Chapter VI: Part 6

Elijah had a clear understanding of what should be done to check the awful impurity which was sweeping over the nation like a flood-tide. He was true to his conviction in sending the four hundred priests of horribly licentious worship to their death. But was he brokenhearted over them? Was he utterly broken down with grief as he led them to the little running brook of Kishon for the nation's sake? God touched the sore spot, when, down at Horeb, the mount of thunder and fire, He spoke to this man of fire and thunder in that exquisitely soft sound of gentle stillness. This was a new revelation of God to this stern prophet of righteousness.

There may be a sort of letter-obedience, a formal obedience to the vision you have. In one's own estimation, there may seem to be a knowledge of what is right, and a self-satisfied doing of it. There may be a painstaking attention to the forms of obedience, and a self-righteous content in doing the required things. Is this the underlying thought in Peter's self-complacent remark, "Lo, _we_ have left all and followed Thee.[102] We're so much better than this rich young ruler who couldn't stand the test you put to him. _We----"?_ Poor, self-confident Peter! When the fire test did come, and come so hot, how his "we" did crumble!

"_Light Obeyed Increaseth Light_."

There may be _obedience without clear vision._ That is, there may be a doing of what is thought to be right, but without a clear understanding of what is the right thing to do. This results in _fanaticism_. Moses killing the Egyptian and hiding his body in the sand had no clear vision of God's plan. He knew something was wrong, and that something needed to be done. And so he proposed doing something. And the poor Egyptian who happened in his way that day felt the weight of his zeal. It's a not uncommon way of attempting to righten wrongs. He forgot that there is a God, and a plan, and that he who does not work into the plan of God is hitting wrong. There has been a lot of wreckage scattered along this beach.

Saul persecuting the Christians is another illustration here. He is a sad, striking example of conscientiousness without sufficient knowledge, of earnestness without clear light. He was conscientiously doing the wrong thing, as earnestly as he could, supposing it to be the right thing. John wanted to call down fire from heaven and burn up some people that didn't fit in with their plans.[103] Earnest intensity without sufficient light has kindled a good many fires of this sort.

Sometimes this does not go as far as hurtful fanaticism, but leads to blundering and confusion and delay. Abraham was acting without clear light when he yielded to Sarah's plan of compromise for getting an heir.[104] A bit of quiet holding of her suggestion before God for light would have cleared his mind. The result was wholly bad,--a confusion in his own mind, a mental cloudiness about God's plan and promise, an element of discord introduced in the tribal life, and a delay of many years, apparently, before the conditions were ripe for the coming of the heir of faith, on God's own plan.

Peter eating with his Gentile Christian brothers, and then refusing to eat with them, when some Jewish Christians came down from Jerusalem, made very bitter feeling in the Church at Antioch, for a time.[105] Paul's clearer light helped. Time spent in waiting for clearer light is always time wisely spent, even though we may seem slow.

There may be _love without clear vision_. The love makes intense desire to do something, but with no clear idea of what would best be done. Peter's awkward sword-thrust was an attempt to help, because of real love in his heart for his Master, now in personal danger. The Master's quiet healing touch recognized the love, and also rebuked and corrected the hasty, ill-advised action. But there's worse yet here, mean contemptible cowardice. Peter actually denying his relation with his Friend and Master, and making his denial seem more natural by the addition of the oaths that the maid well knew no follower of this Jesus could have uttered--what mean contemptible cowardice! But go gently there in using such hard words. He was only afraid of being hurt. He merely wanted to save himself. That isn't such an uncommon thing. Haven't you sometimes known something of this sort--_among others?_

The cowardly nine, making a new record for fleet-footedness, down the road, in the dark, were only doing the same thing in more cowardly, less-spirited fashion. These men loved Jesus. No one may doubt that. But there was no clear understanding of that night's doings, though the Master had faithfully and plainly tried to tell them. Fear for their own safety overcame the real love in their hearts for the Man they forsook that dark night.

_Clear vision and love without obedience_ is--impossible! Where there is no obedience, or faulty obedience, either the vision has blurred or dimmed, or the love is burning low.

_Clear vision and loving obedience_ mean power, sweet, gentle, fragrant, helpful power. It means a grateful crowd, and a pleased Master, who has been able once again to reach the crowd.

_Clear vision and love as a passion_, an intense passion, means irresistible power. That is to say it means a perfect human medium through which our Lord Jesus can act and manifest Himself. And this is the real meaning of power, power to the full,--Jesus Christ in free action. John, the fisherman, had a gradually but steadily clearing vision. He did not understand fully. But he understood enough to know that there was more to come which would clear things up. He could follow where He did not understand. His love for the Man controlled, while his understanding was clearing. He went in "_with_ Jesus" that awful night. I imagine he never left His side. Can we ever be grateful enough that at least one of us was true that night!

There was the same danger as with the others, and it was made more acute by His simple, open stand at his Friend's side. But love, with at least some understanding, held him steady. He could understand that Jesus must be doing the right thing, even though he could not understand the run of events that centred about Jesus.

The intensity that would call down fire, changed, under the influence of the changing, clearing vision, into an intensity of love. It was a mellower, gentler, evener, but not less intense flame. The disciple whom Jesus loved became the disciple of love. Love and vision worked upon each other from earliest times with him. Love made the vision clearer, the clearing vision made the love stronger, till they worked together into a perfect blend.

Paul's unmistakable vision on the Damascus road brought a passion of love, and an answering obedience, that swept him like a great flame. The fire-marks of that flame could be found all over the Roman Empire. He made mistakes doubtless, but these but made the trend of his whole life stand out the more. Paul was a wonderful combination of brain and heart and will, held in remarkable poise. The finest classic on love is from his pen. John could love. Paul could love, and could tell about love.

But a peculiar tenderness comes into one's heart as we remember that there was just one Man who held these three in perfect poise. And let us not forget that though He was more than man, yet it was a _man_, one of ourselves, who so held these three in such fine balance. It was a human poise, even as planned by the Father for the human life. The clear vision early began coming to Him,[106] and it became clearer and fuller and unmistakable until it had had its fulfilment. Obedience was the touchstone of all His life, from Nazareth to Olivet. And who, like Him, had the heart of tender love, the heart that was ever moved with compassion at sight of need, the heart that broke at the last under the sore grief of its burden of love?

The Olivet Vision.

Shall we take a moment more to look at these three finger-posts a little more closely? Just what is meant by _a clear vision?_ I could say at once that it means a vision of our Lord Jesus Christ. And yet that language has sometimes been used in a vague sort of way. And some of us have taken it in a vague indefinite way, and not thought into its practical meaning. Clear vision here means an understanding of who Christ Jesus is, and what He is, and what plans He has. Then it means that that understanding is so clear that it becomes intense, intense to the point of being overwhelming. That is, it becomes the _dominant_ thing that controls your thinking, and affections, and actions,--your life.

I think I may say correctly that the place for getting such a clear, full vision of Christ Jesus is _Olivet_. Olivet is a good place to pitch your tent for a little while, until your vision clears. Then you'll not stay there, though you may return to keep the lines of your vision clear and clean; you will be down in the valleys with the crowds.

One day the Master led His disciples out to the Mount of Olives. It was the last time they were together. And the group of men stand there talking, the eleven grouped about the One. He is talking with them quietly and earnestly. Then, to their utter amazement, His feet are off the ground, He is rising upward in the air, then higher, and higher, until a bit of cloud moves across, and they see Him no more. This is all you would see at a distance.

But let us come a bit nearer, and stand _with_ them, and listen, and watch. Olivet is the last bit of earth to feel the presence of the Master's feet. Off yonder to the west, down in the valley, you see a clump of trees; that is Gethsemane, the place of the bloody sweat and the tense agony of spirit. Across the valley, still looking west, lies the city, outside whose wall is the little knoll called Calvary, where Jesus gave His life out. Over here to the east and south lies little Bethany, which speaks of His resurrection power. And a bit farther off are the bare wilds sloping down,--that is the place of the sore temptation. Far away to the north, up in the clouds, lies _the_ snow-clad mountain, beyond your outer vision, yet coming now to your inner vision, where the God within shined out through the Man.

But while a quick glance takes all this in, your eyes are caught and held by the Man in the midst. His presence embodies and intensifies all that these places suggest. His face bears the impress of the Wilderness, and of the Garden. The scars plainly there tell of Calvary, as no piece of geography ever can. His mere presence tells unmistakably of the resurrection. And you know who He is, and what. He made the world and breathed His breath of life into man's nostrils. Later He came in amongst us as one of ourselves. He was tempted like as we, suffered like as we never suffered, gave His life for us, went down into death, _rose_ up again out of death. This is the Jesus of Olivet.

But the action of His face and pose are part of the sight. His eyes are looking _outward_. The set of His face is out. His hands point out. And He is talking; listen: He is talking about a _"world"_. And the outward turn of face and eyes and pointing hand become the emphasis of that word, "_world."_ He died for a world. He is thinking about a world. He has a plan of action for a world.

But another word gets your ear--"_ye."_ He is thinking about these disciples, about His followers. He has a plan of action for them. And these two plans, for the world, for their lives, these two are tied up together. And a third word stands out--"_I_." "I am with you, I am in command." And now three things stand out together, a world-plan, a plan for the follower's life fitting into the world-plan, and in the midst--Jesus, the Christ, my Saviour, my Lord. This is the Olivet vision. This, the clear, full vision: of Jesus, crucified, risen, empowered; of His world-plan; of His plan for my life as part of the world-plan.

Olivet faces four ways. Backward, it points to the sympathy, the humanness, the suffering, the cross, of Jesus. Upward, it looks to Himself, now sitting above the clouds at the Father's right hand, "far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named," with "all things in subjection under His feet." Outward, it reaches to the world He died for, and plans for, and is still brooding over with more than a mother's love. Forward, it anticipates eagerly the time when He will come back to finish up what He began, and we are to continue. When He returns it will be to this same Olivet.[107] He picks up the line of action exactly where He left it. Olivet is to know a second pressure of those feet.

This is the clear, full vision, the three-fold vision we need and must have for true following: Himself, His world-plan, His plan for each one's life. This means seeing things as they are. They fall into true perspective. You see how disproportioned and grotesque the common perspective of earth is. You see things through His eyes. His eyes take out of yours the personal colouring, the colour blindness of personal interest and advantage which so strangely and strongly affect all our sight.

We need frequent visits to Olivet's top, until constant looking at its outlooking landscape, at Himself, fills and floods our eyes. We need the quiet time alone with Himself and His Word, and some map-picture of His world, as a habit, until these, Himself, and His word, and His world, are burned into eyes and heart, until they fire as a sweet fever the whole life.

The Spirit of Obedience.

Out of the vision comes the _spirit of obedience_. We have spoken of the act of obedience, and the habit of obedience, but deeper down is the spirit of obedience, which lies under act and habit. I have used the words, "spirit of obedience," rather than simply the word, "obedience," because obedience sometimes stands for a bondage to rules, a slavery to things. The obedience itself must be deeper than rule or outward thing. The spirit of obedience sees into the spirit of the rule, and through the outward thing, and floods it with a new spirit of life. This spirit of obedience is the one finger-post found oftenest along this road. So only can we be true to the vision. And obedience itself is not true obedience, nor true to the vision, save as it is a love-obedience. Real obedience breathes in the spirit of the One being obeyed. It breathes out the love-spirit of him who obeys.

The touchstone of the "Follow Me" life is not need, nor service, nor sacrifice. The need is felt to the paining point. The service is given joyously to the limit of strength. The sacrifice is yielded to to the bleeding point. But these all come as they come, _through and out of obedience._ Yet need _is_ the controlling thing, too, _but_ not the need as _we_ see it, but as _He_ sees it, who sees all, and feels most deeply. The need is best met, the service best given, the sacrifice most healing in its power, as each grows out of obedience.

_The standard of obedience_ is three-fold, the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and one's own judgment and spirit-insight. These three are meant to fit together. This is the natural result when things are, even measurably, as they should be. When God is allowed to sway the life as He wishes, these three fit and blend perfectly. The Word of God taken alone will lead to superstitious regard for a book and to a cramped judgment and action. To say that we are guided by the Spirit, without due regard for the Book He has been the principal one in writing, leads to fanaticism, or at least to ill-advised, unbalanced, unnatural opinions and action.

Naturally one's own judgment and spirit-insight play a large part, for they make the personal decision, they interpret both Word and Spirit to us. It is through one's judgment and spirit-insight that the Holy Spirit and the Word influence the decision and action. The great essential is the habitual, quiet, broad, thoughtful study of God's Word, with the will and life utterly yielded to the Holy Spirit. So one's spirit is trained to understand, and one's judgment to form its conclusions. The Holy Spirit makes us understand God's purpose as revealed in His Word, and fits this into the need of practical life. Obedience, intelligent and full, depends upon the quiet time alone with God over His Word.

I want to add something more here. It is something startling. _There are no break-downs in the path of obedience_. I say that very softly, as a guilty sinner in the matter of break-downs. I remember that the record of Christian service is like one continuous record of break-downs, broken bodies, wrecked nerves, sometimes wrecked minds. And I am not saying it to criticize any one, except it be myself. Out of a long personal experience of constant going, unwise overwork, and serious break-downs, I am but confessing my own sins, when I say there are no break-downs in the path of obedience. Does that mean that there is much earnest service that we have not been told to do? And the answer must be a very gentle, but very clear, "Yes."

But the Man in command has perfect knowledge of what you can do. And _He never asks you to do anything beyond your strength_. Or, if He does need you to meet some emergency beyond your strength, He gives the strength required. He sends in a fresh supply of resurrection life to repair the waste of your body, and then, too, He calls into use strength, resources, talents, that you have not known you had. Now I know that if this be taken seriously, it will lead some to a heart-searching time alone with the Master. I am sure that if obedience alone is to be the key-note, it will mean many a readjustment. And it will mean, too, a new flood stream of power flowing through and out as the connecting parts are re-adjusted.

There's a helpful literal reading of a verse in Hebrews.[108] "Now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, with the blood of an eternal covenant, _put you in joint [with Himself]_ to do _His_ will in every good work, working in you [or through you] that which is well-pleasing in His sight." Obedience puts us in joint with Him, if we are out. It keeps us in joint; then the power flows from Him, through that joint, out where our life touches.

Obedience is really a music word. It is the rhythmic swinging together of two wills, His and ours. Rhythm of action is power. Rhythm of colour is beauty. Rhythm of sound is music. But it's really all music. For power is music of action. Beauty is music to the eye. Rhythmic sound is music to the ear and heart. If there might be more of this music, He and we in perfect accord, how the crowds would be caught by its melody and come eagerly to listen.

The Heart of Love.

And out of the vision comes the heart of love. The sight of the Lord Jesus' face begets love; and love begets obedience. But obedience never can keep true away from its father. It is never true full obedience except it have the throbbing heart of love in it. This is the unfailing mark. It's so easy to fail here. Yet "love never faileth." The classical Thirteenth of First Corinthians becomes an indictment. We know it better in the Book than in life. "Love suffereth long, ... _envieth_ not ... is not puffed up; doth not behave itself unbecomingly or inconsistently, seeketh not even its own, is not provoked." Love "beareth" with "all things" in the one loved, which it would gladly have different, "believeth all" possibly good "things" of him, "hopeth" for "all" desirable "things" in him, "endureth all things" in him that hurt and pain. "Love _never_ faileth." In conversation one day with an unusually earnest worker in the Orient, we were talking of these things. His work was beset by many sore perplexities. "Ah," he said, "there is where I have failed. I have not had the heart of love." And I thought how many of us could say the same thing.

There are in the Bible three great illustrations of the heart of love. As Moses came down from the presence of God, and found the people dancing about the golden calf, he was hotly indignant. But as he goes back to plead with God, the greatness of his love and grief comes out. In God's presence their sin is seen to be so much greater. He cries, "Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now if Thou wilt forgive their sin----" And a great sob breaks the sentence abruptly off, and it is never finished. The possibility seems to come to his mind, in this holy presence, that such sin, by these so greatly blest, could not be forgiven. And that seems to him unbearable. "And if not," if it cannot be forgiven, "_blot me_, I pray Thee, _out of Thy Book_; but don't blot them out."[109]

In the beginning of the great Jew section of Romans, Paul is speaking of the intense pain of heart he had over the unbelief and stubbornness of his racial kinsfolk. He says, "I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. For I could wish _that I myself were accursed_ from Christ for my brethren's sake, my kinsmen," that so they might not be accursed.[110] Yet neither Moses nor Paul could so sacrifice himself for another's sin. "No man can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him."[111] But Jesus, the pure, sinless one, _was_ blotted out. He _was_ made a curse. Moses and Paul would if they could. Jesus both could and did. Was there ever such a heart of love! And that heart was greatest in its action of love when it broke.

A simple story has come to me, I cannot remember where, of a woman in southern China in the province of Kwangtung. She had a serious illness and was taken to a mission hospital in Canton for treatment. There for the first time she heard of Christ, of His love and death. And that story coming so new and fresh transformed her, as she opened her heart to the Saviour. And a great peace came into her heart, and showed plainly in her face. Then her thought began turning to her own village. Not a soul there knew of this wondrous Saviour. If they but knew. But what could she do, her illness was very serious.

The next time the physician came by she asked him how long she would live if she stayed there. He said that he did not know, but he thought about six months. And how long if she left the hospital and returned home. He didn't know; maybe three months. And after he had gone she quietly announced that she was going home. And those about her were greatly astonished. "Why," they said, "you'll lose half your life!" And the tears came into her eyes, as a gentle smile overspread her poor worn face, and she simply said, "Jesus gave His whole life for me; don't you think I'm glad to give half mine for Him?" I don't know how long she lived. The story didn't say, but it did tell that most of the people in her village knew a long life, even an everlasting life, because of her simple telling of the Gospel story.

There were the three essentials, though never so thought of or analyzed by her. She had the vision of Jesus Christ her Saviour, then of those who had never heard of Him, and then of her own part in the plan of telling them. The impulse to tell them was obeyed gladly. And the heart of love counted not her life dear unto herself if only others might be told of this wondrous Christ Jesus.

Fellow-Followers

God's Problem.

God needs men. That is the tremendous fact that stands out in every generation. There never has been a corner since Adam walked out of Eden where that need was not thrust into some man's face, and thrust into God's face. It is being thrust into our faces to-day as ever before, and as never before. For the ends of the earth are come upon us, for the helping touch of our hands, _or_ for the drag-back to be overcome by some one's else helping touch.

God is a needy God. That fact is spelled out by every page of this old Book of His. And it is spelling itself out anew by the book of the life of the race whose current chapter is being written by our generation. God's wonderful plan for man lies at the root of His need. In His great graciousness He made us in His own image. That is, He gave to us the right of full free choice. He has never infringed upon that image, that right of choice, by so much as a whispered breath or the moving of a hair. He gave man the sovereignty of the earth and its life. And every move God has made among men on earth has been through a man, and through his free consent.

The tragedy of sin has intensified God's need tremendously. It has intensified everything, man's misunderstanding and hatred of God, the love of God's heart for man, and the distance between the two. It is constantly intensifying pain, sorrow, man's need, and the blight upon nature. It increases God's difficulty in working out His will of love for man. For it makes it increasingly hard to get even Christian men to see things through God's eyes, and gladly give themselves up to His purposes.

Poor God! Such a needy God! Rich in power, in character, in the loving worship of the upper world, in His love for all, rich beyond power of human calculation; so poor in the response of men to the wooing of His heart. So poor in the glad, intelligent co-operation of those who trust Him for salvation in the next world, but are content with very little of it in this. So needy in the lack of those who bring love and life, intellect and wealth, and lay all at His feet.

This has been God's problem, to respect the rights He has given man, and yet work through him in carrying out His great plan of love. This is the warp into which the whole of the Bible fabric is woven--the tragedy of sin, of sin-hurt, sin-stubborned men, the patience of God in wooing men back, and His exquisite tact and unlimited patience is always working _through_ men's consent, and through human channels.

To-day He comes to you and me, pleadingly asking us to help Him in His passionate plan for His race. Some few have the gift of leadership. Most of us are moulded to follow. He needs both leader and follower. He needs the _life_. He needs the _love_. Through these, whether in prominent place or shadowed, in leadership or in following along some well-beaten path, through these--the _life_, the _love_, He works in His great simple plan for overcoming the tragedy of sin. That plan includes the whole race. God has no favourites among the nations. When the hour is ripe for an advance step, a man is found ripened for leadership. This is the real final explanation of certain great leaders. It was not the man himself alone, but the coming together of the time, the man, and the plan; the time for an advance step, the man who had yielded to God up to the ripening point, the plan of God. And the decisive thing was the plan of God.

President Finney used to insist very earnestly that revivals followed a fixed law of action. When men would with all their hearts fit into the great laws of grace, there would follow the gracious revival results even as effect follows cause in nature; and without question he was wholly right. In addition to this, however, there is a further fact to note, of which Finney himself was a striking illustration. In God's broader plans for the race when the time is ripe for an advance step, He has some man in training for leadership in that hour, and so ripeness of time and of man and of plan come together. But the chief factor at work is God Himself.

This, and only this, explains fully certain great religious movements and leaders. Such men in later centuries as Luther in Germany, Zwingli in Switzerland, Calvin in France and Switzerland, Wesley and Whitefield in England, and Finney in both America and England. Only this can satisfactorily explain Moody's unusual career. He was a man of strong native parts, of marked individuality, and of utter surrender to God. And this combination would have brought great results under any circumstances, but it does not explain the great movement in which he was the leader. It was God's hour for an advance movement, the man so untrained in men's schools, was slowly made ready in God's school, and man and hour and plan fitted together. But the chief emphasis remains on the fact that it was the time in God's gracious plan for an advance. And the nations of the earth have been feeling the blessed impulse of that advance ever since.

But the leaders are few; and what could they do without the great mass of followers? God needs the faithful ones, unknown by name, hidden away in quiet corners, each the centre of a group which is touching a larger group, and so on, ever widening. Everything turns on this,--letting God have the full use of us; living as though God were the realest thing in this matter-of-fact, every-day world; going on the supposition that the Bible is indeed His Word, and is a workable book for daily problems and needs, the one workable book; making everything bend toward getting His will done. When we get up into His presence, this will be found to have been the one thing worth while. When the race story has been all told, the biography of earth brought to its last page, this will be the one thing that will stand out, and remain, that we let Him use us just as He would, and that we have brought everything at our disposal to bear on doing His will of love.

He comes to you and me afresh to-day with His old-time winsome patience, asking the use of us. He always thinks of us in two ways, for our own sakes and for our help in reaching the others. Followers are messengers. Some are special messengers in speech. But all are messengers in their lives; that is, they are meant to be. This is our Lord's plan. He wants us to _live_ the message.

That old word "witness" has grown to mean three things, that you _know_ something, that you _tell_ it, and that you tell it _with your life_. Every time the word witness is used in the New Testament it stands for some form of the word underneath from which our English word "martyr" comes. We have come to associate that word "martyr" with the idea of giving one's life in a violent way for the truth believed. This is the meaning that has grown into the word. But the practical meaning of this martyr-witness word goes a bit deeper yet than this. It is not merely giving the life out in the crisis of dying, but that the whole life is being given out in a continual martyrdom, that is, a continual witnessing. These words, follower, messenger, witness, run together. In following we are witnesses. We know something about this Man who goes before, a blessed something that has entered into the marrow and joints of one's being. We tell it. We tell it chiefly by living it. We are messengers. The whole life is a message of what Christ Jesus has done for us, and is to us.

A Confession of Faith in Wood and Nails.

Now, this is the thing--this _living it_--that God has always counted on most. There are in the Bible most striking illustrations of lived or _acted messages_. One man actually preached a sermon nearly fifteen months long merely by the position of his body. You would call that a long sermon, but it had the desired result, at least partly. The man got the ears of the people. They were hardened sermon listeners. The talked sermons had no effect. So they were given an acted sermon.

I think it may help to look at a few of the old-time followers. The one chief thing that marked these men was that they _lived the messages_. They experienced the truth they stood for, sometimes to the extent of much suffering. This _experience_ became part of the man's life. And this it was that God used as His message. You cannot be a follower fully without the thing taking your very life, and taking it to the feeling, deep-feeling, point.

One of the earliest of these followers was _Enoch_. His brief story is like the first crocus of spring coming up through the cold snow, like a pretty flower growing up out of the thin crack of earth between great stones. There was such a contrast with the surroundings. It is in the Fifth of Genesis, one of the most tiresome chapters in the whole Bible. Its tiresome monotony is an evidence of its inspiration; for it is a picture of life with God left out. There are five chapters in Enoch's biography. He was born; with that he had nothing to do. Like his lineal descendants and his neighbours he just "_lived"_ for a while, went through the usual physical and mental and social motions of life, no more. Then a babe came into his household, a fresh act of God, a fresh call of God, one of God's loudest calls. This was the turning point. He must have heard and answered that call, for a new life began. He "walked with God." This became his chief trait. It stands in contrast with his former life. Before he merely _lived_; now he was on a higher plane, he _walked with God_. The final chapter,--"God took him." They two had a long walk one day along the hilltops--or was it only a short walk?--and Enoch never came back. God kept him.

Now, in all this Enoch was God's messenger to the whole race. Jude speaks of his prophesying or preaching. But the emphasis of this simple Genesis biography is not on his preaching but on himself. That man walking about in his simple daily touch of heart with God,--that was the message. It wasn't an easy thing to do. The whole set of his time was against it. It was an evil time; impurity and violence were its outstanding traits. Enoch's life cut straight across the grain of his time. He was the leader of the first racial family, the chief one in the direct line from Adam. And he insisted on living habitually a simple, holy, pure life, walking with God, never out of touch. _Following meant keeping in step with God, never missing step_.

And this was talked about. Every one knew it. He was doubtless felt to be out of touch with his time. And he was, blessedly out of touch. It was probably never harder to walk with God. But he did it. This is how he helped God. This is what he was asked to do. God was speaking to the whole race through this great man's simple habit of life. And He spoke still louder when, one day, He took him away. Enoch's absence was the talk of the race. "He was not _found_." Clearly they looked for him, looked everywhere and discussed him and his peculiar manner of life, his strange disappearance, and his freedom from death.

So he met God's need. He became God's medium of communication to the entire race, simply in what he was, and so it is that most of us may help God. And if we will, He will be less needy, for He will speak through our lives to all whom we touch. Following means walking with God. So we help God in His need.

And Enoch helped God to get _Noah_. The touch of Enoch is on his great-grandson. Grace _is_ hereditary, when there's enough of it. Enoch had the boldness to set a new standard. It was easier for Noah to reach up toward it, when it was already set. Now, Noah was asked to do something more. Enoch walked with God, the personal life was the one thing. Noah walked with God, _and_ did something more.

He was asked to believe something unusual. It was something that could be believed only by accepting God's word against every other circumstance and probability; that is, that a flood was coming to cover the whole earth, and destroy the race. And he was asked further to put his belief into the shape of an immense house-boat probably built where it wouldn't float except such a flood did come. That huge boat was his confession of faith. He acted his faith. It would be a costly thing, perhaps taking all Noah's wealth, and taking some years to build. That belief was about the unlikeliest thing imaginable from every natural standpoint, _with God left out_. And God is _practically_ left out, except as a very last questionable consideration, then, and ever since, and to-day. Probably Noah was the butt of gossip and ridicule, quite possibly of scandal and reproach, year after year, by the whole race; and he would feel it, and feel it for his family's sake. That boat and its dreaming builder were the standing joke of the time. He was regarded as a fool, a fanatic, a poor, unbalanced enthusiast, building his gigantic boat on dry land! Perhaps some regretted that he brought the cause of religion into reproach by being such an extremist.

Yet the only thing he did was to believe God's word, and to shape his conduct accordingly. He simply did as God asked. He heard God correctly. His ears were trained to hear. He did what God wanted, regardless of what people thought. That was how he helped God in His need. The race was saved through this fresh start, else it had burned out long ago. Following meant a true life lived, _and faith in God expressed in wood and nails, and in good money paid out_, while men met him coldly on the road, or jeered.

Befriending God.

Long years afterward there was another man who helped God so decidedly that he became known as "the friend of God." And the word "friend" is used this time in the emergency sense. He did the thing God asked him to do, and this helped God in a plan He was working out for the whole race. God had to have a man. Abraham was willing to be the man. And in that he became God's helpful friend. The thing God asked him to do seems very simple, and yet it was a radical thing for this man to do. He was to leave his father's family, and all his kinsfolk, and live _a separated life_, both from them and from all others. It is almost impossible for the West to realize how close and strong family ties are in the Orient. Separation meant an unusual, sad break in holiest ties. God was trying a new step in His fight against sin. He had separated the leader of sin from all others.[112] He had removed all the race except a seed of good.[113] Both of these plans had failed, through man's failure. Now a new, farther-reaching plan is begun. A man is separated from all others, to become the seed of a new nation, a _faith_ nation, which should be a different people from others, embodying in themselves God's ideals for all.

Abraham is asked to become a separated man in a peculiar sense, separate outwardly, separate in his worship of the true God, and separate in living a _faith_ life. It was to be a life dependent wholly on God regardless of outer circumstance or difficulty. There was a training time of twenty-five years before Abraham was ready for the next step,--the bringing of the next in line of this new faith stock. Separation, then still further separation, an open stand for God in the land of strangers, then a series of close personal tests, each entering into the marrow of his life,--this was the training to get the man ready to be a _faith_ father to his son, the next in line of a faith people. And the hardest test of all came after the child of faith had grown to manhood. Then he became a child of faith in his own experience, as well as in his father's. Following meant separation. It meant believing God against the unlikeliest circumstances, against nature itself, hoping in the midst of hopelessness. Everything spelled out "hopelessness." God alone spelled out "hope." He took God against everything else. It meant going to school to God, until he could be used as God planned. And Abraham consented. He followed. He helped God in His need. He befriended God; he became His friend in His need.

But _every_ generation needs men. Each new step in the plan needs a new man. In a sore crisis of that plan, long after, another man's name, _Moses_, is known to us, _only_ because he singled himself out as being willing to let God use him. In his unconscious training, the training of circumstances into which it was natural to fit, he was peculiarly prepared for the future task. Bred in Egypt as the son of the ruler's household, he received the best school training of his day, with all the peculiar advantages of his position in the royal family.

Following meant more to Moses, in what he gave up of worldly advantage, than to any other named in the Bible record. Egypt was the world empire of that day. Moses was in the innermost imperial circles, and could easily have become the dominant spirit of the court, if not the successor to the Pharaoh's throne. But he heard the call. His mother helped train his ears. He answered "Yes" to God, without knowing how much was involved. Following meant giving up, then a long course of training in the university of the desert, with the sheep and the stars and--God. It meant a repeated risking of his life not only in his bold dealings with Pharaoh, but afterward with the nation-mob, mob-nation, whose leader, and father and school-teacher, and everything else, he had to be for forty years. And it meant much on the other side, too.

"Had Moses failed to go, had God
Granted his prayer, there would have been
For him no leadership to win;
No pillared fire; no magic rod,
No smiting of the sea; no tears
Ecstatic, shed on Sinai's steep;
No Nebo, with a God to keep
His burial; only forty years
Of desert, watching with his sheep."

A Yet Deeper Meaning.

When we turn to the leaders of the latter years of the Kingdom time of God's teacher-nation, the prophetic time, there is one thing that stands out sharply in the men God used. It was this, a man's inner personal life and experience were made use of to an unusual degree. It is as though the sacred inner life were sacrificed. The holy privacies were laid bare to the public gaze. The sweets of the inner holy of holies of the personal life were given up. The people were so far God-hardened that only _acted_ preaching, _lived_ messages, that took it out of one's very life, with pain in the taking, had any effect.

This is most markedly so in the case of _Hosea_, whose experience it seems almost if not wholly impossible for us to take in.[114] It is true that the Christianized West has conceptions of personal privacy to which the East is a stranger. Yet, even so, the way in which these men were asked to yield up their inner personal lives, must have been a most marked thing to these Orientals. For God used it as the one thing apparently, the extreme thing, to touch their hearts with His appeal.

_Isaiah_ had just such peculiar experiences. The birth of a son is planned for, and told of for the purpose of making more emphatic the message to the dull ears and slow heart of the nation.[115] His two sons bore names of strange meaning, as a means of teaching truths that were peculiarly distasteful to the people. Isaiah takes one of these strangely named sons as he goes to deliver a message to the king. And the son standing by his father's side is a reminder in his name of a disagreeable truth.[116] A little later the man is actually required to go about barefooted, and without clothing sufficient for conventional respectability, and to continue this for three years.[117] When we remember that he was not an erratic extremist, but a sober-minded, fine-grained gentleman of refinement and of a good family, it helps us to understand a little how hard-hearted and stubborn were a people that could be appealed to only in such a way.

And it tells us, too, how utterly surrendered was the man who was willing thus to give up his private personal life. How much easier to have been simply an earnest, eloquent preacher, with his inner personal life lived free from public gaze, a thing sacred to himself. Following meant the giving up of the sacred private life to a strangely marked degree, for God to use.

Even more marked are the experiences that _Jeremiah_ was asked and consented to go through. It would seem as though the repeated conspiracies against his life, the repeated imprisonments in vile dungeons dangerous to health and life, and the shame of being put in the public stocks before the rabble, would have been much for God to ask, and for a man to give. But there is something that goes much farther and deeper into the very marrow of his life than these. He is bidden not to marry, not to have a family life of his own.[118] And he obeyed. This was to be so only and solely as a message to the people. A message couched in such startling language they might listen to. Again we must remember the Oriental setting to appreciate the significance of this. In the East the unit of society is not the individual but the _family_. A man's marriage is planned for by the family, as a means of building up the family. To be childless and especially son-less was felt to be peculiarly unfortunate, almost bordering on disgrace.

This meant for Jeremiah not only the loss of personal joys and delights, but that his line would be broken off from his father's family. He would be without heir, or future, in the family history. So following meant going yet deeper into the inner personal life, for the sake of God's plan. This giant's strength is revealed in nothing more than in his tear-wet laments over his people. And he gave all this strength to following. He said "Yes" to God's need and request, though it must have taken his very life to say it.

But _Ezekiel_ was asked to do something even beyond this. He was the messenger of God to the colony of Hebrew exiles in Assyria. His accounts of the visions of God reveal a remarkable power of detailed description, and a remarkably strong mentality. Strange to say, these people in captivity are yet harder to reach than were their fathers in their native land. Yet, not strange, for the human heart is the same when it won't open to the purifying of the upper currents of air. Here the man himself literally became the message. He actually lay upon his left side for thirteen months and then on his right side for six weeks longer.

During all that time he ate food that was particularly repugnant, and it was carefully weighed out, and the water as carefully measured out for his use. He had to rise, no doubt, for various reasons, but the bulk of the time for nearly fifteen months he lay out where all could see him. His fellow-exiles, I suppose, looked and wondered, laughed and gossiped perhaps, and then as time wore on, they thought and thought more, and were awed as they began slowly to take in the meaning of this strange message of God. Thereafter Ezekiel was the leader, to whose house the leaders of the colony came, and to whose words they intently listened.

But there was a yet deeper meaning to following than we have found yet. It is a meaning that awes one's heart into amazed silence. He was married. His wife is spoken of very tenderly as "the desire of thine eyes." He was told that she would be taken away out of his life. She would die. That was the great thing. Then he was not to mourn outwardly for her; this was the second thing. He was to be before the people as though the greatest sorrow of his life had not happened. Is it any wonder the people came astonished to know what this meant? The simple brevity with which he tells of the occurrence takes hold of one's heart. "So I spake unto the people in the morning; and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded."[119] There was no questioning, no hesitancy of action, but a simple, prompt obedience, even though his heart was breaking. This was what God asked of him. God needed this in His dealings with these people of His in whom His world-plan centred. How desperate must have been the need that called for such an experience as this! Ezekiel said "Yes" even to this. Surely there was here some of that Calvary meaning, of the secondary sort, of which we have spoken together. Following meant not only giving his personality and life, but now it meant giving what must have been more than life itself.

Through Fire.

To _Daniel_ following meant something essentially different. He was not a messenger to his own people, nor their leader. He was a messenger to the great world-rulers of his time, through the visions he interpreted, and through his unbending faithfulness and purity of life; The thing that stands out largest is the life he lived, a life of simplicity in habit, of purity and consistency, with an unwavering faith in God. God _could_ use him to speak to the great emperors. So he helped God to get His message to men so hard to reach through a human channel.

Following meant a pure life. It was Daniel's insistence on being pure and true that shut him up with the wild beasts. And it was through his unflinching fidelity and persistence that God could send His message anew, in the most public manner, out to all the millions of that great world-empire. Following meant to a marked degree a pure life as the basis of the service rendered. It proved to mean a lions' den, _and_ the power of God overcoming the instincts of ravenous beasts. But clear beyond these it meant that God could reach His world with His message to an unusual extent.