here idolatry comes in. Idolatry was this: that the nations "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man" (Rom. 1:23). This did not spring from wickedness, but from piety. It was not the worst but the best people of a nation that built temples and placed an image of God in them. From among these nations the cry went up: "Show us God." And the priest did show them their God in an image that they made. They thought in this way to bring God closer to the people; and yet by that miserable image they caused all knowledge of God to be lost. With every representation of God, God Himself is gone. Hence the judicious warning of S. John, before he died: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols! " (1 John 5:21). And so the two continue to stand over against one another. On one hand, the urgent call: "Show us the Father!" The soul-cry which is not satisfied with a dogma, a conception, a formula; which wants to possess God himself; the truly pious, childlike thirst for the living God: on the other hand, you can not represent God to yourself as an object, nor see Him with your eye. He is the Invisible One. And with every effort to represent Him in an image. you lose the Infinite and wander ever farther away from Him. The reconciliation of these mutually excluding perceptions - that you, are inwardly driven not to rest till you see God, and that you, by representing God to yourself, lose Him altogether - lies in what Jesus replied to Philip: "He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then: Show us the Father?" (John 14:9). But how? There is a perception outside of you, but there is also a perception within you. Not within yourself alone, but within you in your human nature. Now, in the Son of man, God Himself appears before you in this human nature. And by your fellowship with the Son of Man you also see your God, in Jesus, through Jesus, and in yourself by the Holy Ghost. Not the image of God in the temple of idols, but the Image of God in the Messiah ! __________________________________________________________________ 26. He That Hath Seen Me Hath Seen The Father MORE than once there flowed from Jesus' lips expressions, declarations, words, which still in reading them make you tremble, and shrink back, except you worship Him. As for instance, when Jesus says to you, and to every one: "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me" (Matt. 10:37). Imagine some one in our days at a public gathering daring to say anything like this. Every hearer would count him insane. Or still worse, if some one entered your room, and in your presence thus addressed your child - would you not be bent upon finding the surest means of keeping this corrupter of your child away from him for the future? Yet Jesus spake thus; and you yourself impress it upon your child that, this is true, and must be so, because you worship Him. And in the same way with what Jesus answered Philip: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," there is the selfsame difficulty. Whoever spoke like this, you would at once endeavor to render harmless by putting him away among the insane, except you yourself worshiped and adored God in Him. Choice there is none. Against a man of such blasphemous pretension, public opinion among any people not dead to religion would demand measures of protection. But your heart gives an echo that says Amen to this striking word of Jesus, because you yourself worship Him. It all depends on this. The Sanhedrim, the vociferous Jews in the court-square at Jerusalem, acted logically from their point of view when they saw in Jesus a blasphemer and cast Him out - so long as they themselves did not worship Him. As long as their eye was closed against Jesus' divine Majesty, they could not do otherwise. And their fault, their sin, their mortal guilt was not that they cast Jesus out, but that they did not see God in Him. That is to say, their mouth was full of talk about God, but when in Jesus God appeared before them, they knew Him not and denied that it was God. Such is still the case. In times when the religious capacity of observation is illumined, thousands again see God in Jesus, who were not aware of it before. And, again, in times like ours when this religions capacity of observation is limited and weakened, the masses die to the faith, and soothe themselves by heaping honorary titles upon Jesus, such as: "the ideal-man," "the example of true piety," "the hero of faith," "the martyr of a sacred cause." Altogether words - and again words - to hush the conscience, and to evade the inevitable consequence of an acknowledgement of His Deity, that with Thomas they kneel down and in ecstatic adoration exclaim: "My Lord and my God." Voltaire fell into the frenzy of daring, when "L'Infame" flowed from his reckless pen. And yet, Voltaire was braver than these irresolute spirits; and so far as the root of the matter is concerned they stand where Voltaire stood. They also do not believe that he who saw Jesus saw God. Only, they take no chance by saying how Jesus Who dared to claim this must be judged. This seeing of God in Jesus is the highest act to which the spirit of man can come. Many accept this while they are still children, but do not think about it much as they grow older. As for the rest, they leave this conviction uncultivated and do not apply it to their later developed consciousness, but leave it alone as something alien. You should not judge these people too severely. Many are not able to do more. Their hand reaches no farther, and they no doubt have a sensation of moral uplift from this immature conviction. But the thrice blessed, who have been initiated into an intimate and more ardent piety, can not rest content with this. They ponder and meditate, and undergo sensations and experiences of soul which cause them to enter more deeply into the mystery than is ever possible, without this activity of soul, by mere analysis of doctrine. To them seeing is something other than sight with the sensual eye, because this is not the richest, not the clearest, not the fullest seeing. God saw before we saw, without the eye of sense, purely spiritually and immediately. When God imparted the gift of sight to man, by creating him after the Divine Image, it could not be otherwise than that in man, too, this sight originally must also have been spiritual, internal and immediate. And only because God clothed man with a body also, and placed him in a material world, did He form for him the eye by which to see this world. But for this purpose alone; for nothing else. And therefore this material eye could not do service for any other perception than for that of this visible world. In behalf of the other, deeper, much richer and far more extensive world, which is not visible, this bodily eye is of no avail. For this, man received another eye, the eye of the soul, to which the eye of the body, as a subordinate instrument, only renders auxiliary aid. Hence there are two worlds: the spiritual world and the visible world, and in connection therewith, two kinds of eyes: the eye of the soul and the eye of the body, and consequently two kinds of sight, the seeing immediately by the spirit, and the seeing mediately through the eye; a seeing inwardly, and a seeing outwardly. An ideal perception, of which we even now have such a clear sense that nothing is more common than the saying: "You see that I am right," - "the seeing" referring to something that has been said, argued, explained, and not to something that has been shown to the eye of sense. To see the Father in Jesus was, from the nature of the case, no primitive action of the sensual eye. God is a Spirit. He who in Jesus would see the Father, must therefore in Jesus see that Spirit which is God. And therefore there can be no other meaning here than of a spiritual sight with the eye of the soul. First you may only become aware that in Jesus there is something spiritual, much as in other holy persons. By further study of His inner Self, you perceive that what is spiritual in Jesus stands at a higher level than with any one else, and that in Him it is clearer, fuller, richer. But this does not as yet explain Jesus to you, "higher, richer, fuller spirituality" than in others, even the best, does not as yet say enough. There discloses itself in Jesus a still more unfathomable depth, so that at length you must acknowledge that in Him the spiritual lives and glows more richly than you could ever picture it in your imagination. In Jesus it exceeds what was deemed possible, it surpasses the conceivable, and thus your spiritual observation of Jesus passes over into the infinite. You make no more distinctions. From the background of His being eternal perfection shines out toward you. And now everything shifts before the eye of your soul. Unconsciously you have passed from the finite into the infinite, and thus you feel that it is God Himself Whom you perceive through Jesus and in Jesus - and you kneel down, and you worship. Yet this experience of yours is not independent of what your eye of sense sees in the Incarnated Word. In thus scrutinizing Jesus you do not separate His spirit from His personal appearance. You do not eliminate the body in order to penetrate to the soul. You take Jesus as He was, spoke, appeared and labored. It is a complete manifestation, a whole, a mystery that stands before you. And as, even among ordinary people, sometimes a moment comes when they appear radiant, and their face, their eye, around their lips, in their word, their appearance, their act, allow their soul to shine through, so that through their outward form you look into their inward being-so it was with Jesus, only infinitely more strongly, and with Him at all times. His appearance must have been overwhelming. The impression which He made must have been full of surprise. And when you think what soulfulness there was in His holy eye, what impressiveness in the features of His face, what sympathy and power in His finely modulated voice, you feel at once that the physical appearance of Jesus was no hindrance to a perception of the Divine in Him, but rather a vehicle by which to approach it. It was as though through Jesus, God Himself came out into the visible world, inviting and alluring all who saw Jesus, to admire and to worship God in Him. If when Jesus appeared on earth, man had been as he was before the fall in paradise, in Jesus every one would at once have recognized God to the full. But with the darkened eye of the soul of sinful man this was not possible. God was there in Jesus, but the world could not see it. There was a veil before the eye of the soul, and only when God Himself lifted this veil, did man see Deity in Jesus. This eye in the soul is not a separate thing. It is rather the sum-total of all the powers in the soul which enable it to become aware of, to perceive, to discover and to enjoy. This spiritual sight is a feeling, a perceiving, with all the powers that slumber in the soul. It is a waking up of the entire human nature that is within us, which, created after the Image of God, goes back to that original Image, clearly perceives the relation between the Image and the original, between the original and the impression, imprints it upon its own sense of self, and so knows God with an inward knowledge. So alone has the human nature in Jesus grasped and known God to the full. In each and every one of us is not human nature as a whole, but this nature in one variation, in one special, definite form. In Jesus, on the other hand, this human nature itself was embodied. Therefore was He called the Son of Man. And because of this, Jesus was not only God, but as man also He alone of all others entirely grasped and understood the Father. "No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him." Thus you can not of yourself, and when left to yourself, with your inner soul-perception grasp God, and with the eye of your soul see God. Jesus could and can do this well, but not you. And for you the way thereto is opened only when you go to Jesus, when you become adopted in Jesus' fellowship, so that you become a living member of this mystical Body of which Jesus is the Head. And then you not only see God in Jesus, but God also comes to make tabernacle in you through the Holy Ghost. For this indwelling of God in your soul is for you the disclosing of the Divine mystery to your own hidden self within your inmost hidden parts. "Philip, have I been so long a time with you, and do you still say: Show me the Father? "He that hath seen me he hath seen the Father" - in me and through me, your Savior! __________________________________________________________________ 27. With All My Soul WHEN the question is raised, whether there is one that seeketh after God, the Psalmist disputes it, and bitterly complains: "They are all gone aside. . . . there is none that doeth good, no not one" (Psalm 14:3). There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. Did the poet then dissemble, when in the ear of all the ages he sang so touchingly: "As the hart panteth after the, waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God!" (Psalm 42:1). Or did Asaph only pretend a state of soul, which was nothing but self-deceit, when he exultingly exclaimed: "Nevertheless, I am continually with thee" (Psalm 73:23). Certainly not. The question is, whether by nature in the heart of even one person the magnetic attraction still operates, which draws toward God and overcomes every hindrance, every resistance. The answer to this is no, and ever again, no; there is no such drawing in the human heart, damaged and maimed, it no longer is what it was by Divine creation, but what it has become by self-corruption. You see it before your eyes. Or is it not a matter of tears that outwardly the great mass of people have no feeling for God, and thirst not after Him. By itself the number is small of those who take their religion with any seriousness, and smaller still the number of those in whom true piety is revivified. Mingle among those who are still in every way religious, see them, study them, listen to their talk, in their company do as they do; and how surprising it is that everything is done in so external, artificial and mechanical a way; and how rarely you feel, that you deal with a soul which makes it a business to make approaches to God, to come closer to Him, and to find Him. Even in worship, in church or elsewhere, frequently the question can scarcely be repressed: "Does he or she, when the Amen has been said, come away from the presence of God; or even in worship has this soul been as far absent from God as ever?" Doubtless, there are always some who in prayer and at other times, seek fellowship with the Eternal in their soul. Only, upon inquiry, it appears again and again, that the magnetic attraction did not originate with them, but that with magnetic power God Himself drew them. Why this power operates on one, and does not affect another, we do not know. But the fact remains that, as the magnet attracts steel, so God can attract the soul. And when He does, this drawing is irresistible. Then the soul seeketh God, because God draws it. How does this operate? Does the soul make its approach to God through the understanding, through the will, through the feeling, through the imagination, or by an unexplainable mystical working for which there is no name? And the answer differs according to the character of those who make it. One attributes it to intellectual and doctrinal knowledge of God; the other to the intimacy of love; a third to the concurrence of the will; a fourth to dreams and visions; a fifth to inspirations; and the more you ask, the more the answers differ. Disposition and temperament here play the chief ro1e. The subtle dissector of ideas and definitions entrenches himself in vigorous doctrinal confession. The man of action, in his devotion to practical results. He who by nature is finely strung, in the note of pensive longing which he elicits from his emotional temperament. And likewise imaginative minds and those inclined to phantasies, in representation and ingenious imagery. Every one after his own kind, we may say. So it is now, and so it was in ages past. From old writings you see people of long ago still alive before you, and it is evident that things generally are as they were; all sorts of currents, all sorts of schools, all sorts of tendencies - one this way and the other that. You never find unanimity. Never is God sought after with all the soul. This shows that the choice of one particular method of seeking after God shuts off ways to God, which truly could bring you into His fellowship; and, that the children of God must maintain free walks in all these ways, so that nothing shall limit their communication with the Father's House. The reason for this is, that the finding of God is not effected by any one power of the soul, but by the whole soul itself. It is not our knowledge, it is not our will, it is not our imagination or our thought, that grasps God and possesses Him; but it is the knowing, the willing, the pondering soul in its totality, in its inner unity and soundness, in its inner reality. Ray by ray enters in, but each ray is caught up in the one focus of the awakening life of the soul; and this action is called faith. The difficulty here, too, springs from the ruined conditions within, occasioned by sin. This ruin we do not take into account sufficiently, because we place it too exclusively in the domain of morals. And yet; the whole loss which it entails, is only known when you trace it in its fatal workings in the spiritual life. In your relation to God things count so much more seriously. This concerns the first and great commandment; loving God with all your soul, with all your strength. And this is possible. The soul is disposed to this. Yea, it can freely be said, that your soul, as soon as it works normally, can not do otherwise than direct itself to God, in all its entirety and with all its strength. But nowhere does it show more strongly than in this very particular how abnormal in every way the soul has become by sin. And the worst of it is that with respect to this the soul itself is so little aware of its abnormality. He who has done wrong, especially when it is a heinous wrong, at least knows it, and does not find it difficult to kneel before God and confess his guilt. With more refined forms of transgression, even in the moral sphere, this inner sense may fail us; when gross sin is committed, the conscience speaks in almost every man. But with respect to the violation of the first and great commandment almost no one has any feeling about it. Thousands upon thousands, by day and by night, deny God all love, withdraw their whole soul from Him, and rob Him of all their strength - gross transgressors in the spiritual domain, who do not even think that they sin. And even with those who have been discovered to themselves, the redeemed, the saved, who have confessed to have love for God, conditions are about the same. Among them also you frequently find those who, over and over, for a whole day at a time, have given at most a small fraction of their soul to God, and feebly, with perhaps only one of their powers have consciously worked for God; and who, when they kneel down at night, do not feel it as sin that they have violated, let us say, nine tenths of the first and great commandment. This same tendency operates so fatally with the one-sided activity that is brought about by reason of our disposition and temperament, and inclines us to use those powers which come most naturally into action, and therefore exact least self-conquest. Thus, an intellectually disposed man, when he becomes pious, seeks his strength, in his search after God, in dogmatics. If this is eternal life, "that they might know thee, the only true God," well, then, he will apply himself to this. Of another knowledge save that which is acquired by intellectual analysis he has not the faintest idea, but in his own department he is proficient. So he exhausts himself in tracing what the finest thinkers have embodied in their doctrinal systems regarding the Nature, the Work, the Person, the Attributes - and so on, of the Divine Being. In this he absorbs himself. This appeals to him. Above others he prides himself on it. And now he actually thinks that in this way the real knowledge of God has become his portion. "No," says another, "Jesus has said, that he who doeth the will of his Father who is in heaven, shall know the glory of the faith;" and he, as a man of action, gives his money, is zealous as few are, brings willingly one sacrifice after another, devotes himself to the affairs of the Kingdom with all his strength. But he has a dislike for all doctrinal distinctions. The creed does not do; with him the main thing is the practice of life. A third has neither pleasure in doctrine nor in works, but is of an emotional temperament, and he seeks his strength in tender sensations which he arouses, in soulful utterances, in mystical perceptions of love, and so deems that he comes closer to God. Imagination is the play of phantasy on the part of him who rather seeks his strength in visions and representations, and enjoys himself most in what his idea paints before the eye of his soul. Has not even S. Paul gloried in ecstacies of spirit and in being caught up into higher spheres ? Add to this, inspiration, the bringing to remembrance, the perception in the soul of sudden emotions, and so on, and you feel, how widely among men the sensations and motions of the soul diverge, when a thirst after God awakens in the soul. And this now is the pitiful fact, that instead of understanding that all these workings, all these powers and exertions together must be used in love for God, in order to make real the loving of God with all one's powers - God's children for the most part hold themselves each within their own domain, and seek God with one of the powers of their soul, thus leaving the others unused, and then frequently oppose a brother who seeks his salvation in the exercise of another power of soul than theirs. "With all thy soul," said Jesus. They say: "With a fraction of the life of my soul;" and just because they are truly pious and sincere of purpose, they do not tremble at the thought of how dreadful it is to have all the rest of their soul remain inactive for their God. __________________________________________________________________ 28. I Saw Also The Lord __________________________________________________________________ Indexes __________________________________________________________________ Index of Scripture References Genesis [1]3:8 Exodus [2]33:18 [3]33:20 [4]33:20 1 Kings [5]18:26 Job [6]13:27 [7]34 Psalms [8]13 [9]14 [10]14:3 [11]16:5 [12]16:7 [13]18:10 [14]19:13 [15]22 [16]23:6 [17]25 [18]27:4 [19]27:8 [20]28:1 [21]35:17 [22]36:9 [23]39 [24]42 [25]42:1 [26]61:4 [27]61:4 [28]72:19 [29]73 [30]73:23 [31]73:27 [32]77:6 [33]81 [34]83:1 [35]84:10 [36]84:11 [37]84:11 [38]86:11 [39]89:15 [40]91 [41]94:9 [42]94:9 [43]102:1 [44]102:2 [45]103 [46]104:3 [47]107:17 [48]115:6 [49]115:9 [50]118:23 [51]119:176 Isaiah [52]49:15 [53]57:16 Jeremiah [54]23:23 Hosea [55]4:1 Matthew [56]10:37 [57]11:27 [58]23:37 John [59]3:8 [60]4:21 [61]4:23 [62]4:24 [63]14:8 [64]14:9 [65]16:26 [66]17:3 [67]17:3 Acts [68]2:2 Romans [69]1:23 1 Corinthians [70]2:11 [71]13:12 1 John [72]5:21 Revelation [73]22 __________________________________________________________________ This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org, generated on demand from ThML source. 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