The Mind of Jesus Part 6

There is an awful intensity of meaning in the words, as applied to Jesus, "He _suffered_, being tempted!" Though incapable of sin, there was, in the refined sensibilities of His holy nature, that which made temptation unspeakably fearful. What must it have been to confront the Arch-traitor?--to stand face to face with the foe of His throne, and His universe? But the "prince of this world" came, and found "nothing in Him." Billow after billow of Satanic violence spent their fury, in vain, on the Living Rock!

Reader! you have still the same malignant enemy to contend with; a.s.sailing you in a thousand insidious forms; marvelously adapting his a.s.saults to your circ.u.mstances, your temperament, your mental bias, your master-pa.s.sion! There is no place where "Satan's seat" is not; "the whole world lieth in the Wicked one." (1 John, v. 19.) He has his whispers for the ear of childhood; h.o.a.ry age is not inaccessible to his wiles. "_All this will I give thee_"--is still his bribe to deny Jesus and to "mind earthly things." He will meet you in the crowd; he will follow you to the solitude; his is a sleepless vigilance!

Are you bold in repelling him as your Master was? Are you ready with the retort to every foul suggestion, "Get thee hence, Satan"? Cultivate a tender sensitiveness about sin. The finest barometers are the most sensitive. Whatever be your besetting frailty--whatever bitter or baleful pa.s.sion you are conscious aspires to the mastery--watch it, crucify it, "nail it to your Lord's cross." _You_ may despise "the day of small things"--the Great Adversary does _not_. He knows the power of _littles_; that little by little consumes and eats out the vigor of the soul. And once the retrograde movement in the spiritual life begins, who can predict where it may end? the going on "from weakness to weakness,"

instead of "from strength to strength." Make no compromises; never join in the unG.o.dly amus.e.m.e.nt, or venture on the questionable path, with the plea, "It does me no harm." The Israelites, on entering Canaan, instead of obeying the Divine injunction of extirpating their enemies, made a hollow truce with them. What was the result? Years upon years of tedious warfare. "They were scourges in their sides, and thorns in their eyes!"

It is quaintly but truthfully said by an old writer, "The candle will never burn clear, while there is a _thief_ in it. Sin indulged, in the conscience, is like Jonah in the s.h.i.+p, which causeth such a tempest, that the conscience is like a troubled sea, whose waters cannot rest."--(_Thomas Brooks_.)

"Keep," then, "thy heart with all diligence," or, (as it is in the forcible original Hebrew,) "keep thy heart _above all keeping_," "for out of it are the issues of life." (Prov. iv. 23.) Let this ever be your preservative against temptation, "How would _Jesus_ have acted here?

would _He_ not have recoiled, like the sensitive plant, from the remotest contact with sin? Can _I_ think of dishonoring Him by tampering with His enemy; incurring from His own lips the bitter reflection of injured love, 'I am wounded in the house of my friends'?"

He tells us the secret of our preservation and safety, "Simon! Simon!

Satan hath desired to have thee, that he might sift thee as wheat; _but I_ have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not!"

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Twenty-fifth Day.

RECEIVING SINNERS.

"This man receiveth sinners."--Luke, xv. 2.

The ironical taunt of proud and censorious Pharisees formed the glory of Him who came, "not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."

Publicans and outcasts; those covered with a deeper than any bodily leprosy--laid bare their wounds to the "Great Physician;" and as conscious guilt and timid penitence crept abashed and imploring to His feet, they found nothing but a forgiving and a gracious welcome!

"His ways" were not as "man's ways!" The "watchmen," in the Canticles, "smote" the disconsolate one seeking her lost Lord; they tore off her veil, mocking with chilling unkindness her anguished tears. Not so "the Chief Shepherd and Bishop of souls." "_This_ man _receiveth_ sinners"!

See Nicodemus, stealing under the shadows of night to elude observation--type of the thousand thousand who in every age have gone trembling in their night of sin and sorrow to this Heavenly Friend! Does Jesus punish his timidity by shutting His door against him, spurning him from His presence? "He will not break the bruised reed, He will not quench the smoking flax!"

And He is still the same! He who arrested a persecutor in his blasphemies, and tuned the lips of an expiring felon with faith and love, is at this hour standing, with all the garnered treasures of Redemption in His hand, proclaiming, "Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out"!

Are we from this to think lightly of sin? or, by example and conduct, to palliate and overlook its enormity? Not so; sin, _as_ sin, can never be sufficiently stamped with the brand of reprobation. But we must seek carefully to distinguish between the offence and the offender. Nothing should be done on our part, by word or deed, to mock the penitential sighings of a guilty spirit, or send the trembling outcast away, with the despairing feeling of "_No hope_." "This man receiveth sinners," and shall not _we_? Does _He_ suffer the veriest dregs of human depravity to crouch unbidden at His feet, and to gaze on His forgiving countenance with the uplifted eye of hope, and shall _we_ dare to deal out harsh, and severe, and crus.h.i.+ng verdicts on an offending (it may be a _deeply_ offending) brother? Shall we p.r.o.nounce "crimson" and "scarlet" sins and sinners beyond the pale of mercy, when _Jesus_ does not? Nay, rather, when wretchedness, and depravity, and backsliding cross our path, let it not be with the bitter taunt or the ironical retort that we bid them away. Let us bear, endure, remonstrate, deal tenderly. Jesus _did_ so, Jesus _does_ so! Ah! If we had within us His unconquerable love of souls; His yearning desire for the everlasting happiness of sinners, we should be more frequently in earnest expostulation and affectionate appeal with those who have hitherto got no other than harsh thoughts and repulsive words. If this "mind" really were in us, "which was also in Him," we should more frequently ask ourselves, "Have I done all I _might_ have done to pluck this brand from the burning! Have I remembered what grace _has_ wrought, what grace _can_ do?"

"Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him, let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a mult.i.tude of sins!"

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Twenty-sixth Day.

GUILELESSNESS.

"Neither was guile found in His mouth."--1 Pet. ii. 22.

How rare, and all the more beautiful because of its rarity, is a purely _guileless_ spirit! A crystalline medium through which the transparent light of Heaven comes and goes; open, candid, just, honorable, sincere; scorning every unfair dealing, every hollow pretension, every narrow prejudice. Wherever such characters exist, they are like "apples of gold in pictures of silver."

Such, in all the loveliness of sinless perfection, was the Son of G.o.d!

His guilelessness s.h.i.+ning the more conspicuously amid the artful and malignant subtlety alike of men and devils. Pa.s.sing by manifold instances in the course of His ministry, look at its manifestation as the hour of His death approached. When, on the night of his apprehension, He confronts the a.s.sa.s.sin band, in meek majesty He puts the question, "Whom seek ye?" They say to Him, "Jesus of Nazareth." In guileless innocence, He replies, "I am He!" "Art thou the King of the Jews?" asks Pilate, a few hours after. An evasive answer might again have purchased immunity from suffering and indignity, but once more the lips which scorned the semblance of evasion reply, "Thou sayest!"

How He loved the same spirit in His people! "Behold," said He, of Nathanael, "an Israelite indeed, in whom is _no guile_!" That upright man had, we may suppose, been day after day kneeling in prayer under his fig-tree, with an open and candid spirit--

"Musing on the law he taught, And waiting for the Lord he loved."

See how the Saviour honored him; setting His own Divine seal on the loveliness of this same spirit! Take one other example, when the startling, saddening announcement is made to the disciples, "One of you shall betray me;" they do not accuse one another; they attempt to throw no suspicion on Judas; each in trembling apprehension suspects only his own treacherous heart, "Lord, is it I?"

How much of a different "mind" is there abroad! In the school of the world (this "_painted_ world"), how much is there of what is called "policy," double-dealing!--accomplis.h.i.+ng its ends by tortuous means; outward, artificial polish, often only a cloak for baseness and selfishness!--in the daily interchange of business, one seeking to over-reach the other by wily arts; sacrificing principle for temporal advantage. There is nothing so derogatory to religion as aught allied to such a spirit among Christ's people--any such blot on the "living epistles." "Ye are the light of the world." That world is a quick observer. It is sharp to detect inconsistencies--slow to forget them.

The true Christian has been likened to an _anagram_--you ought to be able to read him up and down, every way!

Be all reality, no counterfeit. Do not pa.s.s for current coin what is base alloy. Let transparent honor and sincerity regulate all your dealings; despise all meanness; avoid the sinister motive, the underhand dealing; aim at that unswerving love of truth that would scorn to stoop to base compliances and unworthy equivocations; live more under the power of the purifying and enn.o.bling influences of the gospel. Take its golden rule as the matchless directory for the daily transactions of life--"Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Twenty-seventh Day.

ACTIVITY IN DUTY.

"I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work."--John, ix. 4.

How constant and unremitting was Jesus in the service of His Heavenly Father! "He rose a great while before day;" and, when His secret communion was over, His public work began. It mattered not to Him where He was: whether on the bosom of the deep, or a mountain slope--in the desert, or at a well-side--the "gracious words" ever "proceeded out of His mouth." We find, on one touching occasion, exhausted nature sinking, after a day of unremitting duty; in crossing, in a vessel, the Lake of Tiberias--"_He fell asleep_"! (Matt. viii.) He redeemed every precious moment. His words to the Pharisee seem a _formula_ for all, "Simon, I have somewhat to say unto _thee_"!

Oh, how our most unceasing activities pale into nothing before such an example as this! Would that we could remember that each of us has some great mission to perform for G.o.d, that religion is not a thing of dreamy sentimentalism, but of energetic practical action; moreover, that no trade, no profession, no position, however high or however humble in the scale of society, can disqualify for this life of Christian activity and usefulness! Who were the writers in the Bible? We have among them a King--a Lawgiver--a Herdsman--a Publican--a Physician! Nor is it to high spheres, or to great services only, that G.o.d looks. The widow's mite and Mary's "alabaster box of ointment" are recorded as examples for imitation by the Holy Ghost, while many more munificent deeds are pa.s.sed by unrecorded. We believe that G.o.d says, regarding the attempt of many a humble Christian to serve Him by active duty, "I saw that effort, that _feeble_ effort to serve and glorify Me; it was the very _feebleness_ of it I loved!"

Did it never strike you, notwithstanding the _dignity_ of Christ, and the _activity_ of Christ, how little success comparatively He met with in His public work? We read of no _numerous_ conversions; no Pentecostal revivals in the course of His ministry. May not this well encourage in the absence of great outward results? He sets up no higher standard than this--"She hath done what she could." An artist may be _great_ in painting a peasant as well as a king--_it is the way he does it_. Yes, and if laid aside from the _activities_ of the Christian life, we can equally glorify G.o.d by _pa.s.sive endurance_. "Who am I," said Luther, when he witnessed the patience of a great sufferer; "who am I? a wordy preacher in comparison with this great doer."

Reader! forget not the motive of our motto verse, "_The night cometh!_"

Soon our tale shall be told; our little day is flitting fast, the shadows of night are falling. "Our span length of time," as Rutherford says, "will come to an inch." What if the eleventh hour should strike after having been "all the day _idle_"? A long lifetime of opportunities suffered to pa.s.s unemployed and unimproved, and absolutely _nothing_ done for G.o.d! A judgment-day come--our golden moments squandered--our talents untraded on--our work undone--met at the bar of Heaven with the withering repulse, "Inasmuch as ye did it _not_." "The time we have lost," says Richard Baxter, "can not be recalled; should we not then redeem and improve the little that remains? If a traveler sleep or trifle most of the day, he must travel so much the faster in the evening, or fall short of his journey's end."

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Twenty-eighth Day.

COMMITTING OUR WAY TO G.o.d.

"But committed himself to Him that judgeth righteously."-- 1 Peter, ii. 23.