And into this patience of Christ our hearts are to be directed. It is to be the object of our contemplation and to be followed by us, who belong to Him. The patience of Christ must be manifested in our lives. For even hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps. His humility, submissiveness, contentment, calmness, patience in endurance, in doing and suffering the will of G.o.d, must be reproduced in our lives. But how little we know of it in reality.

Impatience is the leading characteristic of the closing days of this present evil age. It is alas! but too prominently seen among G.o.d's people who are influenced by the present day currents. How little true waiting on the Lord and for the Lord is practiced! How much reaching out after the things which are but for a moment and which will soon perish! In consequence there is but little enjoyment of that which is the glorious and eternal portion of the Saints of G.o.d.

How great the haste and hurry of present day life! How little quietness and contentment! In suffering and loss, murmurings, fault-finding and words of forced resignation are more frequently heard than joyful songs of praise. Unrest instead of rest, discontent instead of contentment, anxiety instead of simple trust, self exaltation instead of self abnegation, ambitiousness instead of lowliness of mind are found on all sides among those who name the name of Christ and who carry His Life in their hearts. And why? Your heart, dear reader, is so often out of touch with Christ. You lose sight of Him. His Spirit is grieved and in consequence there is failure and the impatience of the flesh. Return, oh my soul, unto thy rest! Direct, O Lord, our hearts into the Patience of Christ.

The Patience of Christ. He is still the patient Christ. Rejected by the world He has taken His place upon the Father's throne. There He waits until His enemies are made His footstool. Long ago, in our human reckoning, He entered there. Long ago the Father said to Him, "Ask of Me and I will give Thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost part of the earth for Thy possession" (Ps. ii:8).

Up to now He has not yet asked the Father. When He asks it will mean judgment for this world. In infinite patience He has waited and waited in the presence of G.o.d. And all this time He has carried on His work as the Priest and Advocate of His people who live on earth.

With what tenderness and patience He has dealt with all who lived in the past centuries. His mighty power kept them and now they are at home with Him. The same patience He manifests towards us. How often we have failed Him and walked in the flesh instead of walking in the Spirit. We came to Him and confessed and then we found Him so loving towards us. But ere long we failed again and in His loving patience His arms were again around us. And thus a hundred times. He changeth not. He is the same loving, patient Lord towards His own in Glory as He was on earth. "He shall not be discouraged," the prophet declared. Even so His Patience knows no discouragement.

In all the dishonor done to His holy, worthy Name, He endures patiently. He is silent to all what is done by His enemies. The Patience of Christ. May the Lord grant us His Patience. John said to himself, "I am your brother and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and _patience_ of Jesus Christ" (Rev. i:9). To that kingdom and Patience of Jesus Christ of which John speaks of belonging we belong. The martyrs belonged to it. Afflictions, persecutions and sufferings were their part. They are ours. In humility, in endurance, unflinching courage, in the patience of Christ, let us suffer with Him, share His reproach until His Glory is revealed.

He Shall Not Keep Silent.

THE heavens have long been silent. It is one of the leading characteristics of this present age, the closed, the silent heavens.

But they will not be silent forever. "Our G.o.d shall come and shall not keep silence" (Ps. i:3). In His divine Patience the Lord has been at the right hand of G.o.d for nearly two thousand years. He will not occupy that place forever. It is not His permanent station to be upon the Father's throne. He has the promise of His own throne, which He as the King-Priest must occupy. Nearly two thousand years have gone since He pa.s.sed through the heavens and during that time He has been rejected by the world. Every possible dishonor, insult and shame has been heaped upon His holy head through the instrumentality of the enemy, the devil. Never before has the rejection of the Man in Glory been so p.r.o.nounced, so radical, so blasphemous as now. Those who love the Lord Jesus Christ are constantly seized by an unspeakable grief on account of these awful denials of the Christ of G.o.d and an horror as well. And still He patiently waits. But He will not always wait. His Patience will some day be exhausted. He will pray His unprayed prayer in Glory and ask of the Father the nations and the uttermost parts of the earth. The Father will then send the Firstborn back to this earth. When He comes in visible Glory to this earth it will mean the day of vengeance. The vengeance of G.o.d will fall upon His enemies. All the Christ rejecters, the wicked men and women who received not the love of the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness, the enemies of the cross of Christ, though they lived amiable lives (one of Satan's pet phrases), will meet Him not as the patient lamb, but the Judge, the lion of the tribe of Judah. What will it be when His Patience is ended? What will it be when the kingdom and the Patience of Jesus Christ give way to the kingdom and Glory of Jesus Christ? Rapidly the day is nearing when the Lord Jesus Christ will be completely rejected. As long as the true church is still here this complete rejection is an impossibility. But the church will some day leave this earth. Then conditions are ripe for the complete rejection of the Christ and the reception of Antichrist who will then appear. And when the beast is worshipped (Rev. xiii) and the world defies G.o.d and His anointed as never before, when the nations of apostate Christendom stand in battle array (Rev. xix:19), then He will come as the King whose patience is ended and claim His Kingdom. What will it mean when His Patience is ended? Who can describe it? What judgments will fall then upon a wicked world and be meted out upon the enemies of Christ? The day of vengeance is rapidly approaching.

It is the day of vengeance for the world. It is the day of the Glory of Christ. It is the day of the Glory of the Saints. It is the day of your Glory as a believer.

Let us suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. Let us be patient as long as He is patient. "Be ye also patient; establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.

Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned; behold the Judge standeth before the door" (James v:8, 9).

In His Patience pray for the unsaved. Preach the Gospel, give out the Gospel, send the Gospel, give for the Gospel, live the Gospel. A little while longer and His patience will end.

Trusting in the Lord thy G.o.d, Onward go.

Holding fast His faithful word, Onward go.

Not denying His worthy name, Though it brings reproach and shame, Spreading still His wondrous fame, Onward go.

Has He said the end is near?

Onward go.

Serving Him with holy fear, Onward go.

Christ thy portion, Christ thy stay-- Heavenly bread upon the way, Leading on to glorious day-- Onward go.

The Love of Christ.

THE Patience of Christ was recently the object of our meditation in these pages. Blessed and inexhaustible it is. And now a still greater theme is before our hearts. The Love of Christ. The heart almost shrinks from attempting to write on the matchless, unfathomable love of our blessed and adorable Lord. All the Saints of G.o.d who have spoken and written on the Love of Christ have never told out its fulness and vastness, its heights and its depths. "The Love of Christ which pa.s.seth knowledge" (Ephesians iii:19). And yet we _do_ know the Love of Christ. While we cannot fully grasp that mighty, eternal Love our hearts can enjoy it and we can ever know more of it. And He Himself whose Love is set upon us wants us to drink constantly of the ocean of His never-changing Love and receive new tokens, new glimpses of it. Surely His own blessed Spirit, though one feels so insufficient for such an object, will guide us in our meditation. He is with us and in us to glorify Him and take of the things of Christ to show them unto us. The Love of Christ, the Holy Spirit ever longs to make known and to impart to our poor and feeble hearts.

The Love of our Lord is an eternal Love. It is not a thing of time.

It antedates the foundation of the world.

"His gracious eye surveyed us Ere stars were seen above."

He as the Son of G.o.d in the bosom of G.o.d was the object of Love.

"Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world" (John xvii: 24). And then He knew us and His Love was even then set upon us, before we ever were in existence. He knew our sinfulness, our enmity, our vileness, and in Love which pa.s.seth knowledge He looked forward to the time, when He would manifest this Love to us His fallen creatures. "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high I cannot attain unto it" (Psalm cx.x.xix:6).

It was Love which brought Him down from the Glory, which He had with G.o.d. What Love to come into this dark, sin-cursed world, a world full of enemies. What Love to leave that bright and glorious home and appear as man, made of a woman entering this world He had called into existence. And there was no room for Him in the inn. It pa.s.seth knowledge.

And then that life, which He lived on earth, was lived in that mighty Love.

"A love that led Thee here below To tread a lonely path in grace, To pa.s.s through sorrow, grief and woe, The portion of a ruin'd race."

What Love we see in Him, in every step of that lonely path! What compa.s.sion, what tenderness in every action in every word we discover, ever new and fresh, in that blessed life of G.o.d's unspeakable gift. Wherever we look we behold that Love. Loving compa.s.sion rested upon the mult.i.tudes; with Love He compa.s.sed the poor, the sinful, the oppressed, the heartsick and the outcast. Love carried the weak and failing men, who had believed on him, His disciples. A blessed word it is, which stands in the beginning of the thirteenth chapter in the Gospel of John. "Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." His Love for His own was expressed by serving them. He pleased not Himself but had come to minister. He then girded Himself and began to wash the disciples' feet. What humiliation! Yet it was the fruit of Love. All He did was born of Love. His was on earth a constant, a never-tiring, an enduring Love. All the selfishness of His disciples could not quench that Love. Nothing could quench His Love for His own.

Nothing will ever quench it. Peter denied Him. "And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter" (Luke xxii:61). Was it a look of reproach?

Was it a frown of displeasure which Peter saw in that beloved face?

Far from it. Love in its divine perfection shone out of the eyes of the Son of G.o.d. And after His resurrection that Love was still the same. There was no reproach connected with the restoration of Peter to service. In the greatest tenderness and Love He committed to His disciple, who had so shamefully denied Him, the lambs and sheep so dear to His own loving heart.

Again we say, that Love pa.s.seth knowledge. How could man's imagination and invention ever have produced such a loving Person as our Lord, revealing the perfection of divine Love!

But there is greater Love than the Love which we behold in His blessed Life on earth. The greater Love is manifested when He laid down His life. He came into the world to die, to be the propitiation for our sins. He came to take our place on the cross. He came to drink the cup of wrath in our stead and suffer the awful penalty of our sins.

"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the unG.o.dly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. _But G.o.d commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us_."

G.o.d in Love gave thus His Son, and He gave Himself in Love. From shame to shame, from suffering to suffering, from pain to pain and agony to agony that Love went on to plunge into the deepest sorrow, to reach at last the place where His loving lips had to cry "My G.o.d, My G.o.d, why hast Thou forsaken me?"

"To death of shame Thy love did reach, G.o.d's holy judgment then to bear; Ah, Lord, what human tongue can teach _Or tell the love that brought Thee there_."

Ah! what human tongue can teach or tell the Love that brought Thee there! It pa.s.seth knowledge. But with loving, praising hearts, in worship and adoration we can look up to that cross on which the Prince of Glory died and say with Paul, "He loved me, He gave Himself for me." And again we join with the innumerable hosts of His own redeemed in the Glory song. "Unto Him that loveth us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and hath made us Kings and priests unto G.o.d and His Father, to Him be Glory and dominion forever.

Amen." And beloved reader, that Love which knew you and us all before we ever existed, that Love which came from Glory for you, that Love which went into the jaws of death, endured the cross and despised the shame, that Love which gave so willingly, gave as we can never give, that Love is still the same. It changes not. His Love knows no fluctuations. That perfect Love cannot grow cold or indifferent. We all had our first love; when first we saw Him with the eyes of faith, how our hearts were enraptured. How soon that Love began to grow cold and decreased instead of increased. Then our walk and service became affected for thus it must ever be when the heart is not responding to His Love and not in living, loving touch with Himself. Oh! the weeks and months and years of our Christian experience spent without the full enjoyment of His Love and Presence. But has this changed His Love? Has our unfaithfulness, our waywardness, our failure and backsliding affected His Love? No. He is the same loving Lord, the same loving Christ who has borne us and yearned over us, who has prayed for us and kept us. Whenever we turn to Him with broken hearts, confessing our sins, when in shame we hide our faces and tell Him all our failures, we find Him still the same loving Lord as He was when His loving eyes rested upon Peter.

Oh! how He must love us! How He must love us, with that Love which pa.s.seth knowledge. What treasures that Love contains! Exhaustless it is ever flowing full and free towards His own.

How it must grieve Him to see us so indifferent, neither hot nor cold. How it must grieve Him that we enjoy this Love so little that we permit that Love so little to serve us and give Him so little opportunity to manifest His mighty Love towards us. Alas! We even mistrust that Love. When suffering and loss overtake us, when instead of prosperity adversity is our lot, we doubt that Love.

Fears and anxieties are nothing less than an impeachment of the Love, which pa.s.seth knowledge. His Love will never fail. He will see us safe home. Let the forces of the enemy roar, let trials and troubles come, His Love will keep us. His Love is our eternal portion.

"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor princ.i.p.alities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of G.o.d, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

And soon He will have us with Himself. The church He loved, for which He gave Himself, the church He sanctified by the washing of water, this church He will present to Himself a glorious church (Eph. v:24-27). Even while on earth He made known His loving purpose, for He prayed, "The Glory, which Thou hast given me I have given to them."

It is His Love which will make us sharers of His own Glory and Inheritance. What that Love will do then! How we shall drink deeper of that Love, than we ever could drink here! Oh the depths of the Love to be fathomed in all eternity! Oh the length and breadth and height to be measured! It can never, no never be exhausted.

O, child of G.o.d, is not thy poor wandering heart beginning to be warmed? Is the warmth of His Love, the Love of Christ refreshing your soul? Thank G.o.d for it. It is but a demonstration of His Love.

And do we not want more of it? Do we not need it?

All our indifference, our cold heartedness, our prayerlessness, our self indulgences, our inactivity and all else which mars our Christian lives, is because we do not have the Love of Christ before our hearts. If we were constantly enjoying His Love and this mighty Love would constrain us, what self-sacrificing lives we would live!

How we would love one another and in love serve one another. What peace there would be among those of like precious faith. With a better heart knowledge of the Love of Christ, what joy would be ours in all trials and suffering and with what boldness we would approach the throne of Grace and make constant use of our G.o.d-given privilege, prayer.

The Love of Christ would lead us on and on in love for souls, in service untiring, and yet the same Love too will make us long and pray for His coming. Oh G.o.d our Father, grant unto us all and to all Thy people throughout this world a greater, a deeper, a more real knowledge of the Love of thine ever blessed Son, the Love of Christ, and fill us through it with all the fulness of G.o.d. Amen.

The Joy of the Lord.

IT is written "the joy of the Lord is your strength." Every child of G.o.d knows in some measure what it is to rejoice in the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ must ever be the sole object of the believer's joy, and as eyes and heart look upon Him, we, too, like "the strangers scattered abroad" to whom Peter wrote shall "rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Pet. i:8). But it is upon our heart to meditate with our beloved readers on the joy of our adorable Lord, as his own personal joy. The Blessed One when His feet walked on the earth spoke not only of "My Peace," but He also spoke of "My Joy." While He imparts peace and joy and is the peace and joy of our hearts, He also possesses His own Peace and His own Joy.

"The Joy of the Lord." There was a time "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of G.o.d shouted for joy" (Job x.x.xviii:7).

It was in the beginning when the heavens and the earth were created by Him, who is before all things and by whom all things consist, the Son of G.o.d. With what joy He must have beheld what was called into existence by Him and for Him (Col. i:16). But even before the foundation of the world He had joy. With G.o.d, in the bosom of the Father Love, Glory and Joy were His eternal portion. All was known to Him from the beginning. The fall of Satan, the fall of man through Satan, the entrance of sin with all its results, the cost price of redemption, the suffering in the flesh on the cross for the redemption of the creature, the mult.i.tudes, whom no man can number, redeemed through His work, believing in Him, brought to G.o.d, united with Him, Sons and Heirs with Him, the ultimate victory over all enemies, so that G.o.d would be "all in all"--all was known to Him.