THE PILGRIM'S CONFIDENCE
"Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
"Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things." Matt. 6:32
What a rest is this for weary, burdened wayfarers! It is the assurance not only of a "needs be" in whatever befalls them, but that all are the appointments of their heavenly Father.
"Your heavenly Father!" We cling lovingly to the belief of "God over all;" God "in all places of His dominion;" God from center to circumference of space and being; the Divine Regent, pervading with His presence the great organic system He has formed; in the poetry of Scripture, the clouds His chariot, the light His clothing; His power girding the hills and setting fast the mountains--yet with tender care for the minute and lowly, making grass to grow for the cattle, penciling the flower, sculpturing the snow-wreath, watching the sparrows fall, and feeding the young ravens; the unslumbering Shepherd, keeping watch and ward continually, whether under the infinite blue of day or under night with its starry galaxies.
We can leave science and philosophy to speak of Nature as in her decrees stern, unbending, controlled by forces simple and complex, all her own; the subject, the slave of inexorable law, from which, save by exceptional miracle, there can be neither evasion nor deflection--the revolution of the seasons, the alternation of day and night, gravitation, the processes of growth and decay, etc. But there are, at all events in the moral world, gainsay who will, forces independent of material ones, above and beyond material law. We are under the supervision and guidance of a personal God, "for in Him we live and move and have our being." Though mysteries and perplexities are only too patent on every side, yet we can rely on the assurance that His are no arbitrary dealings, swayed by caprice, marked and misdirected by human blindness and ignorance, but the dictates of unerring wisdom and of unchanging everlasting love. His nature and name are not that enshrined in the Scripture word "Zephaniah" (the Lord is darkness), but rather that of "Uriel" (God is my light). "God is light, and with Him is no darkness at all." The heavy laden, the bereaved, the orphan, the widow, and "him that has no helper," are shielded and canopied by the divine Fatherhood--the Pillar of Cloud in the day of prosperity, the Pillar of Fire in the night of adversity. Mark the Savior's words. They are not "My heavenly Father," but "your heavenly Father." He would have each child to know His individual, particular affection and pity, and, despite of baffling providences, to cleave to the unforgetting love of God. Happy those who are thus content to accept with confidence the needed "all things" here spoken of; who have listened to the Savior's invitation, and unhesitatingly accepted it, "Come unto Me." Safe within the Hospice built on Himself, the Rock of Ages, they can sing the lullaby of an old pilgrim traveler, unmoved amid the moanings of the tempest--"In the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion--in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me; He shall set me up upon a rock."
"What seems so dark to your dim sight
May be a shadow, seen aright,
Making some brightness doubly bright.
The flash that struck your tree, no more
To shelter you, lets heaven's blue floor
Shine where it never shone before.
The cry wrung from your spirit's pain
May echo on some far-off plain,
And guide a wanderer home again."
"I am as a wonder unto many; but You are my strong refuge" (Hospice).
"Why did I murmur underneath the night,
When night was spanned by golden steps to Thee?
Why did I cry disconsolate for light,
When all Your stars were bending over me?"
O blessed Redeemer! what do I require more than this, Your own blessed word, that all which befalls Your people is meted out by One who is too kind to mingle an unnecessary or superfluous drop in their cup of sorrow? He who died for me says so; and He says it of "My Father and your Father, of My God and your God." At times He uses the chisel to bring the quarried block into shape. He sees the possibilities of form and beauty in that rough mass of stone or marble, though involving at the time breaking and maiming.
"So I think that human lives
Must bear God's chisel keen,
If the spirit yearns and strives
For the better life unseen;
For men are only blocks at best,
Until the chiseling brings out all the rest."
I thankfully repair to this Gospel Hospice. I need no other. Its windows look above and beyond all stormy clouds on the azure sky of heaven. Its walls enshrine this special promise of a Father's combined omniscience and love. Pointing to it I can devoutly and confidently say– "Remember the word unto Your servant, upon which You have caused me to hope."
"This is the resting place, let the weary rest. This is the place of repose." Isaiah 28:12
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THE FINAL WELCOME
"Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
Then the King will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world." Matthew 25:34
Gracious invitation of Christ to His ransomed Church. Many had been the calls to rest issuing from His throne of grace. This (retaining the same formula, "Come") is His final summons from the throne of glory, as his weary and heavy-laden people lay down their burdens forever, and are about to enter their eternal Hospice and Home.
1. Note the name of the Rest-Giver. He no longer speaks of Himself, as He once did in His state of humiliation, as a Pilgrim, needing rest as much as His people--the homeless Wayfarer of Galilee--but "a King", the Head of His redeemed--Lord of all, who had by His doing and dying purchased the regal right to say--"Inherit the kingdom." It is a gift which makes those on whom it is conferred "kings and priests unto God." Being a gift, it is from first to last of grace--all merit is excluded. In Milton's beautiful words–
"With solemn adoration down they cast
Their crowns, inwove with amaranth and gold."
"Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be destroyed, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe." Hebrews 12:28
2. What enhances its value is that it is the gift of a Father's love. "Come, you who are blessed by my Father." The Hospice with its many mansions was prepared by the Father "from the foundation of the world." The divine Fatherhood, the great Father-heart of God, so precious in the Church below, will attain its full meaning in the Church of the First-born. Christ's own words will then reach their grandest, their everlasting significance, "My Father and your Father, My God and your God." "I in them and You in me, that they may be made perfect in unity!"
3. The rest of the heavenly Hospice is further to consist in the Presence and Love of the great Rest-Giver Himself. He says not, "Go, you ransomed ones; heralded by angels, to your thrones and your crowns; go apart from Me, and mingle in the ranks of ministering seraphim. My connection with you terminates, now that your earthly burdens are laid down. I go to My Father, and you see Me no more." No! It is, "Come, you blessed, come with Me. I will show you the path of life. Remember the words that I spoke, My closing words on earth. The promise will be in its widest, its eternal sense, ratified now--'If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there you may be also.'" It would be no true rest to them, if the pilgrim-prayer could not still be offered as they stand on the threshold of bliss--"If Your Presence go not with us, carry us not hence." His response is, "Come!" "My presence shall go with You, and I will give you REST."
4. One other thought. It will be rest after labor, and rest-recompense for labor done under the inspiration of that divinest and most heaven-born of forces--Love to the Master. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth--Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them." "Come," is the Savior's word and form of welcome--and then He specifies the varied good deeds wrought by His people, and which He owns and accepts as done for Himself. Rich and poor too can participate in the same tribute-offering. Varied ministries of service, necessarily different in kind and degree (what we may designate by the conventional terms of high and low), will be equally valued by Him who tests all, not by material bulk or value, but by motive. Through this consecrated medium of love, the cup of cold water given to the needy will be owned and accepted at the great gathering of souls, whether that water be conveyed in golden goblet or in earthenware vessel.
No rest on earth is sweeter or more welcome than that earned by unselfish, self-sacrificing toil--the consciousness of honest labor followed by well-earned approval and reward, the well-sustained fight followed by the spoils of victory. What will be the elements of joy in that rest which is the result of loving work done for the great Loving Being to whom we owe our eternal all?
Blessed Savior, may I be able now with the ear of faith to hear these whisperings from the better world, where rest will be turned into rapture. And may it be mine at last, under the sway and dominion of a love which is eternal, casting my blood-bought crown at Your feet, to say– "In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand there are pleasures for evermore."
"This is the resting place, let the weary rest. This is the place of repose." Isaiah 28:12
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MISGIVING REBUKED
"Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
"Said I not unto you, that, if you would believe, you should see the glory of God?" –John 11:40
Faith in Christ is an equivalent for Rest. He, the gracious Bestower of Rest, says "Come to Me--believe Me--trust Me, and your heavy burden, whatever it is, will at my appointed time be explained, lessened, or removed; and if not any of these, strength will be given to enable you to bear it."
There was much when the above words were spoken, to stagger and paralyze faith, and therefore to foster unrest. A beloved brother dead and a Savior absent! Unlike the daughter of Jairus, who was still laid on her coffin within the house, Lazarus had been three days committed to the sepulcher when the Great Physician appeared. The triumph of death in his case was complete. On all human calculations the doom seemed beyond reversal.
"Hush!" says the Redeemer. "Is anything too hard for the Lord? Man's extremity is My opportunity. Believe Me. Look beyond human frailty and the limitations of human power. 'With God all things are possible.' In the darkest seasons of depression, when faith and sight seem waged in unequal conflict, and victory inclining to the latter, dismiss unworthy impeachments of the divine Wisdom. You shall yet, it may even be in the midst of crossed and unanswered prayers, see the glory of God."
"We sadly watched the close of all,
Life balanced in a breath;
We saw upon his features fall
The dreadful shade of death.
All dark and desolate we were,
And murmuring nature cried–
'Oh, surely, Lord, had You been here,
Our brother had not died!'
"But when its glance the memory cast
On all that grace had done,
And thought of life's long warfare past
And endless victory won,
Then faith, prevailing, wiped the tear,
And looking upward, cried–
O Lord, You surely have been here;
Our brother has not died!" –Burns
Blessed Savior, give me grace to enter this secure Hospice revealed in the meditation of today, and to trust You in dark dispensations. Bestow upon me the rest of faith, confiding in You where I fail to discern Your footsteps, saying with one of these faithless yet faithful mourners--"But I know that even now, whatever You will ask of God, God will give it You." Sooner or later the cloud will have its silver lining; and my Bethany, whatever it be, now shrouded in funeral gloom, will be bathed in sunshine. The web woven with impaired vision and trembling fingers will then be seen to be no piece of disordered and inharmonious patchwork. "There is no complete answer to the question," says a leader of religious thought, "within the range of our present knowledge. We feel here that we only see the fringe of a vaster system of government than we can yet take measure of." "Glory to God for all," were Chrysostom's last words.
"There are days of silent sorrow
In the seasons of our life,
There are wild despairing moments,
There are hours of mental strife,
There are times of stony anguish,
When the tears refuse to fall;
But the waiting-time, my brothers,
Is the hardest time of all.
"But at last we learn the lesson
That God knows what is best;
For with wisdom comes patience,
And of patience comes rest;
Yes, a golden thread is shining
Through the tangled woof of fate,
And our hearts shall thank Him meekly
That He taught us how to wait."
–Psalms of Life
"Said I not unto you?" I can fill up, with all His spoken promises, that blank cheque. I shall recognize troubles and sorrows only as the steps leading upward to the Heavenly Hospice. I shall look forward by anticipation, and see life's sanctuary, the temple of existence, no longer a half-completed structure, a half-developed plan, with pillars broken, and aisles unroofed, and windows bared to the storm, but standing out, the completed "building of God," in the fair and finished proportions of eternity. Meanwhile I can sing even through tears this "song in the night"– "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. Commit your way unto the Lord--trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass."
"This is the resting place, let the weary rest. This is the place of repose." Isaiah 28:12
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REST OF FORGIVENESS
"Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
Then Jesus said to the woman, "Your sins are forgiven." Luke 7:48
And Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." Luke 7:50
These words were spoken to one of earth's most weary and heavy-laden, a child of despair, who sought the presence and solace of the Great Rest-Giver in the house of Simon of Galilee. The harsh, censorious, unsympathetic guests at the Pharisee's table made no attempt at kindly intervention. They would spurn her away unsuccoured, as if her touch were defilement. They would leave her a battered flower, crushed and broken with the pitiless rain and storm. Not only so; they were even tempted to repudiate and reject the divine character of the new Teacher on account of His apparent ignorance of her previous life--His apparent tolerance of impurity. "If His were indeed the Omniscience claimed, He must have known who it was that was now crouching abashed behind Him, and raining tears of remorse on His feet." It has been surmised that the words of our leading motto-verse and its invitation were uttered shortly before; that this outcast had heard them; that on hearing them the first ray of hope was kindled in her anguished soul. She followed the footsteps of the Redeemer. His words, "Come unto Me," had rung in her ear ever since like a chime of reposeful music; and she dared ask from Him--the gentle Dispenser of Pardons--that "absolution" which a cruel world and a conventional code of morality denied.
"With silent step
I enter, and along the lighted hall
Pass swiftly, until I reach Your place, and stand
Behind You weeping; soft Your shadow falls
And covers me from trouble and reproach,
That none may chide my tears or bid me go."
Yes, she was not mistaken. The Sun of Righteousness and Mercy shone, and the flower lifted its drooping leaves. With sobbing heart and speechless emotion, she came to the Mighty Burden-Bearer, as implied in the original "kissing much His feet" and was hushed to rest in the peace of a divine forgiveness. "Go in peace," or, as it is literally, "Go into peace"--go enter within My Hospice.
There is a panacea in the words of our meditation for all who in diverse ways have guilt on the conscience. Transgressions in the past may be many and aggravated. Love and loyalty to God and truth and holiness may have been sadly ebbing. "My iniquities have separated between me and my God." In moments of faithlessness and despair, there may have been temptation to rush to the dungeons of Doubting Castle, rather than to the Gospel Hospice, and hear rung only the knell of extinguished hope. Blessed be His name! there are accents of love and reconciliation heard, telling that the separating gulf is bridged and the Hospice-gates flung wide open for welcome.
"Far, far away, like bells at evening pealing,
The voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea,
And laden souls, by thousands meekly stealing,
Kind Savior, turn their weary steps to Thee."
I would make it my prayer--"Let me fall now into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great; and let me not fall into the hand of man!" O Christ, O Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, where would I be but for You, with the plenitude of Your grace, the wealth of Your forgiveness? There is no bound to Your ocean mercy. It laves and washes with its ample tide the dreariest, rockiest shores of humanity. The Bible's great refrain from first to last is– "He is able also to save unto the uttermost." The uttermost! Who dare set limits to the uttermost a Savior-God can do, the possibilities of His infinite love?
"Through life, through death, through sorrowing and sinning,
Christ shall suffice me as He has sufficed.
Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning;
The beginning and the end of all is Christ."
"Come," He seems still to say--"come unto ME! Others may reject the gracious offer. Others may be tempted to cower in terror over an irreparable, irrevocable past, as if condemned to stand hopeless outside the pale of mercy. O weary, restless soul, You are doubting My ability and willingness to reach your case. Doubt it not."
"Go, in penitence bewailing,
Go, and now bemoan your guilt;
Trust the promise, never failing,
'I will save you if you wilt.'
"Hasten, every soul despairing,
At the cross of Jesus fall;
Though with legion sins repairing,
He will freely pardon all."
There was a beautiful Jewish legend, that for many centuries after the rite was instituted, the red or scarlet thread bound round the neck of the scape-goat turned white. It was the significant token of forgiveness, the words of the great prophet, spoken on the threshold of his prophecy, put in visible emblematic shape--"Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord--though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Isa. 1:18). Other Hospices," the divine Pardoner seems to say, "may be closed, but read the superscription over My Gospel Refuge and Stronghold. See the blood sprinkled on its lintels and door-posts, which gives Me the unchallenged prerogative to say– Neither do I condemn you--go, and sin no more."
"This is the resting place, let the weary rest. This is the place of repose." Isaiah 28:12
FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER AND THE SON
"Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
"If a man loves Me, he will keep My words--and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." John 14:23
What a hospice is this! What a wondrous relationship the words of the divine Bestower of Rest unfold--that love toward God in the soul of the believer has the most gracious of responses! Two of the adorable Persons in the ever-blessed Trinity are represented as Guests entering in and dwelling there. "My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."
It would seem as if the emblem were dear to Him who employs it; for it is the very same that is repeated, in still more touching and winning language, not in the days of His humiliation, but from the throne of His exaltation. Standing, as a patient KING, outside the closed portal of the heart, with the dews of night at His feet and frosty skies above, the lock of the door matted with ivy and corroded with rust, "Behold," says He, "I stand at the door, and knock--if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me" (Rev. 3:20). In the words of a sacred poet–
"His bleeding feet still loiter at your door,
His head against the iron bar is pressed,
Impassioned tears rise in His eyes once more,
He longs to give you REST."
Both figures significantly convey the pleadings of a love that never fails, an importunity that never wearies, as well as a fellowship most intimate and endearing.
O blessed meeting-place! The human heart becomes itself a Hospice--a house of shelter and refreshment, where the festal table of rich spiritual blessing is sacramentally spread, and where the storm raging without only enhances the gracious rest and security within. "And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined" (Isa. 25:6).
"Accept these gifts beyond compare,
And leave behind earth's toil and strife;
Ascend the heights, and breathe the air
Of God's own everlasting life.
"If you will serve Him, you of Heaven
The honored and approved shall be;
Accepted, welcomed, loved, forgiven,
Earth knows of no such pedigree."
"My Father will love him." We are told of Thomas Aquinas, the scholar and saint of the thirteenth century, that when lying ill he had continually in his mouth these words of Augustine--"Then shall I truly live when I shall be quite filled with You alone and Your love" (Vaughan's Life).
There is but one condition here made by the Divine Speaker regarding "the mountain guest-chamber,"--"If a man loves Me, he will keep My words."
Gracious Redeemer, Author of Peace and Giver of Rest, help me to accept this stipulated provision. Enable me to hear and to obey Your voice, to reverence Your will, reflect Your holiness and purity, Your charity and unselfishness, Your patience patience and endurance, the beauty of Your life of self-consecration. The words of Jesus I am asked to "keep," are not the words of a dead teacher or prophet; not the obsolete sayings of the Christ of an historic past--a Figure which flitted in mystery across the world's stage nearly two thousand years ago, and then vanished like other great men of the olden time. They are the utterances of a divine, sympathetic, ever-living, ever-loving Being--the God-Man, the Man-God. They are arrows, polished shafts sent as fresh today as then from His golden quiver. The words of man may fail and falter, and before long be forgotten. But "the words I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life," welling fresh from a perennial Fountain.
"We will come unto him," further says our verse, "and make our abode with him." An ecclesiastical writer mentions that Ignatius, in the early years of the second century, "borrows an image from the sacred pageant of some heathen deity, where statues, sacred vessels, and other treasures are borne in solemn procession." "So," are the words of that venerated Christian regarding the true followers and worshipers of his Lord, "are they all marching in festive pomp along the Via Sacra--the way of love--which leads to God. They all are bearers of treasures committed to them; for they carry their God, their Christ, their shrine, their sacred things in their heart." Happy those who in some lowly measure are able to join this festal throng, bearing with them consecrated treasures, and seeking to take up their abode in the heart of the "Father-God!"
Conscious, it may be, of past shortcoming and unworthiness, may I be yet enabled, with humble confidence, to make the avowal--"Lord, You know all things, You know that I love You." "He that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him."
"Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ."
REST IN THE HOLY SPIRIT
"Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
"I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever." John 14:16
A gracious Hospice opened by Christ to His disciples in the near prospect of His departure, was the promise of a divine Comforter, whose advent would more than compensate them for His own personal absence and loss; not a temporary visitant, like the angels who from time to time gladdened both dispensations; not like the Abrahams, and Elijahs, and Isaiahs, and Davids, and Baptists--brilliant passing meteors shining for a season and then lost in the darkness--no satellite with reflected or derivative light, but an abiding Presence and glory "above the brightness of the sun."
This heavenly Paraclete was to "teach them all things;" to "guide them into all truth;" to energize, with superhuman wisdom and power--a continued strength and inspiration for His people in the time to come. And, best of all, He was to be the ever-present Revealer of an absent Lord, magnifying Him in the affections of His Church and people--"He shall glorify Me for He shall receive from Me, and shall show it unto you."
At Pentecost there was the full realization of the promise. The windows of heaven were then opened, and showers of blessing descended. The gathered disciples were "baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire," each brow haloed with flame--a radiance of unearthly brightness. It was the predicted "times of refreshing." The prophetic announcement was fulfilled--"He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, and as showers that water the earth." Multitudes were enabled to call Christ "Lord, by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3).
Living as we do under "the dispensation of the Spirit," we have in His bestowal and name a true Refuge and House of Rest. He is emphatically the Spirit of peace, brooding with halcyon calm over the chaos of unrest. COMFORTER is surely the most precious of balm-words for the weary and heavy laden, the sin-burdened and sorrow-burdened. Filled with all joy and peace in believing, we "abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."
"Filled with the Spirit"--that is the secret and explanation of the rest this Hospice affords. Its every window is thrown open to catch the divine breath and echoes from the everlasting hills. There replenished and recruited with His varied gifts, the traveler is ready to prosecute his upward and onward way, with the new song on his lips--"Your Spirit, O God, is good; lead me into the land of uprightness." The chalice of joy given by the divine Agent is so full of the living water of which He is the emblem, that there is no room in it for the poison-drops of sin, the contamination of any baser earthly admixture. Rather, in His hands, life is like the vessels of Cana, not only filled to the brim, but the contents are gradually transfused and transfigured into the wine of heaven. Commonest blessings and joys are in Him sanctified, and become sacramental.
"In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirsts, let him come unto Me, and drink. This spoke He of the Spirit" (John 7:37, 39).
May it be mine personally to appropriate this richest boon and legacy bequeathed by the departing Savior to His Church and people; recognizing in the presence and supporting grace of "the Comforter" the chief well of refreshment for pilgrims "passing through the Valley of Baca." It is an additional encouragement, too, in pleading for the peerless gift, that the divine Father is harmonized with the divine Son in the loving and bountiful bestowment. Does an earthly parent delight in lavishing tokens of affection on his offspring? "How much more shall your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit unto those who ask Him?"
Happy those who are able, in some feeble measure, yet with lowly confidence, to join in the apostle's testimony– "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given unto us."
"This is the resting place, let the weary rest. This is the place of repose." Isaiah 28:12
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HOSPICE OF PRAYER
"Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
"Whatever you shall ask the Father in My name, He will give you." John 16:23
A gracious promise and a gracious welcome from the loving Rest-Giver. Wide is the range of blessing here given--"Whatever you ask." One condition alone is made, and which is thus elsewhere expressed--"If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us" (1 John 5:14). Surely the Inviter's own words are a pledge that all will be given that is really for our good; and all will as assuredly be withheld which would be detrimental to our best and truest well-being.
The unique prayer of Jabez, though one of the most ancient in inspired story, has, in its expressed limitations, a significance and beauty which make it the property of no one dispensation, but of the Church and the believer in every age--"And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that Your hand might be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested" (1 Chron. 4:10). The God of the old pilgrim-father is ever and alone the judge of what are "blessings indeed"--blessings not counterfeit but real. At times to us this is difficult to believe. The promise of our verse today seems to our short-sightedness and unwisdom often strangely belied. The gates of the Hospice-sanctuary appear barred, and our purposes thwarted. The evils we dread and deprecate overtake us; the blessings we fondly invoke and implore are denied. Let us hush all misgivings; let us check all misconstruction of the divine will and wisdom by accepting the righteous ordinations of that Will, remembering from whom these answers come. "Whatever you shall ask the Father." "Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Your sight."
A further guarantee the verse supplies is the divine Medium, through which alike our prayers are offered and the Father's will is conveyed--"In My name." It is the name that is above every name--the name of "the Wonderful Counselor," the divine Brother-Man, the King of heavenly hosts, yet the King of earthly pilgrims. "The name of the Lord is a strong tower [a Hospice]; the righteous runs into it, and is safe." Him the Father hears always. In the prophetic words of the psalm, "You have given Him His heart's desire, and have not withheld the request of His lips." He is the true "Arbitrator between us, who lays His hand upon us both." He is the true Antitype in that double Rephidim picture--Moses on the mount and Joshua in the plain, pleading for us and fighting for us; only, unlike the type, there is no suspension in His intercession, His hand never "growing weary." He is the true Covenant Angel with the "much incense" of His adorable merits.
There seems, at first sight, contradiction in an immediately subsequent verse of this same valedictory chapter. "You shall ask," says He, "in My name--and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me" (verses 26, 27). But it only lends intensity and emphasis to the Speaker's previous statement. It is as much as to say, "Though I be your ever-living, ever-loving Intercessor, the Prince who has power with God and must prevail, in another sense I need be no such Intermediary, I need to exercise no such intervention. Simply asking blessings through Me will be a passport to the Father's heart. You have only in your pleadings to name My name. It will be enough. Your love for Me will be sufficient to secure His love to you. Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full."
O blessed shelter and pausing-place for the climbers of every Hill Difficulty! There is no rest for the weary equal to that secured by prayer. In the very act of devotion there is a sense of calmness and peace. A writer (Wells) happily illustrates this in citing the classic story of Orestes fleeing to the temple of Apollo, the god of light. Safe and inviolable in the sacred shrine, his fears and agitations are lulled as he lies prostrate in devotion before the altar. A beautiful and truthful picture of the believer on his knees at the mercy-seat, looking up in silence and trustfulness to the Father of Lights, with whom is no darkness at all! In that hour of quietness and confidence he gets strength. The apostle seems in the same way to carve an appropriate motto above the door of this gracious Hospice, this refuge of peace, when he says, "In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
"This is the resting place, let the weary rest. This is the place of repose." Isaiah 28:12
FINAL REST AND BEATIFIC PRESENCE
"Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
At dawn the disciples saw Jesus standing on the beach, but they couldn't see who he was. He called out, "Children, have you caught any fish?" "No," they replied. John 21:4-5
Weary and burdened with new apprehensions and desponding thoughts were these pilgrims of Galilee. Even Peter, despite of former protestations, now chafing under deferred and disappointed hope, seems to say, "I can wait on no longer; I shall resume the old daily occupation I had readily surrendered for a nobler, diviner mission. I am going fishing." And the others followed suit. It was a night of unremunerated toil. When their boat was drawing near to the western shore, a Figure stood out in the tender mystery of the dawn--the dim morning light that was breaking over the hills of Naphtali. At first the jaded toilers knew Him not. The very tones of His voice seemed unfamiliar, even though the well-known greeting, "Children," reached their ears. But the Bidder of welcome was in due time recognized. The word passed from lip to lip, "It is the Lord!" A meal was ready spread on the shore; while a miraculous draught corroborated their surmises, and crowned the unrecompensed labor of "a night on the deep." The net was dragged ashore with its encumbering load, and the Lord of love was once more surrounded with loving hearts. It was parable and miracle in one.
After our night, too, on the world's sea of trial, life's varied and chequered appointments, there is to be a blessed day-dawn for all those that "love His appearing." In the morning of immortality, Jesus will meet us on the heavenly, as He did His disciples on the earthly shore, with the same gracious welcome. The prize which strewed the margin of the Lake of Galilee will have its emblematic counterpart in the recompense for faithful, though in the case of some it may be fruitless, labor. As with the miraculous draught, then at least nothing will be lost, nothing lacking in the final gathering--no baffled hopes, or frustrated toil, or impeded work. "And for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken."
In His own beatific Presence, too, the feast will be spread. That Presence and Love will consecrate and glorify the banquet--this not for a fleeting hour, but for eternity. Paul, in his great eighth chapter of Romans, ascends to the highest Hospice built on this side of heaven; and reaching these serene heights, where the toiling pilgrim breathes the air of the everlasting hills, he exclaims--"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" In that "morning without clouds" will the challenge attain its highest meaning and significance.
Lord Jesus, Giver of Rest and Peace, let me hear Your voice even now on the celestial shore, saying, "Come unto Me, you weary ones, and I will refresh you." Let me see in their spiritual symbolism (it may be yet dimly discernible) the lighted coal-fire, the fish laid thereon, and bread. Let the thought of that glad morning reconcile to all present experiences--storms, and buffetings, and night-watchings. Let the restful lullaby close alike this meditation and our volume– "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning."
"What time I am awake I am still with You."
"This is the resting place, let the weary rest. This is the place of repose." Isaiah 28:12
"The night is over, the sleep is slept,
They are called from the shadowy place;
The Pilgrims stand in the glorious land,
And gaze on the Master's face."
Blessed be the Lord, that has given REST unto His people, according to all that He promised. There has not failed one word of all His good promise, which He promised. (1 Kings 8:56.)
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1 Kings 8:56
“Blessed be the LORD, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant.”
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