neither knows him. You can never reach God in your prayers unless you shut
out the world. Shutting the door means something more than closing the
door of your literal closet. Persons may enter the literal closet and
close the door, and yet have the world in their hearts and thoughts. Such
have not closed the door in the true sense.
In the public assembly you must enter your closet when you pray, and shut
the door, or your prayers avail not with God. You must talk from your
heart to the heart of God. Those assembled may hear your words, but they
do not know the secret. The secret is between your heart and the heart of
God. You scarcely hear your words. You know and hear more of the speaking
of your heart. There is a blessing in such praying; there is a joy that
can not be told. Such prayer feeds the soul upon the divine life and lifts
us in realms of light and happiness. Thank God for the sweet privilege of
secret intercourse with him. O beloved, when you pray, enter into your
closet, and be sure to close the door.
ALONE WITH GOD.
This life of ours will never be all that it should be unless we are much
alone with God. Only those who are oft alone with him know the benefit
that is derived therefrom. You can not be like God unless you are much
with him, and you can not live like him unless you are like him. The
Scriptures tell us that Jesus departed into the mountain to be alone with
the Father and that he was often "alone praying." When Jesus had anything
of great importance to say to his disciples, he always took them aside
from the multitude. When he was transfigured, he took three of his
disciples into a mountain apart from all the world. When he was one time
alone praying with his disciples, he asked them who he was. Peter
answered, "The Christ of God" (Luke 9:18). It was only when he was alone
with them and after prayer that he could bring them into such nearness to
him that they might know in their hearts that he was the Son of God. When
amid the active duties of life and when in contact with the world, we can
scarcely come into that sacred nearness to God that will enable us to feel
in our hearts all that God is. We may get slight glimpses of his glory, we
may occasionally get a dim view of some of his beauty, we may feel a
little warming of his love in our bosoms; but only when alone with him are
we awed into wonder at the sight of his glory and great beauty. It is only
then that we see him in his purity and feel the warm sunshine of his love.
It is only then that our hearts can be deeply impressed with the knowledge
that he is God, and in childlikeness we can look up to him and call him
Father.
PRAYERFUL REMEMBRANCE.
At evening time when dark'ning shades draw nigh
And flickering rays of light go chasing by,
When all around glad nature sweetly sings
And seems you hear the sound of angel's wings,
Some one in memory may be brought to thee.
Maybe some one from distant land away,
Of whom you had no thought for many a day.
'Tis passing strange; you do not understand
Why such a one and from such distant land
Should step across the threshold of your mind,
Why he to you at this time should be brought.
'Tis mystery when all else claims your thought;
You seek to understand, but learn it not.
Maybe this one has conflict great and sore,
Is struggling long and hard 'gainst grim despair,
And God who rules the thought and mind of man
Has brought him this long way to you for prayer.
Then do not drive these whisperings from your mind
Nor cast them carelessly upon the wind:
'Tis but the voice of God, in tender care
For suffering one on life's broad way somewhere,
Inviting you to plead for him in prayer.
Kind friend, if at morning, noon, or night
I come to thee on wings of memory,
It is no doubt because the fight is fierce;
Then will you bow and pray to God for me?
HE CARETH FOR THEE.
Life will never be successful unless we learn to let God care for us.
Unless we have faith to know that God is our keeper and that hence we have
nothing to fear, we shall never be the cheer and sunlight in this dark
world that God designed us to be. This is a world of trouble. Sin envelops
many souls in awful midnight gloom. Some may never find Jesus unless they
see him smiling in your face. You as God's dear child are to be a light to
those poor, benighted souls. To be such a light, you must be full of
light, and to be full of light you must be full of hope by faith in the
cheering and encouraging promises of God. None can be truly happy, none
can be the cheer, comfort, and consolation to the world, who are bearing
their own burdens. Only those who have learned the sweet lesson of trust
in God and know that he cares for them are truly happy and free and
capable of cheering others.
He who this one short life would live
As heaven has designed
Must scatter rays of cheering light
From a heart with Hope enshrined.
There are many priceless promises in the Word of God. There is a promise
for every need, condition, and circumstance of life. Among these blessed
promises, here is one that has brought comfort to many a weary pilgrim on
life's way: "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you." 1
Pet. 5:7. If this promise does not lift you far above all the trials,
discouragements, and weariness of life, it is because you do not believe
it nor understand the fulness of its meaning. "He careth for <i>you</i>."
It is not your neighbor or your friend, but it is you. Cares will come to
you, certainly; you could never cast your cares upon God if you had none.
But you have them and doubtless many of them. The difficulty with many is,
they do not cast them on God. Reader, your life will never be, it can not
be, that free, happy, radiant, sunlit, helpful life that pleases God, if
you bear your own cares.
There is nothing too trivial in life to take to God. In the very smallest
concerns of your daily life he has an interest. In everything let your
requests be known unto him. Do learn to take everything to him. Fret over
nothing, never worry for a moment. Let nothing disturb or disquiet you. I
say <i>nothing</i>. "He careth for you." Do you comprehend the full
meaning of these words? Think them over for a moment. Let go of yourself
and let God keep you. Oh, the freedom that belongs to the children of God!
Theirs is a sweet land of liberty. But alas! how many will go on bearing
their own burdens and weighted down with care with these words right
before them: "He careth for you"! Why not let him?
Care is a grace-destroyer. If you would be strong in the grace of God, you
must live free from care. It gnaws at the very vitals of the soul. A
strong cable made of many fine wires was stretched across the river and
was used to tow a heavy scow back and forth. One of the small strands was
broken. This was thought to be a small matter. Soon another was broken and
then another. Still this was not of much consequence. One by one more were
broken but unheeded because each was so small. Finally all were broken,
and the boat went adrift. A little care does not seem to be of much
consequence. But the Bible says to be "careful for <i>nothing</i>," and to
"cast <i>all</i> your care upon him."
Some have thought that the bearing of burdens and cares made us strong in
the Lord. No, it is the casting of them on Jesus that makes us strong. For
a man to be down under a heavy weight is no exercise to his muscles; but
to be up on his feet and passing heavy weights on to another, this is
exercise. To be down under burdens and cares is no exercise to the soul,
but is really death; the passing of the cares on to Jesus is the exercise
and the strength of the spiritual powers. If you only knew how much grace
a little care destroyed, you would quickly cast them on Jesus. Some have
come to find themselves entirely without grace because they did not cast
their cares on the Lord. We knew a sister whose baby was such a care that
she could not keep saved. One day when asked how she was getting along in
the Lord, she answered, "Not well; the baby is such a care and worry that
I can not keep the victory I should like to have." Was it not too bad to
lay such a blame upon a poor little innocent child? I was asked one time
if it was possible to reach an experience where we would never fret or
worry. Certainly we can. We shall never get to a place where we shall have
no temptations, but we can get to a place where we shall not yield to the
temptations. Your life has not reached that degree of perfection that it
should, until you have attained to such an experience. Jesus says, "Take
no thought for the morrow." When you are having any great anxieties about
future things, you are doing what Jesus tells you not to do, and you can
not do something he tells you not to do without suffering spiritual loss.
Oh! why will you worry about anything, when Jesus says, "Be anxious for
nothing." "But," you say, "when there is no meat in the larder and no
flour in the bin, can we then be not anxious?" There are those who have
been in just such circumstances and yet have not been greatly troubled.
If you will be over-anxious about anything, you can never live close to
God. When anxieties knock at the door of your heart for admittance and you
open the door and let them in, you are opening the door to a dangerous
band of robbers. They are robbers of grace and peace. When anxieties step
over the threshold of your heart's door, grace and peace fly out of the
window. "But what am I to do?" sighs a care-worn soul. Do just what a good
man says he did. He said that he opened his heart to Jesus, and he came in
and shut the door. Let Jesus keep the door of your heart. When anxieties
come and want into your heart, tell them they must get permission from
Jesus, because you have given your whole heart up to him. This is what is
meant by "casting your care upon him." It is not enough to kneel down and
ask Jesus to take them; you must cast them upon him. In this is the soul's
needed exercise. The soul that will do this shall be strong. You must put
the burden over on the Lord's shoulders and let him bear it. He will bear
all your burdens for you if you will lay them upon him.
Not only must you put them upon him, but you must let go entirely. You do
not even need to look after them to see what he does with them. Your
little child comes to you with a tangled cord. It gives it over into your
hands, but holds to one end. Now, you know that in order to get the tangle
out, you must have both ends. O weary one, Jesus will disentangle all the
cares of life, but you must let him have both ends. He does not want your
help. You hinder him if you attempt to help him. Cares will come; things
that are of a trying nature will assail us as long as we live; but we have
a refuge in Jesus; he will bear our burdens; he will care for us.
"CONSIDER THE LILIES."
What a beautiful lesson Jesus has taught us of rest and quietness from the
lilies! "Consider the lilies of the field," he says, "how they grow: they
toil not, neither do they spin." He is trying to teach us how free we can
be--free from all earthly cares and anxieties. The lily does not struggle;
it has no anxieties about its future; but it grows. It grows to be
beautiful. Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of them.
God paints the flower with greater beauty than the robes of kings. If you
would be beautiful, you must rest in the Lord. Just a little struggling,
and you will mar the whole. Christ wants to reveal himself through you. He
will shine the beauty of his own glorious person into your soul if you
will but be quiet. Have no anxieties about the things that pertain to this
life, and Jesus will clothe you with the beauties of heaven. Character, as
the years pass on, is revealed on the face. The miser's face shows the
miserly condition of his heart. Jesus will stamp his own image upon the
soul if the soul is kept in quietness, and this image will stand out in
beauty on the face and outward life.
By this lesson of the lilies Jesus did not mean to teach that we should
not pray. He once said, "Men ought always to pray." We must pray much. If
we do not pray, Satan will have us toiling and spinning. Keeping close to
Jesus with a strong faith and a firm trust is the only way to rest, and we
can not do this without much prayer. "Cease thy toiling and care." Learn a
lesson from the lilies. Rest in the Lord, and he will make you an object
of Christian beauty that will bless the world. Even after you are long
gone, that restful, patient life will cast its rays of light and beauty
back and chase away the shadows from the life of others.
The day has gone, the twilight fades,
There's stillness everywhere;
I seek some place of solitude,
And humbly bow in prayer.
I tell the story of the day--
The joy, the grief, the care;
I keep not back one secret thing,
But tell it all in prayer.
O heart of mine, be light and free,
Not lightest burden bear,
In everything let thy requests
Be told to God in prayer.
Yes, all; I tell it all to Christ
In evening twilight dim:
Somehow my heart much lighter grows
Since all is told to him.
I lay my life at his dear feet--
O Jesus, I am thine!
I'll walk the way of life with thee;
Thy will, O Christ, is mine.
And now I lay me down to sleep
While gathering shadows fall,
And sweet indeed my rest shall be,
Since Jesus knows it all.
SORROWFUL YET ALWAYS REJOICING.
This world is sometimes called "the vale of tears." Jesus said, "In the
world ye shall have tribulation," but he also said, "In me ye shall have
peace." The way to heaven is through tribulations. Those whom John saw
standing before the throne and the Lamb arrayed in white robes and with
palms in their hands, were one day where we now are, and thank God, we,
coming up through great tribulation, shall some day be where they are.
While man in this world will meet with sorrow, he can by the grace of God
always rejoice. Alum thrown into muddy water will clarify it. The grace of
God thrown into a cup of sorrow will turn it to joy. Sorrows are needful.
It is only a barren waste where there is no rainfall.
We have sung, "No days are dark to me." This can indeed be true, but it is
not to be taken in the sense that there will be no clouds nor rainfall.
Show me a man who never has a cloud to float across his sky, and I will
show you a man who has not faith enough to see clearly in the sunlight. It
is those whose faith pierces through the cloud and keeps the smiling,
sunlit face of Christ in view that have the truest, sweetest joy. Their
rejoicing is in the Lord. By bravery and force of will some may shut
themselves against sorrow and soon become insensible to it. But the heart
that is steeled against sorrow is in all probability so calloused that it
can not experience joy. Those who know the deepest sorrow may ofttimes
know the fullest joy, and that in the midst of their sorrow. Do not harden
your heart against sorrow, but look to Jesus for that balm which heals,
that grace which sustains, that comfort which gladdens. Some have thought
that true joy consists in never having a sorrow; that those who have
sorrow have not found the way of peace. In this they err. Those who never
have a sorrow rejoice because they have no sorrows, but some who have
sorrow have learned to rejoice in the Lord. This is truest joy.
"Sorrowful," said one who was crucified with Christ, "yet always
rejoicing." He never once denied having sorrow; nay, he said, "I have
great heaviness, and continual sorrow in my heart." But he also said, "I
glory." It was the deep sorrow that made him most like Jesus. He had
feeling. "We sorrow," he said, "but not as those who have no hope." The
world knows a sorrow that the Christian does not know. Christians should
be careful lest in hardening themselves against feeling they do not render
themselves incapable of feeling compassion, sympathy, and pity.
Let the tears flow. If you keep them back, the fountain will dry up. May
the Lord pity those who have no tears! Jesus wept. The apostle Paul said,
"Out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many
tears." Oh, that unfeeling heart that can not suffer, that dry heart that
has no fountain of tears! It weeps not over the sorrows of others and
consequently can not rejoice when others are joyful. Only those who weep
can truly rejoice.
You rejoice because you and your family are in good health, because your
friends are smiling upon you, because circumstances surrounding you are
favorable, because you have an abundance of good things to eat and of
clothing to wear. But your rejoicing is only in earthly things. We are to
be grateful for these things, but they are only the sea-foam of joy; the
water lies beneath. True joy is to rejoice not only <i>in</i> the Lord but
<i>with</i> the Lord. Rejoice in those things in which Jesus and the
angels rejoice. When your goods are being wasted, you find your deepest
joy because God is being glorified.
If you can not weep with angels, you can not rejoice with them. See that
aged pilgrim: his has been a hard and stony way; loved ones have gone one
by one from his embrace; riches have taken wings and flown away; sorrows
are multiplied; trials are many; burdens are heavy; he is footsore, sad,
and weary. Angels are bending over him weeping. Can you weep with him and
them? They comfort him. The sadness of his heart begins to die away; hope
begins to dawn. The dawning of the hope causes the angels to rejoice. This
is truest joy. Rejoice when souls are saved; rejoice when hearts are
gladdened; rejoice when God is praised. This is the true source of purest
joy. But it is only those who are capable of suffering deeply with the
sufferings of others, that can truly rejoice when their sufferings are
turned away. The more we are like Jesus, the more we have of his Spirit,
the tenderer will be our hearts and the more deeply will our souls be
moved by the sufferings of others.
When some dear friend has proved untrue; when some loved one has gone
astray; when the death-angel has left a chair vacant at your hearth-stone
and deep sorrow lies upon your soul, then it is that you feel nearer to
Jesus. You feel ripe for heaven. The world has suddenly gone out, and you
have cast your eyes upward. Do not try to keep back the tears; let them
flow. They are pearls in angels' sight. It is the tears of the child that
touches the heart of the parent, and cites him to give comfort to the
little one. It is the tears of the Christian that touches the great loving
heart of God and moves him to give that solace which only Heaven gives.
David said in a time of deepest sorrow--his son was seeking his life--"It
may be the Lord will look on my tears [margin], and that the Lord will
requite me good." Hezekiah was doomed to die. The prophet told him to 'set
his house in order, for he should die, and not live.' The dying man turned
his face to the wall and prayed, "I beseech thee, O Lord, remember now how
I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done
that which is good in thy sight"; and he "wept with a great weeping
[margin]." This touched the heart of God, and he said, "I have heard thy
prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee."
If the heart of God's saints were a deeper fountain of tears, more sick
people would be healed in these days. Around are the sick and suffering,
but alas, how few tears! When saints have so deepened into God, cultivated
such a tenderness of heart, and become so deeply compassionate, that they
will "water their couch with their tears all the night" at the sight of
sick persons, they will get answers to their prayers. To such God will
say, "Behold, I will heal him." If tears will not reach God, the case is
hopeless. Esau sought for a place of repentance and sought it with tears,
but could not find it. The mentioning of tears here implies that the
addition of tears to earnest heart-seeking has influence with God.
Jeremiah, in his lamentations for fallen Israel, said, "Oh, that my head
were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and
night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" He knew that if
anything would avail with God, it would be tears therefore he wished that
his eyes were a fountain of tears, so that God might be moved to save
Israel.
"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." There can be no harvest from
seed sown unless the seed is watered. As you go out to sow seed in the
Master's field, water them with your tears if you would have a joyful
harvest. May God save his people from unfeelingness of heart! A soul with
no tears is a soul with no flowers. There is no verdure where there is no
water. Those who are not deep enough in God to shed tears over a lost and
ruined world are not deep enough to shed tears of joy over a soul's
salvation. Out from the depth of his heart Jesus cried, "O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem! how oft would I have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her brood
under her wing, but ye would not." When did you shed tears over lost
souls? Do you ever have a Gethsemane? Is your pillow ever dampened by
tears shed for a doomed world? Do you ever go out beneath the starry sky
and with outstretched arms cry in the severe pains of travail, "O lost
souls, lost souls! how oft would I have gathered thee to Jesus, as a hen
gathers her brood under her wing, but ye would not"? Only those who have
deep travail of soul for the lost can fully rejoice when the lost are
found.
One of the apostles said he served the "Lord with many tears." A heart
from which flows no tears is not a heart that is wholly imbued by the
Spirit of God. Tears of compassion for the suffering, tears of warning and
entreaty for the lost, tears of joy for the saved, will flow through a
perfectly holy heart as freely as water through a sieve. Sunlight
perforates the block of ice from the center outward; so the love of God
perforates the heart to its depths and lets the tears of affection, pity,
and sympathy flow out.
Do not try to escape suffering. Do not shut your heart against sorrow. It
is the bruised flower that gives out the sweetest scent. Open thy heart to
God and let him bruise it, let sorrow flow in and break it, that sweetness
may flow out. When the poet sang:
"I no trouble and no sorrow
See today, nor will I borrow
Gloomy visions for the morrow,"
he sang not of sorrow for souls lost in sin, nor of needful heaviness
through manifold temptations, nor of sorrow awakened by the suffering of
others, but of that sorrow which arises from the world through distrust
and separation from God.
There is a sorrow which comes through Christ. It is as the refiner's fire,
purifying the soul and binding it closer to God. Such sorrow detaches the
heart from the world and from self, and hides it in God. It is impossible
for the soul to approach any degree of nearness to Christ only through
sorrow and suffering. In my own experience my heart once longed for deeper
grace. My whole soul breathed out, "O Jesus! give me more meekness." For a
few days a heavy cloud of sorrow lay upon me; when it had passed away, I
had an answer to my prayer.
I would have you beware of that unfeeling state in which one has no
sorrow, and mistakingly attributes its absence to grace. Grace helps us
bear sorrow, but does not harden our hearts against it. Sorrow brings us
to a throne of grace for grace and grace brings us joy, so that we have
joy in sorrow. No other joy is so sweet as this. It is the real and true
joy of Christ.
GENTLENESS.
Fruit-bearing trees are used in the Scriptures to represent the race of
mankind. The Savior likens the wicked to "corrupt trees," which bear evil
fruit and the righteous to "good trees" which bear good fruit (Matt. 7:15,
20). He also teaches very emphatically the impossibility of one's being a
good tree and yet bearing evil fruit, or of being a corrupt tree and
bearing good fruit. Since the nature of the fruit we bear determines what
manner of tree we are, it is very advisable that we as professing
Christians should frequently examine the fruit we are bearing. To be
Christ's, or to be a Christian, we must have the Spirit of Christ; for the
Scriptures say that "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none
of his" (Rom. 8:9). As certainly as cause produces effect, those who have
the Spirit of Christ bear the fruit of the Spirit. Not to bear the fruit
of the Spirit is full proof that you have not the Spirit. Then a close
examination of the fruit you are bearing will reveal to you whether or not
you have the Spirit of Christ, whether or not you are his, whether or not
you are a Christian. You can make a superficial examination, and allow
yourself to be deceived. You can make excuses for yourself because of your
weaknesses, and thus deceive yourself. But a close, thorough, profound
examination will disclose to each one the manner of spirit he is of.