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QUIET TALKS
ON THE CROWNED
Christ of Revelation
BY
S. D. GORDON
Author of
"Quiet Talks on Power",
"Quiet Talks on Prayer",
"Quiet Talks about Our Lord's Return"
[Illustration]
CHICAGO NEW YORK TORONTO
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street
PREFACE
Crowning the Christ is an intensely practical thing, whether taken in
the _personal_ sense or the _world_ sense. He has been crowned in the
upper world. With wondrous patience and graciousness He pleads for the
personal crowning in our lives. Some day--no one knows just when--He
will begin to _act_ as the crowned Christ _in all the affairs of our
earth_.
The initiative of all action to-day on the earth is in man's hands. Some
day the initiative of _governing_ action on the earth will be in the
hands of the crowned Christ, even while the personal initiative of each
man's life will still be in his own hands.
God is intensely practical. Jesus was never concerned about speculation
nor mere discussion; He was too intent on helping people. The Bible is
wholly a practical book. It is concerned only with helping us. It does
not tell us all the truth there is; we shall be constantly learning more
in the future life. But it does tell us all we need to know now. And its
purpose in telling us what it does is wholly practical,--to urge us to
right choice, and to lives that square with the choice. This is the
purpose that decided just what truth should be told in the Book.
There is one book of the sixty-six devoted wholly to this subject of the
crowned Christ,--"The Revelation of John." Every one of these books
touches Him at some angle, and finds its deepest meaning in what He was
to do and did do, and yields up its secrets only under the touch of His
hand. But this book, the closing and climax of all, the knot in the end
of the inspired thread, this deals wholly with the action of the crowned
Christ.
No book of the sixty-six has seemed so much like a riddle and set so
many a-guessing. And without doubt much of its meaning will be clear
only as events work themselves out. Events will prove the only expositor
of much. But it is with the deep conviction that this is wholly a
_practical book_, written wholly from a practical point of view, and
concerned wholly with our practical daily lives, that I have ventured to
take it up in this series of simple, wholly practical, Quiet Talks. And
it is only this side of its teachings that will be dealt with here. The
Book is a street leading into the true overcoming life the Master would
woo us to.
It is only after many years' study of this Book of the Revelation, and a
special study the past three years and a little more, that I have
ventured to put these talks together. And now they are sent out with the
earnest humble prayer that others may find some little practical help in
prayerfully reading, as I have found much in prayerfully studying, under
the Master's gracious faithful touch.