Verse 36
Chapter 109
Prayer
Almighty God, we are gathered around thy Son in his humblest form, and we wish to hear every word that may be spoken by the voice of his heart. The traitor has gone out, so now we may hear the music of love the inner word which traitors may not hear. They have gone out into the night to be lost in the darkness they love; but here we tarry in the morning, in the summer glow, and we are all bending forward to listen to the sweet Gospel voice, full of love, full of hope, so gentle a voice, hastening, as it were, to its own death to rise again in trumpets and thunders of sovereignty and power. But we will hear its lesser tone, we will listen to the gentler speech; we will listen with our hearts. Speak, Lord, for thy servants hear! We are tired of all other voices; we would purge our ears of all inferior sounds; and if thou wilt circumcise our ears, we shall hear, and nothing shall escape our adoring and grateful attention. Our hearts need thy voice: they are lone and weary and full of troubling wonder; yea, they are often sore afraid. They need to hear the voice from the great light, saying, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." The voice is comfort, the call brings with it great strength in every tone, the battle is already won; whilst our Master speaks to us we rise like men enriched with answered prayer. We love thy tabernacles, thou God of Zion; our souls have a desire and longing to enter into the courts of the Lord. There we find great liberty; there we spread out our whole strength no fold that is not rolled out to its fullest length; there we eat and drink abundantly; there the high festival of thy love makes us forget all weight, all burden. We are thine, bought with blood, sanctified by the Holy Ghost, made meet by thy grace to be partakers of the inheritance of life. We would know to whom we belong: we would see thy signature written upon our life, we would feel thy claim in our hearts urging us by sweetest persuasion of love to do some nobler deed. Thou hast led us to despise time and the earth, and all things we can see, when compared with the eternity of heaven and invisible realities. Thou dost train us by our impatience; our being kept so long outside the door that opens back upon the heavens is itself an education. We knock, and are not answered; we wait, and there is no reply; we linger through the night and are wet with heavy dews, still the door is not opened from within; but we wait, we still continue, we cannot go away; our standing at heaven's gate helps us to do earth's weary work. We have come to make many speeches to thee, because our hearts are many and our histories a great number. Hear the plaint of the sad and those who are ill at ease disappointed men, vexed and troubled hearts, souls that love right, and wish evermore to walk in the light, and yet are hindered by those who ought to help them; men of feeble will, whose prayers break right off in the middle and fall down to earth again, who wish to do right and feel as if they could not, who put out their hand to the altar and quickly let it fall; men who are full of concern about health and business and domestic affairs and success and ability to live honestly in the sight of all men things will not come right; if they are put right overnight, they are all wrong in the morning. These men are full of trouble, and they are like to fret themselves to do evil. The Lord have pity upon them and put an end to their vexation, lest it become a stumbling-block over which they fall and never can rise again. Thou dost train us by a way that is often weary. Our eyes are vexed by the prosperity of the wicked; our souls are full of wonder because they are not in trouble like other men. We cannot understand their fatness, their abundance of gold, and the innumerableness of their cattle; but thou hast surely set them in slippery places, and presently the tremendous solution will begin. We commit one another lo thy care. Draw us closer to thyself; speak as we are able to bear it; adapt the light to our vision, and when we would pray, let thy Spirit work mightily within us; teach the heart great words to express great desires. Qualify us every day for broader service, for more patient suffering, for deeper and more loving obedience; and when the little flame of life's short day lies down and goes from human eyes quite spark out, may our souls hail thee in heaven's eternal morning! Amen.
Not Now, But Afterwards
The whole verse reads thus: "Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards." Children will have everything now: "afterwards" is a word that plagues them. It is a most mocking word: it points to a time that can never come: it may be tomorrow, or next year; but whether to morrow or next year, it lies beyond the vision and beyond the range of the little grasping hand. As life advances we become more intimately acquainted with the word "afterwards," and, indeed, we come to like it. As for time, it is nothing: we begin to touch the meaning of the august expression, "A thousand years are as one day." We know that nothing is so near as the future; we know that yesterday is gone beyond recall, and that tomorrow is always coming and is always available. It is the mystery and the charm of this little life. How throughout the whole of this chapter Jesus Christ is Lord and Master! The title fills the whole chapter, gives nobleness to all the Divine speeches, covers with tender radiance all the interviews which Jesus Christ conducts on this day of shadows with his wonder-struck and fear-troubled disciples. It is a master's tone delivered with a brother's heart and voice which says, "Not now, but afterwards." This is the second time in the chapter that Jesus Christ has said the same thing to the same man. Simon Peter was never more impatient than within the lines of this chapter. Said he, "What is the meaning of this feet-washing? I do not know what thou doest"; and the answer was: "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Then again he comes before us: "Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards." So this child-man was constantly put back and told to wait till the clock struck and the hour had Come when he should have the keener vision, the more sensitive heart, the more receptive spirit and understanding mind. This was the training Peter needed: Peter was a man who wanted everything to be done instantaneously.; there must be no waiting; tomorrow must contrive to push itself into this day, and everything which the impatient heart desired must be supplied the moment the desire was expressed. The Lord, knowing this, always said to him, "Not now," that most vexing and teasing word. We want it now; we could do well with it now; it seems to us as if this were the very time to have it; and when we are in that high blood mad with impatience he quietly, with sovereignly tone, says, "Not now." He says it as from a throne, there is no halting or incertitude in his way of saying it; at first he taught with authority, and not as the scribes, and now, the shadows gathering around him quickly into darkest night, he still speaks with the authority which at first made him conspicuous. This is a grand doctrine; who can receive it? We have to be drilled into it; patience of this kind is not born in us. Blessed be God, we can be chastened and mellowed into the reception of the doctrine that afterwards is greater than now, and that not to have an afterwards is to be imprisoned and impoverished. Jesus Christ lived in tomorrow; early in his ministry he said, "Hereafter ye shall see."
Look at this in the direction of revelation. We cannot follow any great Scriptural doctrine now in all the range of its thought, in all the scope of its imagination, in all the possibilities of its issues. Who can explain the Atonement? The angels desire to look into it; the Voice from above says, "Not now, but afterwards." We begin in the right spirit when we begin in the spirit of waiting. Personally, I accept the Cross, but cannot explain it; personally, I need the Atonement by a necessity for which there are no words, but which presses upon my heart with all the gnawing agony of hunger. It cannot tell the quality of the blood, the measure of the oblation, the efficacy of the sacrifice. It is called "precious blood," it is called "self-sacrifice": the words dimly hint to me a meaning very gracious and comforting; what they imply in all the compass of their thought I know not now, but shall know afterwards. Is there then an afterwards for me, a higher school, a brighter day. additional facilities, closer intercourse with things and spirits and forces Divine? To be assured of that is to know the meaning of the mystery, "Death is abolished."
Or look at the same doctrine in relation to the mysteries of daily providence. "Thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards," the direction not being from one locality to another, from one point of space to another, but a following in thought, purpose, meaning, and sovereign decree a mighty flying after God, a keeping up pari passu with the great Walker, whose way is in the whirlwind and in the cloud. I limp now, halt and stagger and fall and half rise again and am down before I can straighten myself; I cannot follow, except in the dim, far distance now, but afterward . We want to know why we were made as we are so singular, constituted so mysteriously, with a will so easily led, with passions so instantly ignited, with dispositions now rising upwards, now flinging downwards, with a life that seems all forms; why not have been made otherwise, dear Lord, with stronger wills, with tenderer hearts, without perversity, without selfishness? And the Voice says, "Not now, but afterwards shalt thou know." This individuality is a heavy burden; this personal secret of the Almighty, which every man carries in his heart, is a most tormenting fire. An explanation will help us to bear it. To think that if we had been just otherwise made, in some line or curve of being, with an additional element, with a certain quality that is omitted from our constitution, we should have prayed ourselves into answers and have lifted ourselves by the power of intercession into the temple where there are no clouds, no nights, but where the interviews are face to face with hand locked in hand. We want to know why; it would comfort us to have some hint of meaning, and the only reply we can elicit is "Not now, but afterwards." Why this suffering? Who did sin, I or my parents, that this burden is laid upon me a burden for which I have certainly no light and certainly no strength? But for it, I could fly; with it, I am buried every day. What a life would yours be but for the one thing that enters the soul like iron! Old age could never touch you but for one thing. It is that that one thing that takes the erectness out of your figure, and makes your hair white in a night, and ploughs your cheeks into great furrows through which the tear rivers roll. A hundred times have I heard you say, "But for that I could sleep soundly all night, and be cheerful all day; the eating of bread would be a sacrament and the going out of the house an eager hastening to fight for God and the truth; why should I have had this chain upon my feet, this manacle upon my hand, this black night shadow bound round my poor eyes? Why?" And the answer is: "Not now, but afterwards." "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."
There cannot be an afterwards of revelation unless there is a now of obedience. The now is not evacuated of all meaning, stripped of all urgency, and turned into a blank nothing; now has its agony, now has its immediate fight. To obey in the darkness is the great thing. Were I to say, "I will trust God in the seventh trouble because he has delivered me in six," I should be saying something hardly worth saying. There is a subtle selfishness in that verbal piety; there is a most suspicious selfishness about that reasoning, though it sounds so holy. Hear it: "He hath delivered me in six troubles, and in seven he will be with me." The testimony in itself is good, and is sincere, because it is historically true and is meant to be full of solace from the historical side; but do not make too much of it as a test of growth in grace. Who then has grown in grace? This man who says, "Though he slay me, yet will I put my trust in him." That is faith. If you tell me that you have been so reduced, that you know not how to turn, and at the very moment of extremity light appeared and deliverance was wrought out, and therefore you intend to hope even under similar circumstances, your speech within narrow limits is perfectly good; it is a most valid testimony, but it is no necessary sign of growth in grace. This I want to be able to say: "I have nothing, I know not in what direction to turn, and if nothing should remain nothing, my hymn shall still be sung; though the fig-tree shall not blossom I don't say, though there be a late harvest of figs, but though the fig-tree shall not blossom I will be as pious as ever." That is growing in grace, that is maturity in the life Divine, and that is the lesson which we learn now; the afterwards is not in that particular lesson: it is the agony, the stinging fire of the immediate moment. How many persons make a deep mistake here! They think they are pious because, having been delivered out of six troubles, they feel sure they will be delivered out of the seventh. That may be a species of profanity; on the other hand, it may be the testimony of a grateful heart. But this is piety to have nothing in the right hand, nothing in the left, nothing in the world, and then not to pray, which is a beggar's attitude, but to sing, which is a child's and a prince's posture. This is the miracle of God; this is the ideal attainment. We are bound to keep it steadily before our dazzling eyes; we count not ourselves to have attained: far from it; but this one thing we do we press toward the mark. We know our selfishness better than any other men know it, and we mourn it, but seem as if we could not get rid of it; yet the grace of God is equal to this miracle. So, whilst we pray, we will sing; and whilst we mourn, we will also hope.
Obedience now is revelation afterward. We shall know if we follow on to know. He that doeth the will shall know of the doctrine. Obedience is preparation for revelation. Blessed is that servant who shall be found watching, waiting, when his Lord cometh; verily, I say unto you, he will put keys into that servant's hand, and call him to honour, and sit him in inner places, and make a son of him. "Mine, then, is a drudging life." Be it so. "I have to keep beating at this door so no sign of opening." No matter. "The Lord told me to knock, and here I am knocking, knocking, knocking; I want to fly, but he says, 'Knock'; I want to go inside, and hold festival with the angels, but he tells me to knock." Obedience prepares the mind for revelation, takes out of that revelation trie light that would dazzle the spirit's vision, and prepares the heart to receive wider demonstrations of the sovereignty and grace of God. We must be blind three days before we begin to see the outlines of things; we must lie down as blind, helpless creatures, simply and lovingly waiting for any prophet God may send to us to open our eyes and teach us our first lesson in the higher alphabet. This does not suit us: we want to walk more quickly, pass on, because we are measuring time by a false chronometer. We do not know the joy which is laid up for us in complete obedience to the word, "Stand still and see the salvation of God." There is marvellous graciousness in a gradual revelation. If "the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day," it is because his spiritual education is imaged by that same fair symbol. The next piece of knowledge comes easily. Were the child to be compelled to overleap seven years of the process of education, and to commence a lesson which lies seven years ahead of the page he is reading today, he would be overcome with fear, and no strength would be left in him. What the child has to do is to read the next line, and then to turn over the next page. What we, as Christian students, have to do is to keep to the present truth, obey the immediate duty, do the work that lies next and easily to hand; and then the revelation will, so to say, steal upon us, and then encompass us without the violence of haste and without the unrest of surprise. We cannot tell how the light grows in the heavens. In the morning it is seed-time, and at noonday the harvest fields of the firmament are white with an abundance of result; hardly is the morning seed-time past than the noontide harvest is ripe. So in mental illumination and in spiritual culture and growth. We shall know when we receive our last accession of truth. God's accessions are known by various names sometimes by the starting up in the mind of a distinct fact; sometimes by the gift of an impression; sometimes by the prick of a new impulse; sometimes by the glow of a new ambition; sometimes by a mysterious, profound, all-calming peace. But when the accession comes be it under this name or under that, the great fire, shocks of whirlwind, tumults of thunder, or a still small voice we shall have no doubt about its identity. Divinity cannot be successfully imitated.
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