The discipline of divine guidance - Chambers, Oswald
God is not a supernatural interferer; god is the ever- lasting portion of his people. When a man born from above (RV mg) begins his new life he meets god at every turn, hears him in every sound, sleeps at his feet, and wakes to find him there. He is a new creature in a new creation, and tribulation but develops his power of knowing god, till on some transfig- uration morning, he finds himself entirely sanctified by god; and from that unspeakable bliss god loosens him from heaven, a pilgrim of eternity, to work a work for him among men. Out he goes, a man any may take advantage of, but none dare. His child-like simplicity excites the ridicule of men, but a wall of fire encircles him.
His ignorance of the way he takes makes the cunning of the age laugh at the ease with which they think they can utilise him for their own ends, but lo! They are caught in their own snare, and their wisdom is turned to sorrow and foolishness. Such a man becomes a spectacle to angels and to men. Nothing can daunt him, nothing affright him, nothing deflect him. He may be tried by cruel mockings and scourgings, by bonds and imprisonment; he may be stoned or swan asunder, tempted, or slain with the sword; he may wander about in sheepskins and goat- skins; he may be destitute, afflicted, tormented; he may home in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth, but ever, by some mysterious mystic touch, we know he is one of whom the world was not worthy. All heaven and earth and hell are persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of god, which is in Christ Jesus our lord.
The child-mind is the only mind to which god can appeal, and our lord went deeper than the profoundest philosophy in the incident recorded in mark 9:3637and he took a little child, and set him in the midst of them: and taking him in his arms, he said unto them, whosoever shall receive one of such little children in my name, receiveth me: and who- soever receiveth me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me (RV). As soon as the gates of the head are closed on our experiences we limit god, and by seal- ing our minds we limit our growth and the possibility of graduating in divine guidance. The child-heart is open to any and all avenues; an angel would no more surprise it than a man. In dreams, in visions, in visible and invisible ways, god can talk and reveal himself to a child; but this profound yet simple way is lost for ever immediately we lose the open, child-like nature. By every standard we know, saving one, the god of the bible is a confusing contradiction to himself.
The god who caused to be written: thou shalt not kill, commanded Abraham to offer thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, . . . For a burnt offering (genesis 22:2 RV). The god who said: thou shalt not commit adultery, commanded his servant Hosea to marry a harlot (see Hosea 1:2). Jesus Christ himself presents a similar dilemma to every standard, saving one. He tells the seventy: behold, i have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall in any wise hurt you (Luke 10:19 RV ). Again he tells his disciples: they shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that who- soever killeth you shall think that he offereth service unto god ( john 16:2 RV ). And the apostle paul, who said he had the mind of Christ, wrote to the Corinthians: why not rather take wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? (1 Corinthians 6:7 RV ); and yet when being tried himself, he said, i appeal unto caesar (acts 25:11). God himself, our lord Jesus Christ and the saints, are examples of contradiction judged by every standard saving one, viz. , the standard of personal responsibility to god on the basis of personal character. In testing circumstances saints decide differentlymay all the different decisions be correct? Unquestionably they may, for the decisions are made on the basis of personal character in its responsibility to god.
The blunder of the saint lies in saying, because i decide thus in this crisis, therefore that is the rule for all. Nonsense! God is sovereign, and his ways are discernible according to the attainment of the particular character. One of the most fallacious lines of reasoning is on the line of an hypothesis in the matter of gods will. No saint knows what he will do in circumstances he has never been in. I would have you without carefulness, says the apostle Paul. A saint is a creature of vast possibilities, knit into shape by the ruling personality of god.
Supernatural voices, dreams, ecstasies, visions and manifestations, may or may not be an indication of the will of god. The words of scripture, the advice of the saints, strong impressions during prayer, may or may not be an indication of the will of god. The one test given in the bible is discernment of a personal god and a personal relationship to him, witnessed to ever after in walk and conversation. A striking line of demarcation discernible just here between the guidance of god and all other guidance is that the complete works of Oswald chambers 269 8 the discipline of divine guidance
All other supernatural guidance loses sight of human personality and of divine personality, and ends in a swoon into absolute nothingness. In every stage of divine guidance which the bible records, these two elements become ever clearer: god and myself. The most intense statement of this is made by our lord:
Jesus answered, the first [commandment] is, hear, o Israel; the lord our god, the lord is one: and thou shalt love the lord thy god from all thy heart, and from all thy soul, and from all thy mind, and from all thy strength. The second is this, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. (mark 12:2931 RV mg)
The eternal truth is that god created me to be distinctly not himself, but to realise him in perfect love. If i allow that god teaches me to walk in his will, i shall allow my neighbour, whom i love as myself, the same certainty, although his way may seem so different. What is that to thee? Follow thou me. Professor w. James 5 in the varieties of religious experience, says:
Among the visions and messages some have always been too patently silly; among the trances and convulsive seizures some have been too fruitless for conduct and character, to pass themselves off as significant, still less as divine. In the history of christian mysticism the problem how to discriminate between such messages and experiences as were really divine miracles, and such others as the demon in his malice was able to counterfeit, thus making the religious person twofold more the child of hell than he was before, has always been a difficult one to solve, needing all the sagacity and experience of the best directors of conscience. In the end it had to come to our imperialist criterion. By their fruits ye shall know them, not by their roots. Jonathan edwards treatise on religious affections is an elaborate working out of this the- sis. The roots of a mans virtue are inaccessible to us. No appearances whatever are infallible proofs of grace. Our practice is the only sure evidence, even to ourselves, that we are genuine Christians.
When all religions and philosophies and philologies have tried to define god, one and all sink inane and pass, while the bible statements stand like eter- nal monuments, shrouded in ineffable glory: god is light; god is love; god is holy. Every attempted definition of god other than these sublime inspirations negates god, and we find ourselves possessed of our own ideas with never a glimpse of the living god. When the flatteries, the eulogies, the enthusiasms and the extravagances regarding Jesus christ have become enshrined sentiments in poetry and music and eloquence, they pass, like fleeting things of mist, coloured but for a moment by reflected splendours from the son of god, and our lords own words come with the sublime staying of the simple gentleness of god: i am the way, and the truth, and the life. When art has fixed her ideals, and contemplation has cloistered her choicest souls, and devotion has traced her tremulous records, quivering with the unbearable pathos of mar- tyrdom, we realise that all these miss the portrayal of the saint; and again the severe adequacy of scripture, undeflected by earths heartbreaks, or griefs, or sor- rows, remains the true portraiture of the saint: saved, and sanctified, and sent. It is when silenced by some such considerations as these that we can behold the child-heart nestling in the arms of god, or playing about the path of the lord Jesus Christ, or hasting with willing feet to souls perishing in the wilderness. It is only thus, with chastened, disciplined, stilled hearts that we whisper out before his throne, i had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore i loathe my words, and repent in dust and ashes ( job 42:56 RV mg).
And Moses said unto the lord , see, thou sayest unto me, bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, i know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now therefore, i pray thee, if i have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy ways, that i may know thee, to the end that i may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people. And he said, my presence shall go with thee, and i will give thee rest. (exodus 33:1214 RV )
little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee,
gave thee life, and bid thee feed
by the stream and oer the mead,
gave thee clothing of delight.
Softest clothing, woolly, bright,
gave thee such a tender voice,
making all the vale rejoice?
Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little lamb, ill tell thee: little lamb,
ill tell thee: he is called by thy name,
for he calls himself a lamb,
he is meek, and he is mild,
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
we are called by his name.
Little lamb, god bless thee!
Little lamb, god bless thee!
William Blake
First stage. By gods sayings
How often in the bible we read such words as those in genesis 12: l: now the lord said unto Abram . . . (rv), and in Ezekiel 1:3, the word of the lord came expressly unto Ezekiel . . . And in Matthew 7:24: every one therefore which heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, which built his house upon the rock . . . (RV).
What is the word of god? Where are the sayings of god? The answer is readily given: the bible is the word of god. But we must ask again, because we have all known battlers for the bible as the word of god whom we should hesitate to call saints, for many have proved logically what never came to pass from the bible; consequently the answer is given more cautiously: the bible contains the word of god. This is a most ingenious fallacy and leads to a mystical type of religious life which by being spe- cial, speedily becomes spurious (see 2 peter 1:20).
The bible is the word of god only to those who are born from above and who walk in the light. Our lord Jesus Christ, the word of god, and the bible, the words of god, stand or fall together, they can never be separated without fatal results. A mans attitude to our lord determines his attitude to the bible. The sayings of god to a man not born from above are of no moment; to him the bible is simply a remarkable compilation of literaturethat it is, and nothing more. All the confusion arises from not recognising this. But to the soul born from above, the bible is the universe of gods revealed will. The word of god to me is ever according to my spiritual character; it makes clear my responsibility to god as well as my individuality apart from him.
A quotation from an able article in the spectator for April 13, 1907, entitled the mind of Christ will serve well:
If we refuse to look at the gospel as a whole and to use our reason; if we insist on making of Christ what he distinctly refused to be, a ruler and a judge, instead of the light of the world, we may set up tyrannies as bad as, or worse than, those instituted by roman dogmatism. There will be no new torquemadas, but how much suffering may not be caused by a new tolstoy. Upon isolated sentences of Jesus absolutely conflicting systems may be erected, and a measure of fanaticism is natural to man. . . . But we may not forget that there is an indifference which plumes itself on its moderation, and is even more opposed to the mind of Christ than fanaticism.
What applies to our present dispensation is exactly the same in principle as applied to the hoary antiquity, viz. , that the pure in heart see and hear god. The stupendous profundities of gods will, surging with unfathomable mysteries, come down to the shores of our common life, not in emotions and fires, nor in aspirations and vows, and agonies and visions, but in a way so simple that the wayfaring men, yea fools, cannot make a mistake, viz. , in words.
It is recorded in Deuteronomy 32:4647: and he said unto them, set your heart unto all the words which i testify unto you this day; which ye shall command your children, to observe to do all the words of this law. For it is no vain thing for you; because it is your life, and through this thing ye shall prolong your days upon the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it (RV). And our lord in mark 4:14, states that the sower soweth the word.
As soon as any soul is born from above, the bible becomes to him the universe of revelation facts, just as the natural world is the universe of common-sense facts. These revelation facts are words to our faith, not things. The stage of divine guidance by gods sayings is reached when a soul understands that, by the tribulations of the providential life, gods spirit speaks an understanding of his word never known before. For any soul to teach what he has not bought by suffering is almost sure to bring tribulation which will either destroy or lead to personal understanding of the word taught. Divine guidance by the word indicates a pro- found and personal preparation of heart. Gods sayings are sealed to every soul saving as they are opened by the indwelling spirit of god. How often the individual soul has to learn by a bitter and, in some sense, an altogether uncalled for experience, that
He placed thee mid this dance
Of plastic circumstance.
This present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:
Machinery just meant
To give thy soul its bent
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently
impressed.
Robert browning
To search for a word of god to suit ones case is never divine guidance, but guidance by human caprice and inclination. The holy spirit who brings to our remembrance what Jesus has said and leads us into all truth, does so to glorify Jesus christ. Divine guidance by the word always makes us realise our responsibility to god. In the tribulations, god brings the divine guidance by his word and as we go on.
We begin to understand what our lord said: the words that i have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life ( john 6:63 RV). Every interpretation of the sayings of god that does not reveal this fundamental responsibility to god, and a realisation that we are to be for the praise of his glory, is a private interpretation, and is severely condemned by god.
. . . We abide
Not on this earth; but for a little space
We pass upon it: and while so we pass,
God through the dark hath set the light of life,
With witness for himself, the word of god,
To be among us man, with human heart,
And human language, thus interpreting
The one great will incomprehensible,
Only so far as we in human life
Are able to receive it.
How often have our misunderstandings of gods word proved to us the need for the penetrating words of our lord: i have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. In our prayings, in our desirings, in our patience, does our knowledge of god enable us to say and really mean, speak, lord ; for thy servant heareth? Would we really hear gods word, or are we not rather in this immediate tribulation waiting for god to persuade us that our own way is right after all? Oh, the bliss of that disciplined child-heart, which when he speaks, says, yes, lord, and simply obeys.
Pining souls! Come nearer Jesus,
and oh come not doubting thus,
but with faith that trusts more bravely
his huge tenderness for us.
If our love were but more simple,
we should take him at his word;
and our lives would be all sunshine
in the sweetness of our lord.
Frederick faber
The school of the divine guidance by gods sayings is one of severe discipline. It will mean great heart-searchings, great patience, and great simplicity to be guided in this way.
Second stage. By gods symbols
And the lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; that they might go by day and by night: the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night, departed not from before the people. (exodus 13:2122 RV )
When ye see the ark of the covenant of the lord your god, and the priests the levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it. ( Joshua 3:3) and a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. (Isaiah 32:2) and the holy ghost descended in a bodily form, as a dove, upon him, and a voice came out of heaven, thou art my beloved son; in thee i am well pleased. (Luke 3:22 rv)
The cloudy pillar, the fiery pillar, the ark, the man, the dove, are all gods symbols. This way of divine guidance by symbols is a deep and blessed one. God does not leave us to the vague, ungraspable intuitions of the mind of some great man for guidance, or to our own vain imaginings. He has made a world of things, other than ourselves, the safeguard and inspiration of our common-sense reasonings; and he has made a world of spiritual realities the safeguard and inspiration of our discernment. It is on this god-created ingredient in our nature that every great organisation, good or bad, is based. The revolt against error on one side is ever apt to enter into error on the other. The revolt, for instance, against roman catholicism has developed into an irresponsible individualism which is equally unbiblical.
How often our lord Jesus Christ emphasises the guidance by symbols i am the door; i am the bread of life; i am the true vine; i am the way. A right understanding of this biblical conception is essential to all christian thinking. The bible order seems to bethe absolute truth; the symbolic truth; the false.
All that we see on this earth is symbolic reality, and only as our inward heart is purged from sin can we see the symbolism. That is why when a man is in Christ Jesus he is a new creation, and he sees every- thing in the common world as symbolsunseeable realities. (remember, there are symbols of the devil and of the kingdom of evil just as there are symbols of god and of the kingdom of heaven. ) how sim- ply and clearly our lord teaches this: if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! And vice versa: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. When Jesus heard his father speak, the multitude therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it had thundered (RV). Again, when Saul of tarsus was met by Jesus on the way to damascus and heard his voice, the men that journeyed with him saw only sudden lightning and physical collapse.
Earths crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with god; but only he who sees, takes off his shoes; the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries, And daub their natural faces unaware more and more from the first similitude!
Elizabeth browning
One is made to turn with weary exhaustion from the unthinking, hand to mouth experience of much of the religious literature of the day. To think as a christian is a rare accomplishment, especially as the curious leaven which puts a premium on ignorance works its sluggish way. To speak of Plato to the majority of christian preachers, particularly holiness preachers, would be to meet not a consciousness of ignorance, but a blatant pride which boasts of knowing nothing outside the bible, which, in all probability, means knowing nothing inside it either. Christian thinking is a rare and difficult thing; so many seem unaware that the first great command- ment according to our lord is, thou shalt love the lord thy god . . . From all thy mind. . . . (RV mg).
No mind, other than the mind of our lord, has so profoundly expounded this line of guidance by symbols as Plato. He saw with a clearness of vision second only to the inspired prophets of god. No wonder many in the early thoughtful days of Christianity wanted to class him as a father of the church. It is impossible for men to be guided by absolute truth. God, who is absolute truth, said to Moses: thou canst not see my face: for man shall not see me and live (exodus 33:20 RV). God guides us stage by stage, and the most marvellous stage of his guidance is by symbols.
What are we to understand by a symbol? A symbol represents a spiritual truth by means of images or properties of natural things. A symbol must not be taken as an allegory, an allegory is simply a figurative discourse with a meaning other than that contained in literal words. A symbol is sealed until the right spirit is given for its understanding, and gods sym- bols are undetected unless his spirit is in his child to enable him to understand. What did the cloudy pillar by day or the fiery pillar by night signify to the hordes in the desert? Nothing more than the mystery of ever-varying cloud forms. To the children of god, they meant the manifested guidance of god. How a man interprets gods symbols reveals what manner of man he is. How often we have to say with the psalmist, i was as a beast before thee, i. E. , without understanding. How often the ass recognises that one of gods angels is speaking before the so-called prophet on its back detects it.
All that meets the bodily sense i deem
symbolicalone mighty alphabet
for infant minds! And we in this low world
placed with our backs to bright reality
that we may learn with young, unwounded ken
the substance from the shadow!
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
God shifts his symbols and we know not why; but god is ever only good, and the shifting of one symbol means surely that another symbol is to guide us to a nearer grasp of himself. When god, so to speak, has left a symbol, it becomes transparent, and has no further binding force. How sad it is under the sun to see men worshiping a symbol which has been abandoned by god. How degenerate, how idolatrous, how ensnaring it becomes when gods voice sounds to the spirit of a child of his behold, your house is left unto you desolate. We are not to worship reminiscences; this is the characteristic of all other religions, saving the bible religion. The bible religion is one of eternal progress, an intense and militant going on. A perilous time ensues for the individual and for the religious world whenever god shifts his symbols. Obedience to the voice of the spirit within, the word of god without and the suffering of the tribulation around, enable the child of god to hear gods voice and recognise his changing symbols. This discipline of divine guidance by symbols is a serious, momentous discipline, and god never leaves his children alone in such times, for,
. . . Behind the dim unknown
standeth god within the shadows,
keeping watch upon his own.
James Russell Lowell
The worship of a past symbol is not a whit more dangerous than the irresponsible individualism that refuses to have any symbol. Both are contrary to gods word and gods ways. Where do we stand to-day with regard to gods great symbols? Is it a selfish isolation, an unholy come-out-ism? 6 then may god hand us the wine-cup from the hand of a despised church member until our spiritual dullness is discerned and our spiritual pride humbled. Or is it a dead symbolism, cast aside in the economy of god, a moribund ritualism? If so, may the spirit sting our traditional churchianity into going without the camp, bearing his reproach.
Blind me with seeing tears until i see!
Let not fair poetry, science, art, sweet tones,
build up about my soothed sense a world
that is not thine, and wall me up in dreams;
So my sad heart may cease to beat with thine, the great world-heart, whose blood forever shed is human life; whose ache is mans dumb pain.
As year by year the thrills of spring-tide shoot
through earths dull veins, with fresh, magnetic might,
nor fail, for frosts that nip and winds that blight,
so, lord, who erst didst stir with quickening power
my answering soul, achieve what thou hast aimed:
draw, for thou has drawn; hold, what thou hast claimed.
Draw through all failure to the perfect flower;
draw through all darkness to the perfect light.
Yea, let the rapture of thy springtide thrill
through me, beyond me, till its ardour fill
the lingering souls that know not thee aright;
that thy great love may make of me,
even me, one added link to bind the world to thee.
Third stage. By his servants
Behold, i have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. (Isaiah 55:4)
Guidance by gods sayings has to bring the soul into the surgery of events before a new harkening attitude can be gained to those sayings. At first the soul hears in one direction only, viz. , that of its prejudices. Guidance by gods symbols makes it clear to the heart that outward vision is only possible as the inward eye is opened; and as god touches the eye with eye-salve, the soul realises that the changing symbols give deeper and more penetrating visions of god.
Guidance by his servants gives a yet more inti- mate nearness to god himself. It is during this discipline that we learn that no ideal is of any practical avail unless it be incarnated. If the mystic spell of nature in her rolling air, her eternal uplands and abiding plains, her sunrise dawnings and setting glories, her perennial springs and summer nights languishing to autumn, the strenuous grip of her icy colds if these awaken a sense of the sublime and the unreached, it ends but in a spontaneous ache when the deep within calls to the deep outside! If the imprisoned soul of sound makes the human spirit weep tears from too deep a well to be reached by individual suffering if music turns the human heart into a vast capacity for something as yet undreamt of till all its being aches to the verge of infinity; if the minor reaches of our music have awakened harmonies in spheres we know not, till with dumb yearnings we turn our sightless orbs, crying like children in the night, with no language but a cry; if painters pictures stop the ache which nature started, and fill for one amazing moment the yearning abysses discovered by the more mysterious thing than joy in musics momentsit is but for a moment, and all seems but to have increased our capacity for a crueller sensitiveness, a more useless agony of suffering. But when gods servants guide us to his heart, then the first glorious outlines of the meaning of it all pass before us.
If we trace the lineaments of the servants of god in the bible, we find a servant of god to be altogether different from an instrument of god. An instrument of god is one whom god takes up and uses and puts down again. A servant of god is one who has given up for ever his right to himself, and is bound to his lord as his slave. For he that was called in the lord, being a bond servant, is the lords freedman: likewise he that was called, being free, is Christs bond servant (1 Corinthians 7:22 rv).
An instrument is one who shows gods sovereignty, an unaccountable sovereignty may be, but unchallengeable ever. A servant is one who, recognising gods sovereign will, leaps to do that will of his own free choice.
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with god? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, i will have mercy on whom i have mercy, and i will have compassion on whom i have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of god that hath mercy. For the scripture saith unto pharaoh, for this very pur- pose did i raise thee up, that i might shew in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth. So then he hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, why doth he still find fault? For who withstandeth his will? Nay but, o man, who art thou that repliest against god? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why didst thou make me thus? Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? (Romans 9:1421 RV)
Guidance by his servants! What a blessed guidance, but oh, it is stern. A servant of god the meaning of this phrase is largely lost to-day. The phrase that suits our modern mood better is, a servant of men. Our watch-cry to-day is, the great- est good for the greatest number. The watch-cry of the servant of god is, the greatest obedience to my lord. How many of us know a servant of god who has a right understanding of the science of god, and can introduce us to him, and to his thoughts and his hopes? We are over-satiated with sympathisers
With men, and with that mystic-sounding shibboleth, humanity. To quote g. K. Chesterton, whose insurgent mind is the best cure for any complacent stoicism:
And the same antithesis exists about another modern religion, i mean the religion of comte, generally known as positivism, or the worship of humanity. Such men as mr. Frederick harrison,7 that brilliant and chivalrous philosopher, who still, by his mere personality, speaks for the creed, would tell us that he offers us the philosophy of comte, but not all comtes fantastic proposals for pontiffs and ceremonials, the new calendar, the new holidays, and saints days. He does not mean that we should dress ourselves up as priests of humanity or let off fireworks because it is miltons birthday. To the solid english contrast all this appears, he con- fesses, to be a little absurd. To me it appears the only sensible part of comteism. As a philosophy it is unsatisfactory. It is evidently impossible to wor- ship humanity just as it is impossible to worship the savile club;8 both are excellent institutions to which we may happen to belong. But we perceive clearly that the savile club did not make the stars and does not fill the universe. And it is surely unreasonable to attack the doctrine of the trinity as a piece of bewildering mysticism, and then to ask men to worship a being who is ninety million per- sons in one god, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.
An eminent difference is discernible between biographic studies in the bible and outside the bible. When men write studies of the servants of god, they are apt to drop out the uncouth and the unlovely, and out of their devotion state only the elements that idealise the servant. But the bible reveals the blunderings and the sins and the uncouthness of the servants of god, and leaves only one idea dominant that these men were for the glory of god. How deeply is written over the lives of the servants of god in the bible record, wherefore let no one glory in men (RV ).
The servants of god in the bible are spoilt for earth, they live and speak backed by Jehovah. What kind of a bosom companion would Abraham have made? Or Moses, or Jeremiah? What sort of a bed- fellow would Elijah or Ezekiel have been? How sick we are over and over again with the vain sentimental- ism about the servants of god. No wonder god lifts his servants up at times and shakes them and flings the parasites off. The servants of god in the bible never stole hearts to themselves, but handed them over to god. There is a ruggedness and an intolerable isolation about the servants of god in the bible. They each one seem to do without you. There is nothing in the world saving god to these servants of his; all else is as a shadow. The lure the servants of god are made but attracts men to a wilderness wherein god woos men to himself. Oh, the wild wail of the heart of the man or woman who mistook the fascination of god in his servant for god himself, and clasped to his or her heart a man of like passions as we are (RV )! Oh for that man of god who will hand over to god the hearts god has called through him! It is not you who awakened that mighty desire in the heart; it is not you who called forth that longing in that spirit; it is god in you. Are you a servant of god? Then point them to him. Down on your face, down in the dust, oh man of god, if those arms clasp you, and that heart rests on you! If that longing, loving heart awakens and finds you instead of god, what a passion of despair will blight you with the curse of solitariness and silence! Oh,
There are sad cries all over the spiritual world entering into the heart of god, and he will avenge them. Oh that we could hear i tyou have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me; you have taken what is before me; and what is behind me; you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me, and, my fear is great, you have taken god from me.
Are all servants of god like that? No, thank god! The sheep are many and the shepherds are few, for the fatigue is staggering, the heights are giddy and the sights are awful. It is no wonder our lord said the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers ( john 10:45).
One of the greatest of these servants of god said he was a voice that cried but one thing, repent, and that pointed in one direction, behold the lamb of god! That is what a servant of god is for. Aye, and what a school god puts his servant through! Its years of graduation areseparation, sorrow, supreme sanctification and suffering.
Is there one man in disenchanted days
who yet has feet on earth and head in heaven?
One viceroy yet to whom his king hath given
the fire that kindles and the strength that sways?
Is there a wisdom whose extremest ways
lead upward still? For us who most have striven
Made wise too early and too late forgiven,
our prudence palsies and our seeing slays.
We are dying; is there one alive and whole,
a hammer of the lord, a simple soul,
man with the men and with the boys a boy?
We are barren, let a male and conquering voice
fill us and quicken us and make rejoice,
even us who have so long forgotten joy.
F. W. H. Myers
God guides by his servants, and it is a guidance that disciplines heart and mind and spirit. Watch this guidance through the records of holy writ; the careers of Abraham, of Moses, of Joshua, of Gideon, of Deborah, and trace the discipline of their apprenticeship and mastership. Grasp the loneliness of Abraham, the friend of god. Enter into and imagine the rugged discipline of Moses, who esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. Bow before the winnowing of the unworldly heart of Joshua. Marvel as you see how god took timid Gideon as his wardrobe, and clothed himself with him. And be silent before deborah, that sibyl of gods sanctity, as she leads gods army. And marking their self-effacement and other-worldliness, bow your face before god and learn the strangeness of his guidance by his servants.
Scarcely have we paid enough attention to the prefiguring of our lord himself in the prophets and servants of god, and perhaps we have over-emphasised his prefiguring in the signs and symbols of the dis- pensations surrounding those prophets and servants. How strangely the writers of the psalms launch out into a definite prefiguring of our lord! How wonder- fully the sorrows of these servants of god take on new meaning when we see Jesus! The anthropomorphism of the old testament can never be despatched by the statement that it is man trying to state god in terms of his own ignorance. It is rather god prefiguring the stupendous mystery of the incarnation.
Tis the weakness in strength, that i cry for! My flesh, that i seek
in the godhead! I seek and i find it. O saul, it shall be
a face like my face that receives thee; a man like to me,
thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a hand
like this hand shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the christ stand!
Fourth stage. By his sympathy
I will make mention of the lovingkindnesses of the l ord , and the praises of the l ord , according to all that the l ord hath bestowed on us; and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses. For he said, surely, they are my people, children that will not deal falsely: so he was their saviour. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. (Isaiah 63:79 RV)
he found him in a desert land, and in the waste howl- ing wilderness; he compassed him about, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye: as an eagle that stirreth up her nest, that fluttereth over her young, he spread abroad his wings, he took them, he bare them on his pinions: the lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. (deuteronomy 32:1012 rv)
thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great. Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, and my feet have not slipped. (psalm 18:3536 RV )
The sympathy of god
God having feeling for us! The very heart of the phrase is given in hebrews 4:1516, for we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need (RV ).
It is in the mystic tenderness of the guidance by his sympathy that god gives a love like his own. Oh, how can language put it when the soul, the individual soul, knows god has marked all sorrows and has kept all tears till not one drop is lost, knows that he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust, when the first great surprise of the light of his sympathy bursts on our tear-dimmed soul and turns it into radiant rainbows of promise; when no sayings of his resound on our ears with thrilling clarion call; when no visible symbol disciplines our faltering steps; when no servant of god is near to help us discern his will; when the cloud gathers round us, and we fear as we enter the cloud, and lo! A mystic touch is on our spirits, a coolness and balm, as one whom his mother comforteth so the lord comforts us. Oh, the tenderest touch of a mothers love is nothing compared to our blessed fathers sympathy! It is there, couched in his arms, that we are guided into that secret of secrets, that it is not mens sins we have to deal with, but their suffering, it is ensphered in the nights when he gives us the treasures of darkness, that discipline
Us to be staying powers in the alarm moments of other lives. What an atmosphere there breathes about the life god is guiding by his sympathy! We feel a larger horizon, an expanding heart and brain and spirit grasping us and uplifting us. Nothing seems changed yet a kiss, as if the kiss of god, touches our care, and we smilingly wonder how things have altered, and life is never the same again. From guidance by his sympathy, we learn that god heeds not our faults nor our mistakes, he looks at our hearts. This point, so blessed, so rare, perhaps we could never see before. How gladly, how nobly, how purely we grow under the guidance by gods sympathy!
And yet it would be dangerous if god guided us by his sympathy too soon. Look again at Isaiah 63 for the sad sequel to such guidance: but they rebelled, and grieved his holy spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and himself fought against them (v. 10 RV). And again at the sequel in Deuteronomy 32: but preshrunk waxed fat, and kicked . . . Then he forsook god which made him, and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation (v. 15).
Clearly, sympathy may be dangerous in its effects on men. In undisciplined, self-centred lives it seems to engender a self-confident vanity that abuses the end and meaning of gods sympathy, and the goodness of god, which ought to lead to repentance, leads rather to blatant presumption. But to a nature disciplined and chastened by self-knowledge, whose cynicism (which ever arises from the narrow view of personal limitations) has long since given way to larger, more generous, more self-effacing views to such a nature, guidance by gods sympathy is an unspeakable boon, ever leading the soul out into deep adoration of god and devotion to him.
This aspect of guidance by gods sympathy is rarely spoken of by expounders of gods ways with men, partly because of the definite indefinableness of the guidance, and partly because so few understand it, or have learned to partake in such guidance by those mystic touches which endear the soul to god and god to that soul beyond all words.
Guidance by sympathy amongst ourselves is often questionable, because a man may sympathise out of self-sentiment, which is nothing more than disguised selfishness and has an enervating, unennobling effect. Sympathy to benefit and brace and ennoble, must spring from a higher source than the one who is suffering has reached as yet. The purpose and heart of our lords sympathy is that it does not make us submissive to a broken heart and to degenerate hereditary bondage; but guides us to where he will bind up the brokenhearted and set at liberty the captives. There is a distressing snare which besets a certain type of saint, the snare of a morbid desire for sympathy, which simply makes them craving spiri- tual sponges, so to speak, to mop up sympathy. Gods criticism of us, strange to say, does not hurt, for the soul understands that it springs from a deep well of sympathy. Criticism without sympathy is cruel, but criticism that springs from sympathy is blessed faithful wounds and goads and rousings!
The discipline of guidance by gods sympathy leads to a clearer, better understanding of gods ideas and hopes and aims. In this way he makes known to us his ways; otherwise we simply know his acts (psalm 103:7). Through guidance by his sympathy we understand that he doeth all things well, and though he slay, that soul cannot fear. The language of the soul guided by gods sympathy is an amazed rebuke to those who do not know god! For he says by his life it is the lord : let him do what see- meth him good.
The guidance by gods sympathy keeps the soul and heart in a rare atmosphere of blessed spiritual love. It is along this line of divine guidance that god takes us into counsel with himself, as it were, saying as he did about Abraham, shall i hide from abraham that thing which i do . . . ?
Before we take our final meditation and musing on those serene thoughts of guidance by god himself, let our hearts lie open before that marvel of revelation in the fourteenth chapter of st. Johns gospel.
And i will pray the father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may be with you for ever, even the spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him: ye know him; for he abideth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you deso- late: i come unto you.
Call the comforter by the term you think best advocate, helper, paraclete, the word conveys the indefinable blessedness of his sympathy; an inward, invisible kingdom that causes the saint to sing through every night of sorrow. This holy comforter represents the ineffable motherhood of god. Prot- estantism has lost for many generations this aspect of the divine revelation because of its violent antipathy to mariolatry as practised by the roman catholic church; and it behoves us to remember that prot- estantism is not the whole gospel of god, but an expression of a view of the gospel of god specially adapted to the crying needs of a particular time.
George MacDonald in his book entitled sir gibbie, writes as follows (and by the way it is a striking indication of the trend and shallowness of the mod- ern reading public that George MacDonald books have been so neglected)
See revelation culminate in Elizabeth and Mary, the mothers of john the baptist and Jesus. Think
How much fitter that it should be so; that they to whom the word of god comes should be women bred in the dignity of a natural life, and famil- iarity with the large ways of the earth; women of simple and few wants, without distraction, and with time for reflectioncompelled to reflection, indeed, from the enduring presence of an unsullied consciousness, for wherever there is a humble, thoughtful nature, into that nature the divine consciousness, that is, the spirit of god, presses as into its own place. Holy women are to be found everywhere, but the prophetess is not so likely to be found in the city as in the hill country.
We quote this simply for the purpose of suggesting how we limit ourselves and our conceptions of god by ignoring the side of the divine nature best symbolised by womanhood, and the comforter, be it reverently said, surely represents this side of the divine nature. It is the comforter who sheds abroad the love of god in our hearts. It is the com- forter who baptises us into oneness with jesus, in the amazing language of scripture, until we are indwelt by a mysterious union with god. It is the comforter who brings forth the fruit of love, joy, peace, long- suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meek- ness, temperance. Guidance by his sympathy leads by a blessed discipline into an understanding of god which passeth knowledge.
. . . That whatsoever spark
of pure and true in any human heart
flickered and lived, it burned itself towards him
in an electric current, through all bonds
of intervening race and creed and time,
and flamed up to a heat of living faith.
And love, and loves communion, and the joy
and inspiration of self-sacrifice;
and drew together in a central coil,
magnetic, all the noblest of all hearts,
and made them one with him, in a live flame
that is the purifying and the warmth
of all the earth even to these latter days.
Fifth stage. By himself
For in all the world there is none but thee, my god, there is none but thee. After these things the word of the l ord came unto abram in a vision, saying, fear not, abram: i am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. (genesis 15:1) and he said, my presence shall go with thee, and i will give thee rest. (exodus 33:14) if there arise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and he give thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee saying, let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or unto that dreamer of dreams: for the lord your god proveth you, to know whether ye love the lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the lord your god, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. (Deuteronomy 13:14 rv) the lord is my shepherd; i shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the waters of rest. He restoreth my soul: he guideth me in the paths of righteousness for his names sake. (psalm 23:13 RV mg)
This is the goal on earth. In all we have touched upon we have not approached the goal of the hereafter. God is never in a hurry, and his guidance is so severe and so simple, so sweet and so satisfying, that noth- ing but the child-spirit can discern it. But this is the goal god himself.
. . . Not joy, nor peace, nor even blessing, but himself, my god.
How true is the word of the apostle pauls: strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, unto all patience and longsuffering with joy (colossi ans 1:11 RV). Our lord himself strikes the same note of patience: in your patience ye shall win your souls (Luke 21:19 rv) and the apostle john writes: i john, your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and patience which are in Jesus . . . (revelation 1:9 rv ). Oh, the discipline of patience! How his guidance hastens us, sweetens us, and quickens us, until without let or hindrance 9 he can guide us by himself.
Go thou into thy closet, shut thy door
and pray to him in secret: he will hear.
But think not thou, by one wild bound, to clear
the numberless ascensions, more and more
of starry stairs that must be climbed, before
thou comest to the fathers likeness near.
And bendest down to kiss his feet so
that, step by step, their mounting flights passed oer.
Be thou content if on thy weary need
there falls a sense of showers and of the spring;
a hope that makes it possible to fling
sickness aside, and go and do the deed:
For highest aspiration will not lead
unto the calm beyond all questioning.
George MacDonald
From earliest childhood there has hovered over us in a vast oerarching the over soul, the blessed presence that is indefinable. But it is only to the soul disciplined by suffering, by loneliness, and by divine guidance, that our fathers feet appear among the dusty clouds. In the days and years of the preparation of our moral and spiritual characters, the vision tarried and we wearied waiting for it. How often it seemed like some vagrant will-o-the-wisp, and all our life grew sick with longing. But ever and anon a vision came, perhaps in the rapt spell of prayer, when one felt if he put out his hand he might, nay, he would, touch god himself. Perhaps it was in a holy spell of contemplation that god himself enfolded us, till fear was impossible, and god was all in all, beyond all language and all thought. But these all passed:
Gods fashion is another; day
by day and year by year he tarrieth; little need
the lord should hasten; whom he loves the most
he seeks not oftenest, nor woos him long,
but by denial quickens his desire,
and in forgetting best remembers him.
Till that mans heart grows humble and reaches out
to the least glimmer of the feet of god,
grass on the mountain-tops or the early note
of wild birds in the bush before the day,
wherever sweetly in the ends of the earth
are fragments of a peace that knows not man.
What is the meaning of all the pain, the longing and the questioning? Why does god not tell us plainly of himself ? Ah! Our god is a master- workman in perfecting his ideas in us; he never has- tens. So often we mistake him and his purpose, and sinking into quietism and contemplation we begin to repose in a sanctified stagnation, when suddenly he ruthlessly uproots us, and when at last we are agreed with him and his ways, he dazes and confounds us with his own questions. (all this is put for our instruction in the last chapters of the book of job. ) we do so want god to realise that we take ourselves very seriously. But some of the questions god asks us destroy this seriosity:
Where wast thou when i laid the foundations of the earth?. . . Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days began, and caused the day spring to know its place?. . . Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Or hast thou walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed unto thee? Or hast thou seen the gates of the shadow of death? Hast thou comprehended the breadth of the earth? . . . Canst thou bind the sweet influences [mg] of the pleiades, or loose the bands of orion? Canst thou lead forth the signs of the zodiac [mg] in their season? Or canst thou guide the bear with her train? Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? Canst thou establish the dominion thereof in the earth? (RV )
Oh, these terrible questions when god seems to laugh at the soul,
Destroying its serious self- importance, even while he upholds that soul.
Then job answered the lord , and said, behold, i am of small account; what shall i answer thee? I lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have i spoken, and i will not answer, yea twice, but i will proceed no further. . . . I know that thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of thine can be restrained. Who is this that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore have i uttered that which i understood not. . . . I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore i loathe my words [mg], and repent in dust and ashes. (rv)
It is by these processes, for the most part unstateable, that god by his divine guidance destroys that awful barrier of taking ourselves too seriously.
Lord, what i once had done with youthful might,
Had i been from the first true to the truth,
Grant me, now old, to dowith better sight.
And humbler heart, if not the brain of youth;
So wilt thou, in thy gentleness and truth
Lead back thy old soul, by the path of pain,
Round to his bestyoung eyes and heart and brain.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Come to me, lord:
I will not speculate how,
Nor think at which door i would have thee appear,
Nor put off calling till my floors be swept.
But cry, come, lord, come anyway, come now.
Doors, windows, i throw wide; my head i bow,
And sit like some one who so long has slept
That he knows nothing till his life draws near.
George MacDonald
God is a light so bright that the first vision of himself is dark with excess of light. In genesis 15, we read that the word of the lord came unto Abram in a vision, (mark, it was a visiongods order is, first vision, then humiliation, then reality) saying, fear not, Abram: i am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. . . . And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo,
An horror of great darkness fell upon hima dark- ness through excess of light.
There is much that changes during this discipline of divine guidance, but one thing grows clearer and clearer, the revelation of god himself. Moses, the ser- vant of god, was guided first by the cloudy pillar, i. E. , by an outward mysterious method; then by guidance from mount sinai with its inner understanding of the words uttered there; then we see the god of the cloudy pillar, the god of mount sinais law, revealing himself to him, and saying, my presence shall go with thee, and i will give thee rest. The unspeakable rapture of it all made the heart of moses plead, shew me, i pray thee, thy glory (rv), and god in overflowing gra- ciousness and condescension did sobehold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon the rock . . . And i will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back: but my face shall not be seen (rv).
There is a place by me, a place of unapproachable safety. Affliction and tribulation may destroy all else, but the saint abiding in this secret place of the most high is untouchable. There is no self-consciousness there, no uncertainty, but only rest, unfathomable rest in god himself, not in a vision of god, but in god himself as a reality, a living, bright reality. Walking with god, and talking to him as friend with friend, knowing that god knows he can do what he likes with us; there are no questions and no perplexities because he knows. Here, in the heart of this way of guidance by himself, does god convey to us the secret of the lord .
Within this place of certain good
love evermore expands her wings,
or nestling in thy perfect choice,
abides content with what it brings.
Oh, lightest burden, sweetest yoke!
It lifts, it bears my happy soul,
it giveth wings to this poor heart;
my freedom is thy grand control.
Upon gods will i lay me down,
as child upon its mothers breast;
no silken couch, nor softest bed
could ever give me such deep rest.
Thy wonderful, grand will, my god,
with triumph now i make it mine;
and faith shall cry a joyous yes!
To every dear command of thine.
Gerhardt tersteegen
A dear little friend of mine, not four years old, facing one day some big difficulty to her little heart, with a very wise shake of her head, said, ill go and tell my papa. Presently she came back, this time with every fibre of her little body strutting with the pride that shone in her eye, now, my papas coming! Pres- ently her papa came, she clasped her little hands and screamed with delight, and danced round about him, unspeakably confident in her papa. Child of god, does something face you that terrifies your heart? Say, ill tell my father. Then come back boasting in the lord, now my fathers coming. And when he comes, you too will clasp your hands in rapture, your mouth will be filled with laughter, and you will be like one that dreams, when your father comes. And all this seems unmeasurable bliss here and now. What will it be when this order has passed away? If all this is but as his back, not his face, oh, what will it be! It hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive!
Conclusion
The deep secret of god is love, and only the child- heart and the child-spirit can find the way to learn this secret. Jesus christ satisfies the last aching abyss of the human spirit, and until he does there is a great element of the precarious in our life. Half the heartbreaks in life are caused by the lack of understanding that
We needs must love the highest when we see it,
not lancelot, nor another.
Tennyson
Half the wasted days and languid reveries and immortal contemplations that embarrass human rela- tionships and obliterate individual responsibility arise from the same lack of understanding. God is not an outward gush of sentiment, not a vague abstraction of impersonal good nature: god is a living, intense reality, and until this truth is grasped, the puzzles and the questions are more than can be met. But when by the discipline of his divine guidance, we know him, and he going with us gives us rest, then time and eternity are merged and lost in that amaz- ing vital relationship. The union is one not of mystic contemplation, but of intense perfection of activity, not the rest of the placid peace of stagnation, but the rest of perfect motion.
Only, my god, see thou that i content thee
oh, take thy own content upon me.
God! Ah, never, never, sure, wilt thou
repent thee that thou hast called thy adam from the clod!
Yet must i mourn that thou shouldst ever find me
one moment sluggish, needing more of the rod
than thou didst think when thy desire designed me. .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. No less than thou,o father, do we need
a god to friend each lonely one of us.
George macdonald