The Fisherman of Galilee 
 

 
THE FISHERMAN 
 OF GALILEE 
 
 A Devotional Study of the Apostle Peter 
 
 By 
 
 harmon a. Baldwin 
 
 Author of “ The Indwelling Christ 
 
 New York Chicago 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh' 
 
Copyright, 1923, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 
 
PREFACE 
 
 T HE following pages have been inspired by 
 an earnest desire to be helpful to the chil¬ 
 dren of God in every place, by pointing 
 out to them some of the gracious truths and sur¬ 
 passing beauties of the word of God; and with the 
 hope that we may thus encourage men to drink 
 more deeply and with true devotion of that living 
 stream which shall eventually cover the earth as the 
 waters cover the sea . 
 
 Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 H. A. B. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 i 
 
 https://archive.org/details/fishermanofgalilOObald 
 
Contents 
 
 I. The Elect of God . ... 9 
 
 I Peter 1:1, 2 
 
 II. Begotten of God. 16 
 
 I Peter 1:3 
 
 III. The Inheritance of the Saints . 25 
 
 I Peter 1:4 
 
 IV. Kept by the Power of God . . 33 
 
 I Peter 1:5 
 
 V. Salvation by Faith .... 39 
 
 I Peter 1:5 
 
 VI. Manifold Temptations' ... 47 
 I Peter 1:6 
 
 VII. The Trial of Our Faith ... 54 
 I Peter 1:7 
 
 VIII. Joy Unspeakable. 60 
 
 I Peter 1:8, 9 
 
 IX. The Mysteries of Redemption . 67 
 
 I Peter 1:10-12 
 
 X. Keeping the Heart . . . . 74 
 
 I Peter 1:13 
 
 XI. Obedience and the Former Lusts . 81 
 
 I Peter 1:14 
 
8 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 XII. 
 
 Called Unto Holiness 
 
 I Peter 1:15 
 
 • • • 
 
 88 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Called Unto Holiness 
 
 I Peter 1:15,16 
 
 • • • 
 
 93 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The Coming Judgment 
 
 1 Peter 1:17 
 
 r 
 
 • • • 
 
 98 
 
 XV. 
 
 Redemption . 
 
 I Peter 1:18 
 
 • • • 
 
 104 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The Precious Blood . 
 
 I Peter 1:19 
 
 •V. 
 
 • • • 
 
 109 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The Precious Blood . 
 
 I Peter 1 :19 
 
 • • • 
 
 116 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The Spotless Lamb 
 
 1 Peter 1:19-21 
 
 • • • 
 
 123 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Obedience and Its Results 
 
 I Peter 1:22 
 
 131 
 
 XX. 
 
 The New Birth . 
 
 1 Peter 1:23 
 
 • • • 
 
 137 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The New Birth . 
 
 I Peter 1:23 
 
 • • • 
 
 143 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The New Birth . 
 
 I Peter 1:23 
 
 • • • 
 
 148 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Vanity of Human Life When 
 Separated from God 
 
 I Peter 1:24 
 
 151 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Enduring Quality of the Word of 
 God ••••••• 
 
 I Peter 1:25 
 
 158 
 
I 
 
 THE ELECT OF GOD 
 
 “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scat¬ 
 tered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and 
 Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the 
 Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience 
 and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ . Grace unto you , 
 and peace, be multiplied — I Peter 1:1, 2. 
 
 P ETER an Apostle of Jesus Christ.”—This 
 is Peter the poor, humble, unlearned fisher¬ 
 man, hut he had seen Jesus. He had seen 
 Him by the seaside, he had been with Him in the 
 ship on the storm-tossed sea, and had marveled at 
 His power; he had seen Him walking on the waves 
 of Galilee, and when about to sink in his attempt 
 to do the same had felt the power of that almighty 
 hand holding him up; he had walked with Jesus 
 along the dusty highways of Judea and wondered 
 when, at the gracious words which fell from the 
 lips of the Son of man, lepers were healed, the' 
 blind saw, the dumb spake, the deaf heard, the 
 lame walked, the dead were raised, devils fled, and 
 the poor heard the gospel; he had been with Him in 
 the mount and beheld His face shining like the sun 
 and His raiment like light; he had beheld Moses and 
 Elias talking with his Lord, and when he entered 
 the cloud he had heard the voice saying, “ This is 
 my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear 
 ye Him.” Then Peter, with the others, had fallen 
 
 on his face “ sore afraid,” but when he looked again 
 
 9 
 
10 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 lie saw no man “ Save Jesus only;” he had reclined 
 with Jesus at the passover feast in the upper room, 
 he had heard His parting instructions and reluc¬ 
 tantly submitted to have his Lord and Master wash 
 his feet; he had been with Him in the garden and 
 had slept for sorrow of heart; he had followed 
 Jesus afar off as He was led to the judgment hall, 
 and had denied Him only when He whom he wor¬ 
 shipped seemed to have lost His power; he would 
 have fought in the garden, but had been rebuked 
 for his rashness; yes, he was with the five hundred 
 up at Bethany and watched the Christ of his love 
 as He ascended and was received out of sight. For 
 upwards of three years Peter had been constantly 
 with his Lord, sharing with Him the hardships of 
 His humility; he had seen the vision, he had caught 
 the spirit, he had been transformed by the visioif 
 from a humble fisherman to an “ apostle of Jesus 
 Christ;” he had been clothed with the power of the 
 Spirit, and now he delighted to tell the glad news 
 and “ strengthen the brethren.” 
 
 Did you ever notice the sturdy strength, both of 
 faith and character, that resides in every line of 
 Peter’s writings? He was a man of action. He 
 could not sit down and ecstatically gaze into the 
 heavens—he must be up and doing. Just one time, 
 when he was on the mountain, he thought he would 
 like to stay and gaze, but he was not much more 
 than down again when his hustling disposition 
 manifested itself. He must do something. 
 
THE ELECT OF GOD 
 
 11 
 
 To be practical, did you ever catcb the vision, 
 did you ever receive the Spirit, did you ever see 
 Jesus? You did not walk with Cleopas to Em- 
 maus as Jesus talked with him, feel your heart burn 
 within you; but did Jesus go with you in the test? 
 Did you see Him amid the lashing waves ? or, with 
 Peter, did you lose your vision when Jesus was 
 reviled and buffeted and seemed to become like an¬ 
 other man, and deny Him there? Did you ever 
 ascend the mountain with Him and behold His 
 glory ? If you see Him not thus, you have no part 
 in Him. 
 
 “ To the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, 
 Oalatiaj Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia What 
 matter is it where these countries were located. If 
 Peter wrote only to them he did not write to me. 
 But there is one word that takes me in. From any 
 standpoint the matter is viewed, I was and am a 
 stranger. I was a stranger to the covenant of 
 grace, I am now a “ stranger and a pilgrim ” in 
 this world, I am seeking a city which is out of 
 sight, and it is the hope that I may sometime reach 
 that city which causes me so persistently to abstain 
 “ from fleshly lusts that war against the soul.” 
 
 A stranger can easily be noticed in the town. 
 People gaze after him wondering who he can be, 
 and he stares around in such a manner as to prove 
 that the surroundings are all new. And this is 
 much more the case if the stranger is a foreigner 
 and does not understand the language or customs 
 
12 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 of the residents, or dress according to the prevail¬ 
 ing fashions of the place. If you are a Christian 
 you are a stranger and a foreigner in this world, 
 you do not understand its sinful language nor fel¬ 
 lowship its unholy customs, and the people of the 
 world think it is strange that you run not to the 
 same excess of riot as they and speak evil of you. 
 
 “ Elect according to the foreknowledge of God.” 
 If a man is elected it is because of some real or 
 supposed merit in him that makes him fit for the 
 position. He cannot take his seat unless he is 
 elected according to the law or prevailing prac¬ 
 tice. They that run in a race, run all, hut no 
 man is crowned except he strive lawfully. Thus, 
 God has His laws according to which we must be 
 governed or all of our running will be in vain. 
 Jesus spoke of certain people who should cast out 
 devils, prophesy in His name, and in His name 
 do many wonderful works, but who should never 
 be elected according to God’s law, for, when they 
 come to the gates of heaven and knock, Jesus will 
 command them to depart, declaring that He has 
 never known them. But we need not be ignorant 
 as to whether we are lawfully elected. Peter lays 
 down one simple rule and names two results that 
 will inevitably follow a proper election: The rule 
 —“ elect through sanctification of the Spirit.” 
 The two results (1) “ unto obedience,” (2) “and 
 sprinkling of the blood of Christ.” 
 
 “ Elect through sanctification of the Spirit.” 
 
THE ELECT OF GOD 
 
 13 
 
 Sanctification is that gracious work of the Holy 
 Spirit by which the consecrated, believing soul is 
 cleansed from all moral defilement, and exalted to 
 holiness of heart and life. This then is the means 
 by which we are elected. God made Aaron and 
 his sons priests, the people elected George Washing¬ 
 ton president, bishops are elected by those who law¬ 
 fully hold the proper franchise; if we are ever 
 elected at all it will be through sanctification. God 
 cannot tolerate the unclean. Judas, the son of per¬ 
 dition, must die; Ishmael, the son of the bond- 
 woman, must be cast out. No country would 
 knowingly delegate authority or franchise to a 
 traitor. Sin is a traitor, and God who knows all 
 things demands its execution in order to a proper 
 election. Now all the powers of the soul declare 
 for God and strongly and joyously bear the bound¬ 
 ing heart into God and set it triumphant on the 
 throne of power. 
 
 But notice that the possibility of this condition 
 of affairs is brought about only by the Spirit of 
 God. He alone can cast out the traitors, He alone 
 can bring the soul, so rebellious by nature, into 
 loving submission to the divine will. He cleanses 
 the rebellion from the heart, He changes the enemy 
 to a friend; the sinner to a saint; He fits the 
 temple for His own indwelling, and henceforth 
 reigns alone. 
 
 Now for the proof of our election: 
 
 (1) “ Unto obedience ” “ Obedience is better 
 
14 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of 
 rams.” Men are sanctified that they may fully 
 possess the power to obey. A sanctification that 
 does not bear this fruit or bring about this result 
 is not of God. “ Lo, I come to do thy will, oh 
 God,” was the prophetic utterance of the Psalmist: 
 “ Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done,” was 
 the cry of the suffering Christ in Gethsemane; “I 
 will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest,” is the 
 declaration of the sanctified soul. A partial obe¬ 
 dience is a forced obedience, and a forced obedi¬ 
 ence is not acceptable to God; a full obedience from 
 a heart filled with love is the only form of service 
 the Lord can smile upon. To be sure I will make 
 mistakes, and there is no doubt but that in my 
 most complete submission I will often miss the 
 divine intent, but God is gracious and will fill out 
 my unintentional deficiencies with mercy, and let 
 me go free. 
 
 (2) “Sprinkling of the blood of Christ” There 
 are two sides to this sanctification. Man’s obedi¬ 
 ence, and God’s sprinkling of the blood. Some 
 stop with man’s part and are never elected; but 
 some go on until their panting souls touch the 
 blood, or, rather, are touched by the blood, and they 
 are thus made every whit whole. It is not by 
 works of righteousness that we ascend to God, our 
 best works without the blood are filthy rags; but 
 we reach God by obedience and a living faith on 
 our part, which, through some mysterious power, 
 
THE ELECT OF GOD 
 
 15 
 
 produce or bring about an application of tbe blood 
 of sprinkling which speaketh better things than the 
 blood of Abel. When the destroying angel saw the 
 blood on the doorpost of an Israelitish home, even 
 in the midst of doomed Egypt, he passed over that 
 house. 
 
 “ Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied An 
 apostle’s idea of blessing. Not an increase of 
 wealth, or honour, or power; not prestige or position, 
 but an increase of grace and peace. Not by the 
 slow process of addition but by the rapid develop¬ 
 ment of multiplication. What a great heart Peter 
 had! Such men as he, generally have a large 
 vision. He could embrace an opportunity and fin¬ 
 ish the job while the other disciples were getting 
 ready. There was much of the intuitive, as men 
 would say, but of the divine, as God would say, 
 in his make-up. Jesus commended him for his 
 quick grasp of divine truth that revealed things un¬ 
 seen, and said, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; 
 flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but 
 my Father which is in heaven.” 
 
 Now he catches a glimpse of the things in store 
 for us, and with a fisherman’s simplicity prays that 
 we may receive them. “ Grace ” and “ peace,” 
 favor and blessing. What more could we ask ? 
 With these we become children of grace and “ re¬ 
 joice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” 
 
II 
 
 BEGOTTEN OF GOD 
 
 “ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us 
 again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ 
 from the dead .”— I Peteb 1:3. 
 
 P ETER, the fisherman of Galilee, had great 
 reason to be thankful. If the forgiveness 
 of small debts should cause gratitude, 
 surely he who with an oath declared he did not 
 know Jesus, if forgiven, should he doubly grateful. 
 Oh, that look of melting tenderness that Jesus gave 
 Peter! The already crushed and sorrowful heart 
 of the erring disciple was so completely broken that 
 he went out and wept bitterly. With God there is 
 forgiveness. To err—to sin—is human, to forgive 
 is divine. Then, sorrowing one, look unto Jesus 
 and be saved. 
 
 A clean heart is a thankful heart. It is impos¬ 
 sible for one who has been cleansed to truly view 
 the mysteries of redemption without being aston¬ 
 ished at the wonders and graces which are hidden 
 there. Paul cried in ecstasy, “ Oh, the depth of 
 the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of 
 God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and 
 
 His ways past finding out! ” 
 
 16 
 
BEGOTTEN OF GOD 
 
 17 
 
 Having given ns a glimpse of the possibilities of 
 grace, and the method of their attainment, Peter 
 breaks out with the exclamation, “ Blessed he the 
 God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Why 
 should he bless God? Why should I bless God? 
 He leads my soul into deep waters, He hides His 
 face when it seems to me that I need Him most. 
 Then why should I adore Him? All such reason¬ 
 ings are carnal. I will never be fully blest until 
 I can look through the clouds and darkness and 
 tempest and see the hand of God working for me 
 with more tender care, with greater ability, and 
 with deeper anxiety for my success than I, myself, 
 could manifest had I the power to run things my 
 own way. We think we must be always in the 
 light; we are not happy unless our emotions are 
 stirred; we are as covetous after and as attached 
 to the breasts of divine consolation as an unweaned 
 child; without it we become fretful and peevish, 
 and are inclined to blame God for withholding our 
 rightful bounty. God wants us to be men in wis¬ 
 dom and look more to the Giver of consolation 
 than to the consolation He gives. If we possess 
 the Giver we have the gift, but in spiritual mat¬ 
 ters the gift will breed worms like the manna in 
 the wilderness if we lose the Giver. A’Kempis 
 says, “ If it be Thy will that I should be in dark¬ 
 ness, be Thou blessed; and if it be Thy will that 
 I should be in light, be Thou again blessed. If 
 Thou vouchsafe to comfort me, be Thou blessed; 
 
18 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 and if Thou wilt have me afflicted, be Thou blessed 
 also.” 
 
 I do not desire to argue the question of the eter¬ 
 nal sonship of Christ, enough for me that the Father 
 calls Him His beloved Son. As the heavens are 
 higher than the earth that far do the wisdom and 
 ways of God excel the wisdom and ways of man. 
 God spake light into existence, but I know not how; 
 God made the world from naught, but I know not 
 tow; God, by His almighty power, keeps the uni¬ 
 verse running in perfect harmony, such power is 
 too wonderful for me; God made bare His right 
 arm and brought salvation to a sin-wrecked world, 
 from chaos He brought forth order, from unclean¬ 
 ness purity; I stand in awe before this miracle of 
 eternity and cannot comprehend. If I must con¬ 
 fess my dullness of vision concerning these mat¬ 
 ters, I must also concerning that other great mys¬ 
 tery, the incarnation of Christ and His eternal son- 
 ship. I bow before Him, confess my lack of com¬ 
 prehension, believe and worship. 
 
 “ Who according to His abundant mercy hath 
 begotten us again.” God, the Father, is the great 
 source of spiritual good. We are too much in¬ 
 clined to look on Him as angry with us and so re¬ 
 vengeful because of our sins that He will not be 
 approached; and to think of Jesus as the personifi¬ 
 cation of mercy coming to turn aside the al¬ 
 mighty’s thunderbolts that we should not die. Such 
 a view makes the Father a being of terrors, it robs 
 
BEGOTTEN OF GOD 
 
 19 
 
 Him of His great attribute of love and clothes Him 
 with vengeance. John says that God (the Father) 
 so loved the world that He gave His Son for our 
 redemption. This salvation is a conception of the 
 Father of lights the Giver of every good and per¬ 
 fect gift. He manifested His love by giving the 
 greatest gift eternity possessed, He wounded His 
 own Father-heart that He might heal us eternally. 
 There was only one way to save the lost, and God’s 
 love found that way. He sacrificed His Son be¬ 
 cause He must be sacrificed or we must die 
 eternally. 
 
 Mercy is an attribute of God which is brought 
 into existence because there are beings who are 
 needy. Until weakness was manifested in the fall 
 of beings which might be helped, mercy did not 
 exist. We do not know where mercy was bora, but 
 we do know it was manifested in that our first hour 
 of need, when God said, “ The seed of the woman 
 shall bruise the serpent’s head.” To Moses, God 
 proclaimed Himself merciful and gracious, slow to 
 anger and plenteous in mercy. Oh, how needy we 
 are! Born in sin and shapen in iniquity, going 
 astray as soon as we are born, not only aliens by 
 birth, but sinners by choice, for God declares that 
 all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. 
 Sin like a millstone would drag us to hell, but the 
 mercy of God, manifested in the person of Jesus 
 Christ, came to our rescue. 
 
20 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 Mercy found us in the “ slough of despond/’ and, 
 lifting us up, set our feet on the Rock. 
 
 “ Plunged in a gulf of deep despair. 
 
 We wretched sinners lay, 
 
 Without one cheering beam of hope, 
 
 Or spark of glimmering day. 
 
 “ With pitying eye the Prince of Peace 
 Beheld our helpless grief, 
 
 He saw, and, oh, amazing love; 
 
 He flew to our relief. 
 
 u Down from the shining seats above. 
 
 With joyful haste He fled; 
 
 Entered the grave in mortal flesh, 
 
 And dwelt among the dead.” 
 
 Men give grudgingly either from a spirit of 
 stinginess or because of a lack of means, hut God, 
 out of a storehouse of unlimited possibilities, gives 
 abundantly. The measure of His giving is not cir¬ 
 cumscribed by a lack of willingness or by a lack 
 of wealth. The cattle on a thousand hills belong 
 to Him, the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness 
 thereof, the sea and they that dwell therein; every 
 star in the universe, from the nearest to the most 
 remote, claims God as its owner; angels, archan¬ 
 gels, cherubim and seraphim delight to do Him 
 honour; heaven is His, He paves its streets with 
 celestial gold, builds its walls with jasper, its gates 
 with pearls, and its palaces are studded with gems 
 more costly and beautiful than anything of earth. 
 If we need help, help has been laid on one that is 
 mighty; if we need wisdom, He gives to all men 
 liberally; if we need temporal blessings, He has 
 
BEGOTTEN OF GOD 
 
 21 
 
 promised to supply all our needs according to His 
 riches in glory; if we need grace, He will make all 
 grace abound toward us. Then why should we 
 want ? The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, 
 but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good 
 thing. “ My mouth shall show forth Thy right¬ 
 eousness and Thy salvation all the day.” 
 
 Of " His abundant mercy He hath begotten us 
 again We were dead in trespasses and in sins, 
 we were children of the devil, but by His divine 
 power, and through His marvelous mercy, He has 
 resurrected us from the dead and made us children 
 of God. Without this spiritual resurrection we can 
 never see God in peace. Were you ever thankful 
 for the possibility of seeing God ? Man is fearfully 
 and wonderfully made. Although so fallen and so 
 defiled he still has powers possessed by no other 
 earthly being. The spirit of the beast goes down¬ 
 ward into the earth, but the spirit of man, created 
 to live forever, may drop this mortal clay and 
 mount to heaven’s highest glories. 
 
 About six or seven hundred years ago there was 
 a great church congress in the city of Kostinitz. 
 One day two of the bishops who were riding in the 
 country saw in the distance a shepherd weeping. 
 Approaching him they asked the cause of his dis¬ 
 tress. The man pointed to an ugly toad in the 
 grass, and said, “ When I saw that toad I felt so 
 grateful that God had made me a man instead of 
 such an animal, and I remembered that I had never 
 
22 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 thanked Him for it, and I weep on account of my 
 ingratitude.” How strange that I, an immortal 
 spirit, created for the enjoyments and felicities of 
 heaven, should be satisfied with earthly good! 
 
 Notice, again, that this new birth is a personal 
 matter, and that Peter speaks of it as having been 
 actually received. “ God has begotten us again.” 
 Some are inclined to place all the blessings beyond 
 the river, others would leave them all with the 
 apostles, but God has blessings for each individual 
 if he will but put himself in the proper attitude to 
 receive them. 
 
 “ Hath begotten us again unto a lively hope.” 
 According to the word of God, John the Baptist 
 lived for no other purpose than to be the forerunner 
 of Jesus; when this end was accomplished he died. 
 God told Jeremiah that before he was bom He had 
 sanctified him and ordained him a prophet unto 
 the nations. 'Cyrus the Great, the conqueror of 
 Babylon, although history reveals the fact that he 
 was a cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant, was appointed 
 by God to fulfill His purposes. One hundred 
 seventy-six years before the prophecy was fulfilled, 
 God, through the prophet Isaiah, called him by 
 name and said, “ Cyrus is my shepherd, and shall 
 perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, 
 Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy founda¬ 
 tions shall be laid.” 
 
 The apostle gives ns to understand that when 
 we are begotten again this birth is for a purpose. 
 
BEGOTTEN OF GOD 
 
 23 
 
 We are not saved to waste our powers in idle 
 dreaming, we are not saved for the sole purpose of 
 drinking in, even here, the pleasures of the Lord; 
 we are not saved that we may spend our time ecstat¬ 
 ically gazing into the heavens; and, again, we are 
 not saved that we may simply escape hell and gain 
 a home in heaven; hut, on the contrary, we are 
 saved not only for our own benefit, but that we may 
 also be a blessing to others. God desires that we 
 shall live so holy and justly and unblamably in 
 this present evil world that others may see our good 
 works and glorify our Father which is in heaven. 
 Faber says: 
 
 “ Oh, that I could waste my life for others, 
 
 With no ends of my own; 
 
 Oh, that I could pour myself into my brothers, 
 
 And live for them alone.” 
 
 The apostle declares that we are begotten again 
 “ unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ from the dead.” Hope is that grace which 
 bears up the soul, giving it buoyancy and gladness 
 amid the sorrows and disappointments incident to 
 this life. Without hope men must fall into utter 
 despair. Hope can change a field of defeat into a 
 field of opportunity. 
 
 But many indulge what they fondly think is 
 hope which is indeed no hope or at best a dead hope, 
 but the hope of a Christian is “ lively.” False 
 religion worships a dead Christ, it changes the 
 truth of God into a lie; but our Christ has risen 
 
24 
 
 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 again, and because He lives we live also. This 
 new life is made possible only by the resurrection 
 of Jesus Christ from the dead. If He has not risen 
 our hope is vain. But that He has risen, every 
 soul that has passed from the death of sin unto the 
 life of righteousness can testify, for he has felt 
 resurrection power coursing through his soul, lift¬ 
 ing him from the things of earth to the things of 
 God, giving him an assurance which is big with im¬ 
 mortality, and filling him with a strength that en¬ 
 ables him to go forth and conquer every enemy. 
 This hope is an anchor of the soul, both sure and 
 steadfast, and enters into that within the veil. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS 
 
 “ To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that 
 fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you .”— I Peter 1:4. 
 
 W HEN the rich young man, his heart 
 filled with anxiety concerning eternal 
 things, came running and kneeled be¬ 
 fore Jesus with the question, “ What shall I do to 
 inherit eternal life ? ” the Lord’s answer puzzled 
 the disciples. And as He further conversed with 
 them after the young man had departed in sorrow, 
 telling them that it was easier for a camel to go 
 through the eye of a needle than for a rich man 
 to enter heaven, the disciples marveled. Peter, 
 who perhaps until now had never stopped to count 
 the cost and to ponder the result of leaving all to 
 follow Jesus, broke out with the statement and the 
 question, “ Behold, we have forsaken all, and fol¬ 
 lowed thee; What shall we have therefore ? ” 
 
 What minister of the gospel, who has recklessly 
 ventured all on the Lord and in the Lord’s work, 
 has never run into this same question? When he 
 has felt the pangs of disease, and has been haunted 
 with the nightmare of “ going away ” to leave his 
 wife a widow and his children orphans, his heart 
 
 has more than once asked, “ What shall I have ? 
 
 25 
 
f 
 
 26 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 What shall I get for all this sacrifice? Who will 
 care for these if I am taken away ? ” 
 
 Jesus did not rebuke the anxiety of Peter. His 
 was a legitimate question. He was, as far as we 
 know, the only one of the disciples who was mar¬ 
 ried, and he would naturally be the one who would 
 he tempted to uneasiness concerning the future. 
 The young man can smile at the other’s cares; the 
 man who has plenty can harshly accuse the poor 
 man; but Jesus did not do this, He gave an answer 
 that was satisfactory to the questioner. 
 
 He first gave them, as His apostles, the promise 
 of eternal blessings: “ Ye also shall sit upon 
 twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of 
 Israel;” and then followed with that wonderful 
 promise of temporal blessings to everyone who 
 should forsake all for His sake, saying, u And 
 every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, 
 or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, 
 or lands, for my sake, shall receive an hundredfold, 
 and shall inherit eternal life.” 
 
 King’s children are bom to be princes and kings. 
 The throne and royal honour by those who believe 
 in the “ divine rights ” of kings, are acknowledged 
 as their inalienable possession. He who would 
 dethrone them and take their place is called a 
 usurper. The children of rich men inherit the 
 goods of their father; and he who would deprive 
 them of their rightful possessions is called a crim¬ 
 inal. Real Christians, those who are begotten 
 
THE INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS 27 
 
 again, those who are horn from above, are heirs to 
 an inheritance, and in the ownership of this inher¬ 
 itance they are joint heirs with Jesus Christ. God 
 gives His gifts to all men; He causes it to rain 
 upon the unjust as well as upon the just; but the 
 “ inheritance ” is for none but His children. Con¬ 
 cerning the person who would wilfully attempt to 
 deprive one of His children of this inheritance, 
 God says it were better for him that a millstone 
 were hanged about his neck and he be drowned in 
 the depths of the sea. After we have borne the bur¬ 
 dens of life, and, in Jesus’ strength conquered our 
 last enemy, then we shall receive our inheritance. 
 We can have only an earnest here, a foretaste that 
 draws us on with great desire for the obtaining of 
 the full fruition. 
 
 Four things are said of this inheritance. It is 
 (1) “incorruptible,” (2) “and undefiled” (3) 
 “ and that fadeth not away,” (4) “ reserved in 
 heaven for you” 
 
 (1) An object is corruptible which may decay 
 or perish as, the human body; it is corrupt when 
 it has lost its original soundness, integrity or pur¬ 
 ity, as corrupt flesh, corrupt practises, corrupt 
 judges. Corruption is decay, decomposition, or 
 putrefaction. These terms are used in their strict 
 sense concerning matter which may by a process of 
 decay or putrefaction become so deteriorated as to 
 lose its original purity and uprightness, and thu9 
 become unfit for its intended use. This element 
 
28 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 is not some foreign substance clinging to tbe out¬ 
 side, but is caused by tbe decay and decomposition 
 of tbe essential elements of tbe thing itself. 
 
 Tbe Christian’s inheritance is incorruptible. It 
 will never decay, or putrefy, or in any sense of 
 tbe word deteriorate. Some of our earthly posses¬ 
 sions must be guarded with great care or they will 
 spoil and so become unfit for use, but tbe inherit¬ 
 ance which God gives, to tbe end of eternity, will 
 remain pure and wholesome. How strange that an 
 immortal soul, before whose eyes such glories are 
 displayed, and into whose possession such riches 
 are given, should turn away and seek for vanities, 
 things that perish with the using, trifles that may 
 become corrupt before they can profit in the least. 
 If you would allow your soul, which is now, by 
 your own wilfulness, engulfed in a sea of amaz¬ 
 ing corruption, to pierce the veil of self-imposed 
 blindness, it would become so ravished at sight of 
 heaven’s joys and incorruptible glories, that with 
 pious Monica you would cry, “ Wings! Wings! ” 
 
 (2) A thing is defiled when it is made foul or 
 impure, when it is filthy or dirty, as a dish; de¬ 
 filement is pollution, foulness, dirtiness or unclean¬ 
 ness. These terms refer strictly to outward pollu¬ 
 tion. The essential substance of which the thing is 
 composed may be as wholesome as ever, but it is 
 covered with dirt or filth. 
 
 Nothing will ever approach the inheritance of 
 the Christian which will defile or contaminate it. 
 
THE INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS 29 
 
 John says that whosoever is born of God keepethi 
 himself and that wicked one toucheth him not. 
 Satan, in his reasonings with God, declared that 
 Job was surrounded with a hedge through which 
 no evil could come to him. God’s saints are pro¬ 
 tected with a wall of fire, and He is the glory in the 
 midst; the angels of the Lord encamp about them 
 to deliver them; as the mountains are about Jeru¬ 
 salem so is the Lord about His children; the name 
 of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run 
 into it and are safe. 
 
 If God so protects His people from defilement 
 here, it stands to reason that He will keep their 
 inheritance from pollution. In the Book of Rev¬ 
 elation, He declares, “ There shall in no wise enter 
 into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever 
 worketh abomination, or maketh a lie.” Thank 
 God, here is one place in the universe where the 
 saints are safe, and will be forever safe. 
 
 “ No chilling winds or poisonous breath 
 Can reach that healthful shore; 
 
 Sickness and sorrow, pain and death. 
 
 Are felt and feared no more.” 
 
 (3) It" fadeth not away.” Rations have come 
 and gone; kings have worn their crowns with pomp 
 and splendour, but their bodies are moldering in 
 the dust; mighty men and chief captains have 
 crushed the people under their iron heels, but have, 
 themselves, been forced to yield to the grim reaper, 
 death; cities, built by man as though they would 
 
30 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 stand forever, are gone, and some of them are now 
 giving up their buried secrets to the spade of the 
 archeologist; years come and go; our days fly in 
 and out like the weaver’s shuttle; springtime with 
 blossoms, and birds, and gladness; summer with 
 sunshine, and glory-clad fields, and autumn with 
 its fruition and plenty, are followed by winter with 
 its frosts and chilling blasts, its desolation and 
 winding sheet of snow and ice. We spend our lives 
 as a tale that is told; the cry of the infant, the 
 merry ripple of childish, mirth, the buoyancy of 
 youth, the cares of manhood, the frosts of age; then 
 a lowly mound and spectral stone tell of departed 
 hopes and an empty home. 
 
 Such is our inheritance in this world. But the 
 inheritance God gives “ fadeth not away.” Its 
 mighty glories will eternally ravish the soul of 
 their happy possessor; this gift, like the bountiful 
 Giver, is eternal. George Nitsch says, “ The fount 
 of all blessedness is to be found where the mighty 
 Jehovah dwells, from whose presence constantly 
 flow such varied streams of unutterable joy upon 
 body and soul that the bliss is as sweet at the end 
 of millions of years as it is the first moment a man 
 enters heaven.” 
 
 (4) “ Reserved in heaven for you.” Most of 
 
 us are naturally spendthrifts. When we see a thing 
 we desire we will make most any sacrifice to obtain 
 it. We have great difficulty in seeing beyond the 
 present and its enjoyments. Some of us go so far 
 
THE INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS 31 
 
 as to even forfeit future good for present pleasure, 
 future joy for present happiness, and future heaven, 
 for worldly honours and wealth. 
 
 God, realizing this propensity in man, allows us 
 to have only an earnest of our inheritance here and 
 reserves the principal, the thing itself, till we get 
 to heaven. It is strange how lavishly we would 
 scatter abroad even our spiritual blessings if we 
 could. There are two striking examples in the 
 Bible. When God told Moses to stand aside and 
 He would destroy the Israelites and make of him 
 a greater nation, Moses threw himself in the gap 
 between an offended God and an offending people, 
 and said, “ If Thou wilt forgive their sin;—and if 
 not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of the book which 
 Thou hast written.” God heard the desperation of 
 Moses’ prayer and spared the people, but would not 
 blot him out, for He said, “ Whosoever hath sinned 
 against me, him will I blot out.” 
 
 The other case is that of the Apostle Paul, who, 
 because of his great heaviness and continual sor¬ 
 row, declared, “ I could wish that myself were ac¬ 
 cursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen 
 according to the flesh.” 
 
 Thieves may take our inheritance here, but that 
 inheritance moth cannot corrupt nor thieves break 
 through and steal. Others cannot appropriate it 
 to their purposes, it is reserved for the rightful 
 owners, safe in the Almighty’s keeping. 
 
 Concerning the glories which shall be fully re- 
 
32 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 vealed only in the other world, Nathaniel Culver- 
 well says, “ Man you know is ordained to a choicer 
 end, to a nobler happiness, than for the present he 
 can attain unto, and therefore he cannot expect 
 that God should now communicate Himself in such 
 bright and open discoveries, in such glorious mani¬ 
 festations of Himself as He means to give here¬ 
 after. But he must be content to behold these in¬ 
 finite treasures of reserved love, in a darker and 
 more shadowy way of faith, and not of wisdom. 
 * * * ^he mog £ ^fiat man ’ s reason can do, is to 
 
 fill the understanding to the brim; but Faith, that 
 throws the soul into the Ocean, and lets it roll and 
 bathe itself in the vastness and fullness of a 
 
KEPT BY THE POWER OF GOD 
 
 “Who are kept by the power of God .”— I Peter 1 : 5 . 
 
 I "HETER may have meant all right, but he 
 trusted the wrong person. He loved Jesus 
 JL with all the power of his impetuous heart; 
 his life had become so knit to the life of his divine 
 Master, that, like many others, he thought nothing 
 could sever them; hut, alas, he trusted Peter in¬ 
 stead of Christ, and Peter was a very insecure 
 foundation. His impetuosity which, when rightly 
 directed, made him a leader for good, if wrongly 
 directed, would send him just as swiftly in the 
 other direction. 
 
 Ho man can trust his own natural heart. It is 
 “ deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, 
 who can know it ? ” The unenlightened mind is 
 constantly misinterpreting the movements of the 
 soul. It is a common thing to hear a proud person 
 boasting of his humility, for a stingy man to talk 
 of his own liberality, or for a vile person to forget 
 his own defects and display the defects of others. 
 The writer will never forget the picture in an old 
 reader of a miserable little hunchback jeeringly 
 pointing at the hump on the back of the man walk- 
 
34 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 ing ahead of him. The wise man declares that “ all 
 the ways of a man are right in his own eyes.” 
 
 By overestimating his own strength, Peter got 
 out of connection with the source of true strength. 
 Thrown back on his own resources, like the rest 
 of us would be, he was as weak as water. When 
 he saw his weakness without Christ, weeping bit¬ 
 terly, he returned to his source of power. 
 
 But it takes more than the sight of one’s own 
 filthiness to cause true repentance. This comes 
 when our vileness is contrasted with Christ’s loveli¬ 
 ness, our unholiness with Christ’s holiness, our 
 weakness with His strength. When our sins are 
 seen as a millstone eternally dragging us from God 
 into awful and enduring corruption, we are ready 
 to cry, “ What shall I do ? ” 
 
 When Peter beheld the sufferings of Christ his 
 own sufferings looked insignificant. My brother, 
 are you discouraged ? Do the burdens of life press 
 you sorely? Do the crosses you bear cause the 
 tears to flow unbidden down your cheeks? Then 
 “ consider Him who endured such contradiction of 
 sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and 
 faint in your minds.” Here is strength, here is 
 keeping power. 
 
 John Flavel says, “Are you staggered at your 
 sufferings and the hard things you must endure for 
 Christ in this world? Doth the flesh shrink from 
 these things, and cry, Spare thyself? What is 
 there more likely to fortify thy spirit with resolu- 
 
KEPT BY THE POWER OF GOD 
 
 35 
 
 tion and courage than such a sight as this? Did 
 Christ meet the wrath of man and the wrath of 
 God, too? Did He stand with unbroken patience 
 and steadfast resolution under such troubles, and 
 shall I shrink for a trifle? Ah, He did not serve 
 me so! I will arm myself with the like mind.” 
 
 A sight of the wonderful compassion of Christ 
 who turned and looked with such melting tender¬ 
 ness on His erring disciple broke the heart of Peter 
 till he went out and wept bitterly. How he was 
 disappointed in himself! How his own strength 
 was shown to be weakness! How he must, in 
 spirit, have crowded up close to his suffering Mas¬ 
 ter in that hour! Let us venture the assertion that 
 he never lost connection again: this was his lesson 
 in the vanity of self-reliance and the necessity of 
 the keeping power of God. 
 
 “ Reserved—for you, who are kept by the power 
 of God.” The inheritance is only for those who 
 are “ kept.” The inheritance is “ reserved ” or 
 kept for a people who in their turn are kept. The 
 same great heart of love that is keeping you is re- 
 serving your inheritance. What a day of glad sur¬ 
 prises there will be when the great Lover of souls 
 brings the two together! Then the dark things 
 shall be plain, and we shall go in to our glory never 
 to come out again. 
 
 “ But angels themselves cannot tell 
 The joys of that heavenly place, 
 
 Where Jesus is pleased to reveal 
 The light of His heavenly face: 
 
36 
 
 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 When, caught in the rapturous flame, 
 
 The sight beatific they prove; 
 
 And walk in the light of the Lamb, 
 
 Enjoying the beams of His love.” 
 
 God has special blessings for His children; 
 among these, one of the greatest is His keeping 
 power. There is not another religion in the world 
 that even remotely professes to keep its votaries 
 from sin. Imagine a disciple of Mohammed, or 
 Buddha, or Confucius, no matter how pious, ex¬ 
 claiming, “ I know whom I have believed and am 
 persuaded, that He is able to keep that which I 
 have committed unto Him against that day.” The 
 very thought of such a thing seems so absurd that 
 it almost causes one to smile. (Some who call 
 themselves Christians would like to place the Chris¬ 
 tian religion on the same low plain of powerless¬ 
 ness and inefficiency as heathen religions. If you 
 do not desire to be guilty of such a sin, never say 
 again that God is unable or unwilling, nor that He 
 does not keep His children from sin.) The reason 
 of this power of Christianity lies in the fact that 
 in its conception, its origin, its workings, its essen¬ 
 tial composition, it is divine. It is not simply an 
 emanation from God, having God as its author but 
 now existing independent of Him, but it carries 
 with it the power of God, nay, more, God Him¬ 
 self. Jesus did not say, “ I go away and leave my 
 word with you,” but, “ Lo, I am with you always, 
 even unto the end of the world.” 
 
 Oh, the joy of possessing an ever-present Christ! 
 
KEPT BY THE POWER OF GOD 
 
 37 
 
 He wlio dwells in Christ and Christ in him may 
 drink constantly of divine pleasures. In a waste 
 and desert land he may find streams of living water, 
 and bathe his weary soul in the river that makes 
 glad the city of God. A’Kempis says, “ Christ will 
 come unto thee, and show thee His own consolation, 
 if thou prepare for Him a worthy mansion within 
 thee. All His glory and beauty is from within, 
 and there He delighteth Himself. The inward 
 man He often visiteth; and hath with Him sweet 
 discourses, pleasant solace, much peace, familiarity 
 exceeding wonderful.” 
 
 Then why should we worry ? Our Keeper neither 
 slumbers nor sleeps. The almighty power of the 
 infinite godhead is pledged to see us through. We 
 put our money in the bank, and rest easy; hut 
 banks break up. We put our seed in the ground, 
 and go to sleep; hut seasons fail. We perform our 
 daily tasks and give ourselves no anxiety as to the 
 receiving of our pay; hut corporations as well as 
 individuals fail. Why can we not as well, nay, 
 much better, trust God ? His promises never fail. 
 
 “ There’s a heart, there’s a hand, 
 
 We can feel but cannot see. 
 
 We’ve always been provided for. 
 
 And we shall always be.” 
 
 The whole world was destroyed by the flood, but 
 eight persons, hidden away in the ark, rode safely 
 over the surging waves; they were kept by the 
 power of God. “ Few and evil ” were the days of 
 
38 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 the pilgrimage of Jacob (120 years at the time be 
 said this), but in tbe midst of bis enemies God 
 bad His band on bim for good, and even tbe events 
 that seemed adverse were guided by providence, 
 and were part of tbe all-wise plan in making Jacob 
 a blessing. Tbe cities of tbe plain were over¬ 
 thrown, but Lot and bis two daughters escaped by 
 tbe power of God. Paul, surrounded by enemies 
 thirsting for bis blood, in perils by land and sea, 
 in perils among tbe heathen and among false 
 brethren, could say, “ All things work together for 
 good to them that love God,” and, “ In all these 
 things we are more than conquerors.” 
 
 The same almighty power that kept Noah in tbe 
 ark, that freed Lot from doomed Sodom, that 
 guided Jacob through bis pilgrimage, that stood by 
 Paul before angry mobs and haughty kings, is 
 pledged to see me through; He keeps tbe sparrows 
 that neither sow nor gather into bams, He numbers 
 tbe hairs of my bead, He says to tbe enemy of my 
 soul, “Hitherto sbalt thou come, but no further;” 
 He says to my soul, With every temptation no mat¬ 
 ter bow fierce it may seem, I will make a way of 
 escape. 
 
V 
 
 SALVATION BY FAITH 
 
 “ Kept * * * through faith unto salvation ready to he 
 revealed m the last time .”— I Petee 1:5. 
 
 W HILE Peter looked to Jesus lie walked 
 on the water; when he looked at the 
 waves he sank. In his trouble he cried 
 to Jesus, “ Lord, save me! ” Tenderly taking him 
 by the hand, and holding him up, in gentle reproof 
 the Lord said, “ O thou of little faith, wherefore 
 didst thou doubt ? ” What a telling rebuke to a 
 timid heart that would look on the waves, roll they 
 ever so high! What a lesson to teach us that we 
 should have confidence in God! And, again, what 
 a marvelous display of God’s power and care! Ho 
 wonder, when they saw this miracle, and the wind 
 immediately ceasing, that the disciples fell at 
 Jesus’ feet and worshiped Him, saying, “ Of a 
 truth Thou art the Son of God.” 
 
 It is not faith, in itself, that works miracles; 
 but it is faith through which miraculous powers are 
 set in operation. While true faith is all but omnipo¬ 
 tent,—“ All things are possible to him that believ- 
 eth,”—yet it steadfastly refuses to attempt a spec¬ 
 tacular demonstration of its ability and thus tempt 
 
 39 
 
40 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 God; but false faith—presumption—foolishly easts 
 itself down from the pinnacle of the temple and is 
 dashed, helpless, on the pavement below. Faith may 
 be wrongly grounded and hence be powerless, but 
 when once 
 
 “ Her feet are firmly planted on the Rock, 
 
 Then ’mid the wildest storms she stands undaunted, 
 
 Nor quails before the loudest thunder shock; 
 
 She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer, 
 
 Cries, It shall be answered, sometime, somewhere.” 
 
 Faith leaves self and touches divinity. Faith 
 leaves all else and stands alone, naked, trusting and 
 confident, on Jesus Christ, the Rock of Ages. 
 Phillips Brooks defines faith thus, “ F-a-i-t-h 
 means, Forsaking All, I Take Him.” 
 
 Faith is as necessary in pleasing Him as the con¬ 
 fidence of a child in its parents is a necessity in 
 pleasing them. “ Without faith it is impossible to 
 please God.” 
 
 Confidence in all of God’s word is a necessity in 
 order that we may trustfully and reverently ap¬ 
 proach any part of it; for as human beings, we 
 would reason, “ If His word fails once it may al¬ 
 ways fail.” 
 
 Trust in God’s ability to fulfil His word lies at 
 the foundation of all the miracle-working power 
 of faith; for, if God cannot, because of impotence, 
 perform any given act, how can I know that He is 
 able to accomplish this thing for which I plead? 
 But if I know that He is able to do, and that He 
 desires to do, the thing for which I pray, I have 
 
SALVATION BY FAITH 
 
 41 
 
 strong grounds for believing that He will do that 
 thing. 
 
 ✓ _ 
 
 Hence, we conclude, with Wesley, that genuine 
 trust rests on a foundation that amounts to assur¬ 
 ance. Is not this what John means when he says, 
 “ This is the confidence that we have in Him, that, 
 if we ask anything according to His will, He hear- 
 eth us: and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever 
 we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we 
 desired of Him ” ? What a firm foundation upon 
 which to rest the feet of our faith! What an as¬ 
 surance of faith! 
 
 Some teach that all men naturally have faith, 
 and what all sinners need to do is to exercise 
 powers that they already possess and they will be 
 saved. But this is contrary to the word of God, 
 which declares that “ all men have not faith,” and 
 is one of the exploded tenets of the so-called semi- 
 Pelagian heresy. “ Faith,” as well as grace, “ is 
 the gift of God,” and He gives to all men who will 
 receive, and gives liberally. 
 
 Faith gets us into contact with God, the object of 
 faith; faith connects us with God, the power of 
 faith; saving faith brings into the heart and life 
 God Himself, saving, cleansing, keeping, empower¬ 
 ing and glorifying. 
 
 Those who claim that it is impossible to live free 
 from sin surely take this stand because they fail to 
 realize the power possessed by a soul whose tri¬ 
 umphant faith touches divinity. They are judg- 
 
42 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 ing with reference to their own unaided powers, 
 and are leaving God and His power out of the 
 question. If we can, in the spirit, lose confidence 
 in our own ability to stand, and, in faith, throw 
 ourselves into the arms of divinity, we need never 
 fail, for underneath are the everlasting, omnipotent 
 arms. 
 
 “ Unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last 
 time.” Some think that the apostle means to say 
 that the salvation of which He speaks is ready to 
 be revealed in the last time; others, that the person 
 who has salvation is ready to be revealed either 
 here or in the last time. The revised version reads 
 thus: “Who by the power of God are guarded 
 through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed 
 in the last time.” 
 
 The salvation of God saves both in this world 
 and in the world to come. In this world we get 
 only glimpses of its mighty glories, for, “ Eye hath 
 not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into 
 the heart of man, the things which God hath pre¬ 
 pared for them that love Him.” 
 
 If a sight of the immortal glories of eternal 
 salvation fail to rouse my sluggish powers to in¬ 
 tense action that the prize may be gained, I am 
 surely far from God. 0 God! win my earth-loving 
 and heaven-rejecting self from the paltry things of 
 time; so center and control my whole being, my af¬ 
 fections, my desires, my ambitions, my mind, my 
 body, my spirit, my all and in all, that they all may 
 
SALVATION BY FAITH 
 
 43 
 
 harmonize, like one strain in a grand orchestra, 
 with those pursuits and tempers which make glad 
 the angelic choirs. 
 
 Salvation, in this world, is deliverance from sin. 
 “ His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save 
 His people from their sins.” Some one has said 
 that we should not he ashamed of anything but sin. 
 But God proposes to take away both guilt and pol¬ 
 lution, and along with them, the shame for sin, by 
 the incoming of His great salvation; then, they 
 that trust in the Lord shall never be ashamed. 
 
 But salvation in its final outcome means more 
 than this. Let us note a few of these things. 
 
 It means deliverance from temptation. In this 
 world our adversary, the devil, the accuser of the 
 brethren, goeth about as a roaring lion seeking 
 whom he may devour, or as an angel of light, at¬ 
 tempting to deceive. But if the child of God is 
 faithful he will finally and forever escape all these 
 dangers. 
 
 Salvation means deliverance from every bodily 
 infirmity. The poet truly says: 
 
 “ No chilling winds or poisonous breath 
 Can reach that healthful shore; 
 
 Bickness and sorrow, pain and death. 
 
 Are felt and feared no more." 
 
 Salvation means deliverance from infirmities of 
 the mind. Not that the saint shall ever be infinite 
 or omniscient, but, in his sphere he will know all 
 he should know, and will never err in judgment, 
 
44 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 for lie will draw his wisdom fresh from the fount 
 of all wisdom, and with unclouded vision will look 
 into the face of the All-Wise. 
 
 Salvation means to exchange an earthly home for 
 a heavenly home. Some teach that we shall not go 
 to heaven, but shall inherit, forever, this earth; 
 others limit our habitation on the earth to a thou¬ 
 sand years. Be this as it may, we will all admit 
 that if the Paradise of the saints is on this earth, 
 the earth, of necessity, must he renewed. Some 
 have caught enrapturing visions of a glorified earth 
 with luxurious vegetation, bursting fruits and per¬ 
 fect peace; but my soul catches a glimpse of that 
 land where the ransomed have trod, a city which 
 hath foundations, whose streets are paved with pure 
 gold, whose walls are jasper, and whose gates are 
 pearls; a city which hath no need of the sun or 
 moon for light, for the Lamb is the light of it; a 
 city in which there is no need of houses for warmth 
 or shade from the heat, for neither shall the sun 
 light on them nor any heat. 
 
 Finally, salvation means eternal felicity. A 
 happy deathbed, a glorious resurrection, a place 
 with the glorified at the judgment, and an abiding 
 seat at God’s right hand; the companionship of 
 angels and archangels, of the spirits of just men 
 made perfect, and best of all, of the Man who died 
 for us, His thorn-pierced but now glorified brow 
 shining with heavenly radiance. With nail-pierced 
 hands He will lead His ransomed to fountains of 
 
SALVATION BY FAITH 
 
 145 
 
 living water, to streams where they can drink for¬ 
 ever of divine pleasure, and gaze eternally with en¬ 
 raptured vision into the face of benignant deity. 
 
 O my soul, though great thy trials, greater still 
 thy coming joys; though great thy burdens, greater 
 still thy coming release; though great thy suffer¬ 
 ings, greater still thy coming glory. Then weary 
 not, if thy hands he torn with thorns; they shall 
 he healed with leaves from the tree of life, and he 
 given palms of victory to wave with the glorified. 
 Though thy lot he sorrowful and thy trials severe, 
 these conflicts shall soon have an end; and, if faith¬ 
 ful, thy tired brow shall he crowned with never- 
 fading garlands of victory and thou shalt shine 
 with the light which Christ has given thee as the 
 stars forever and ever. 
 
 Richard Baxter says: “ Thou shalt never suffer 
 thy old temptations from Satan, the world, or thy 
 own flesh. Thy pains and sickness are all cured; 
 thy body shall no more burden thee with weakness 
 and weariness, thy aching head and heart, thy hun¬ 
 ger and thirst, thy sleep and labour, are all gone. 
 Oh, what a mighty change is this! From the dung¬ 
 hill to the throne! From persecuting sinners to 
 praising saints! From a vile body to this which 
 shines as the brightness of the firmament! From 
 a sense of God’s displeasures to the perfect enjoy¬ 
 ment of Him in love! From all my doubts and 
 fears, to this possession, which puts me out of 
 doubt! From all my fearful thoughts of death, to 
 
46 
 
 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 this joyful life! Blessed change! Farewell sin 
 and sorrow forever; farewell my rocky, proud, un¬ 
 believing heart; my worldly, sensual, carnal heart; 
 and welcome now my most holy, heavenly nature. 
 Farewell repentance, faith, and hope; and welcome 
 love, joy and praise. I shall now have my harvest, 
 without plowing or sowing; my joy, without a 
 preacher or a promise; even all from the face of 
 God Himself. Whatever mixture is in the streams, 
 there is nothing but pure joy in the fountain. Here 
 shall I be encircled with eternity, and ever live, 
 and ever, ever praise the Lord; my face will not 
 wrinkle, nor my hair be gray; ‘ For this corrupt¬ 
 ible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal, 
 immortality, and death shall be swallowed up in 
 victory.’ ” 
 
MANIFOLD TEMPTATIONS 
 
 “ Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if 
 need le, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations 
 —I Peter 1:6. 
 
 T HE fisherman of Galilee had not learned 
 to suffer with Jesus. Mounts and mira¬ 
 cles may strengthen one’s faith in the 
 deity of Christ, hut such experiences alone will 
 leave the feet so soft and tender that they are liable 
 to he mercilessly torn by the thorns of afflictions. 
 Weeping Jeremiah, up from the miry dungeon, 
 could say, “ I am the man that hath seen affliction 
 by the rod of His wrath,” hut in spite of his an¬ 
 guish he could add, “ The Lord is my portion, saith 
 my soul; therefore will I hope in Him.” Delec¬ 
 table mountains ravish our souls and give them 
 wings of delight; valleys of afflictions try our 
 graces, shake up our roots, and, if we remain faith¬ 
 ful, settle us deeper in God. 
 
 Peter had been given so many revelations that 
 for his own good he must he tried. He had lived 
 in the inner and most select circle of the disciples. 
 Peter, James and John touched nearest to the heart 
 of their Master. Simon Barjona knew and loved 
 his Lord so well that he vowed he would never leave 
 
48 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 Him, but be spoke too quick, be bad not jet entered 
 tbe furnace. Afflictions suddenly came heaping on 
 and that so heavily that be slept for sorrow of 
 heart. Now is tbe time, Peter, to build taber¬ 
 nacles ; now is tbe time to show a practical love for 
 tbe object of your affections. Can you not suffer 
 with Him one little hour ? Do you not know that 
 a suffering love is more to be honoured than a re¬ 
 joicing love? 
 
 Ob, poor, weak, stumbling humanity! How apt 
 are we, like Peter, to fall down in tbe furnace, and 
 by our weakness to add fuel to tbe fires of our al¬ 
 ready manifold trials! 
 
 It is all right to rejoice, but we should not be¬ 
 come so engrossed in our rejoicing that we will fail 
 when reverses come. After all there is something 
 in sorrows which are borne aright that is salutary 
 and helpful to the soul. 
 
 The best frame of mind is that of entire, uncom¬ 
 promising resignation to the will of God. If of¬ 
 fenses come, why should I complain and curse the 
 rod? This rod and these offenses may be but a 
 goad in the hands of an all-loving Father to drive 
 
 me towards heaven. How do I know but that they 
 
 «/ 
 
 may be a necessity to my eternal salvation ? Avril- 
 lon wrote: “As the sweetest and most exquisite 
 honey is obtained only from the sweetest and most 
 odoriferous flowers which contain it, my lips can¬ 
 not sing hymns that shall please my heavenly 
 Spouse, unless my heart, from whence they ema- 
 
MANIFOLD TEMPTATIONS 
 
 49 
 
 nate, and which produces them, be pure, and my 
 love for Him undivided and without alloy. Yet, 
 0 God of Purity, I cannot labour alone for the 
 purification of this heart, because I am weak and 
 blind. Assist me, enlighten me, to know and to 
 cleanse the least stains which are displeasing to 
 Thine eyes, and which escape my self-love. Sprin¬ 
 kle me with hyssop, that I may be clean, and that 
 this salutary bitterness may destroy in me the taste 
 of every sweet which comes not from thee. Wash 
 me also with the pure waters of victorious grace, 
 that I may become whiter than snow: or rather, 
 Lord, send from the throne of flames and fire 
 whereon Thou sittest, divine ardours which may 
 instruct, enlighten, and inflame me, and which may 
 consume in my heart even the smallest defilements 
 with which it is stained.” 
 
 “For a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness 
 through manifold temptations.” Great rejoicing in 
 the midst of many temptations! “ As sorrowful, 
 
 yet always rejoicing!” “Blessed are ye that 
 mourn, for ye shall be comforted.” 
 
 The apostle seems to teach that there may be 
 times when “ manifold temptations ” are a neces¬ 
 sity. Paul needed a thorn in the flesh, a messenger 
 of Satan to buffet him, lest he should be exalted 
 above measure, and thus lose his soul. The ancient 
 world needed the flood; Sodom, a rain of fire and 
 brimstone; Capernaum, which was exalted to 
 heaven, must be brought down to hell; Jerusalem, 
 
50 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 whose pride caused her to stone the prophets and 
 pierce the Son of God, must he overthrown; these 
 all refused correction and perished. But not all 
 who are humbled are thus destroyed. Moses, in the 
 back side of the desert, humbled, but praying, met 
 God; David, from the wilderness and caves of 
 Judea, arose to the throne; Paul, from a three 
 years’ sojourn in the deserts of Arabia, became the 
 chiefest of the apostles; Joseph, in the face of fear¬ 
 ful temptations, was true to God, and from the 
 dungeon was exalted to royal honours; Israel came 
 forth from Egypt’s iron furnace with shoes of brass 
 and iron and garments that lasted forty years, a 
 terror to evil nations, and even wicked Balaam 
 heard the shout of a king among them. 
 
 Did temptations ever heap on your soul till you 
 feared your life would be crushed out? Did you 
 ever try to dig your way out of the maze, turning 
 over one layer after another with so little success 
 that you feared you would never reach daylight? 
 This is manifold temptations. Such trials must 
 produce more or less heaviness. 
 
 At the foundation and as the primary cause of 
 all temptations is the devil. As in the beginning 
 he is still bent on the destruction of mankind, and 
 will do all that diabolical ingenuity can contrive to 
 accomplish his end. Unless it is his “ infernal off¬ 
 spring,” carnality, from which you are delivered 
 if your heart is cleansed, you can have no more dan¬ 
 gerous foe. As a lion he roars on his prey; as a 
 
MANIFOLD TEMPTATIONS 
 
 51 
 
 tiger he crouches to spring on the unsuspecting; as 
 a serpent he would beguile; as foaming waves of 
 the sea he would devour the helpless; as lurking 
 malaria he would steal away our strength; he is 
 everything cruel and designing, no means are too 
 low for him to use to accomplish his ends. 
 
 The needs of each individual are so varied and 
 so often cross the rights of others that trials must 
 come. Good people will misunderstand us and had 
 people will mistreat us; those who love us will flat¬ 
 ter, those who hate will slander, and indifferent 
 ones will pass coldly by; differences real and imag¬ 
 inary are sure to arise (and imaginary differences 
 are liable to be worse than real differences) ; the 
 tendency of all this is to produce heaviness and 
 calls for the exercise of the grace of long-suf¬ 
 fering. 
 
 At times everything seems to go wrong, all our 
 plans fail, our hopes are disappointed, friends shun 
 us, foes deride us, crops fail, banks break up, our 
 job is gone, sickness comes, death rends the family, 
 these things and others, single-handed or by the 
 dozen, add to the weight of temptations already too 
 heavy for human endurance. 
 
 To all this add the natural tendency of the human 
 mind to magnify difficulties, to listen to the devil 
 and be annoyed by other circumstances; the natural 
 appetites and desires clamoring for gratification, 
 and persistence of false doctrines, and many other 
 things, ad infinitum, which all at once come rolling 
 
52 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 over our heads like billows and threaten our de¬ 
 struction. Can any soul in such a strait keep from 
 declaring with the Psalmist, “ Thou has laid me 
 in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy 
 wrath lieth hard upon me, and Thou hast afflicted 
 me with all Thy waves. I am shut up, and I can¬ 
 not come forth ” ? 
 
 My brother, did you ever stop to consider that 
 all these multiplied trials can be turned into a 
 blessing ? and that you can have so much grace that 
 each added difficulty will only be an added reason 
 for greater attainments? 
 
 Trials, if borne in the Spirit, soften, subdue, 
 melt and humble the soul. Let them heap on, trial 
 upon trial, burden on burden, misunderstandings, 
 bereavements, sickness, weakness, and all the rest, 
 just set your face heavenward, plant your feet on 
 the promises and look to Jesus and you will come 
 off more than conqueror. 
 
 The following is from James Caughey: “ There 
 are herbs, you know, whose virtue consists chiefly 
 in their fragrance, but some of them are quite 
 scentless and uninteresting till bruised: then they 
 shed their perfume all around. Thus it is with 
 many a Christian. The fragrance of his piety is 
 never diffused abroad until he is well bruised; till 
 
 'Hell has won its will, 
 
 To wring his soul with agony! * 
 
 “ ‘ Our prayers and meditations,’ said a good man, 
 
MANIFOLD TEMPTATIONS 
 
 53 
 
 * like hot spices, are most fragrant when our hearts 
 are bruised in God’s mortar, and broken with afflic¬ 
 tions and troubles.’ When such a one, after a day 
 or week of trial, speaks in a class or love-feast, an 
 influence from heaven descends upon all around. I 
 have frequently observed this, and have felt, with 
 the poet, 
 
 ‘ ’Tis even as if an angel shook his wings— 
 
 Immortal fragrance fill3 the circuit wide/ ” 
 
VII 
 
 THE TRIAL OE OUR FAITH 
 
 et That the trial of your faith, being much more precious 
 than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, 
 might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the 
 appearing of Jesus Christ —I Peter 1:7. 
 
 A JT times Peter’s faith assumed such pro¬ 
 portions as to he almost audacious, and, 
 because of his audacity, his failures were 
 all the more apparent. But as some one has said, 
 “ It is always better to try and fail than not to try 
 at all.” PetePs faith caused him to try walking 
 on the water. He failed because his faith faltered, 
 but he had tried, and this was much more than any 
 of the rest of the disciples had done. Even though 
 he did fail to walk the waves, yet he reached the 
 arms of Jesus, his goal, and the rest stood trembling 
 in the ship. 
 
 Back in the nature of that humble, impetuous 
 Galilean fisherman were possibilities which must 
 be brought out or the greatest good could never be 
 secured from his life. A machine is not perfected 
 by observing and dwelling alone on its good quali¬ 
 ties, but its weak places must be searched out and 
 corrected. This can only be done by subjecting it 
 to the same pressure or causing it to do the same 
 
 work it must do when put to actual service. A ma- 
 
 54 
 
THE TRIAL OF OUR FAITH 
 
 55 
 
 chine may work in theory, but, like Darius Green’3 
 wings, fail when put to the test. 
 
 A man may learn theories, hut grace itself is 
 proven by trials. Peter’s grace, put to the test, 
 failed. This trial, although it was the cause of 
 temporary loss and sorrow, was much more precious 
 to the apostle than gold. USTot that we would say 
 that his fall was a blessing to him, but the lesson 
 learned was one that would be remembered, espe¬ 
 cially when it had been learned at such a cost. 
 
 Trials are a necessity to bring out our best. We 
 never know either how much or how little we 
 amount to till we are tried. We may think we are 
 standing ever so firmly, only to be overthrown by 
 the smallest wind of adversity; or we may feel so 
 weak that we fear the least approach of evil and 
 tremble lest we should fall, when our very con¬ 
 sciousness of our own weakness is in reality a 
 source of strength. Paul said that when he was 
 weak then he was strong, and that out of weakness 
 he was made strong. Self-strength is real weak¬ 
 ness ; and acknowledged weakness, coupled with 
 God, is strength. 
 
 Again, trials develop our graces, causing them 
 to shine all the more brightly. Temptations to 
 doubt, resisted in the Spirit, increase faith; temp¬ 
 tations to hatred, successfully resisted, increase 
 love; and temptations to depression and discourage¬ 
 ment, bring joy and peace. Fire destroys dross but 
 purifies gold. The fires of temptation and spiritual 
 
56 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 sorrow reveal and drive out sin, but cause grace to 
 increase. 
 
 The trial of our faith makes us more like Jesus. 
 God chastens us that we may be partakers of His 
 holiness. When we are tried we shall come forth 
 as gold. No chastening for the present seemeth to 
 be joyous but grievous, but afterward it yieldeth 
 the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them 
 which are exercised thereby. 
 
 The trial of our faith is more precious than gold, 
 for gold perishes, but faith endures; gold is earthly, 
 but faith is heavenly; gold will purchase earthly 
 good, but through faith are we saved. 
 
 At one time men would have scoffed the idea that 
 gold perishes, but it has been proven that the action 
 of certain chemicals will destroy it. But that trial 
 or fiery ordeal has never been invented and never 
 will be invented that can overcome faith. All 
 things are possible to him that believeth. 
 
 Trials, borne in the Spirit, have a strong ten¬ 
 dency to blacken and mar all the trifling and allur¬ 
 ing joys of earth, and to bring out in strong relief 
 the joys of a life hid with Christ in God, the de¬ 
 sirableness of a heavenly home, but most of all they 
 produce a yearning after Christ and a melting into 
 His love. 
 
 Looking at matters from this true point of view, 
 why should we murmur? God’s best saints have 
 often been called upon to endure the greatest af¬ 
 flictions. Even so, lions’ dens, fiery furnaces and 
 
THE TRIAL OF OUR FAITH 
 
 57 
 
 foul dungeons could not alter their determination 
 nor cause them to complain. “ Even Christ pleased 
 not Himself.” 
 
 “ The sweetest flower that Bethlehem e’er saw bloom, 
 Forth from a heart all filled with wondrous grace, 
 
 Shed never forth its richness of perfume 
 Till Calvary’s cross upheld it in its vase.” 
 
 0 Christ, when shall I see Thee ? When shall 
 my weary eyes rest in the full vision of Thee— 
 when shall they see Jesus only? When shall my 
 lips speak only of Thee and with Thee ? When 
 shall my ears, so tired of the discordant notes of 
 earth’s minors and subtones, hear the music of Thy 
 voice ? When shall my heart, so long rent and torn 
 with warring passions or fierce temptations, rest 
 like a dove in the bosom of Thy divinity? 
 
 Dost Thou answer that these shall come when 
 my warfare is accomplished and my labour passed ? 
 Then I will welcome warfare, that I may shout the 
 victory in Thee; I will hail every labour with glad¬ 
 ness for each stroke helps to fill the measure of my 
 task; I will lift every burden, for each burden 
 passed brings me nearer the eternal weight of 
 glory. 
 
 Lord, to what shall I liken Thee-, as, arising from 
 the furnace of my trials, I behold Thee, even here, 
 by faith ? Thou art the Lily of the Yalley, the 
 Bright and Morning Star; Thou art the fairest 
 among ten thousand, yea, Thou art altogether 
 lovely. As the Lily among thorns, as the Lamb 
 among lions, as the Sun after midnight, as Joy 
 
58 
 
 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 after the utmost sorrow, as All Things Good and 
 Lovely after all things evil and unlovely, so art 
 Thou in comparison to all things beside. 
 
 Rutherford says: “ Oh! if ye knew Him, and 
 saw His beauty—your love, your heart, your de¬ 
 sires would close with Him, and cleave to Him. 
 Love, by nature, when it seeth, cannot hut cast out 
 its spirit and strength upon amiable objects, and 
 good things, and things love worthy; and what fairer 
 thing than Christ ? 0 fair sun, and fair moon, and 
 fair stars, and fair flowers, and fair roses, and fair 
 lilies, and fair creatures; but O ten thousand times 
 fairer Lord Jesus! Alas, I wronged Him in mak¬ 
 ing the comparison this way! 0 black sun and 
 moon, but 0 fair Lord Jesus! 0 black flowers, and 
 black lilies and roses, but 0 fair, fair, ever fair 
 Lord Jesus! 0 all fair things, black and deformed 
 without beauty, when ye are beside that fairest 
 Lord Jesus! 0 black heaven, but 0 fair Christ! 
 0 black angels, but surpassingly fair Lord Jesus! 
 I would seek no more to make me happy evermore 
 but a thorough and clear sight of the beauty of 
 Jesus, my Lord. Let my eyes enjoy His fairness, 
 and stare Him forever in the face, and I have all 
 that can be wished.” 
 
 For six thousand years death, the supreme terror 
 of the world, has triumphed. Since erring Adam 
 and Eve knelt, weeping, by the body of their right¬ 
 eous but murdered son, men have ever wept at the 
 tombs of their beloved dead. Death stalks trium- 
 
THE TRIAL OF OUR FAITH 
 
 59 
 
 pbant over tlie battle-field, gloating as a vulture on 
 the carcasses of the slain. Death shrieks weirdly 
 in the storm, it roars and rumbles in the earth¬ 
 quake, it stealthily lurks in famine and pestilence. 
 Death is a heartless monster. !No heart, no saint, 
 is immune to the sorrow he brings. He seizes the 
 infant or the sage, the poor or the rich, the wise or 
 the unwise. He wrings the heart with sorrow, 
 seizes our brightest flowers, or steals away the prop 
 of youth or age. He tolls the funeral dirge, digs 
 the grave and ruthlessly destroys the home. 
 
 But Christ, at His appearing, will destroy death. 
 Then captivity will be led captive, then death will 
 be conquered, and life, full, joyous, and eternal, 
 shall take the scepter of power. Till then be pa¬ 
 tient, be true, endure, and your joys shall never 
 end. 
 
 It must needs be, 
 
 In this dark world, this world of sin and shame, 
 That faith be tried. 
 
 As gold, which fire destroyeth not, 
 
 But purifies from dross, so faith, 
 
 Triumphant in the fires of pain, 
 
 Decreaseth not, and faileth not in power. 
 
 From strength to strength it goes. 
 
 On eagle’s wings it soars, exulting o’er the foe. 
 Fleet as the bounding hart, faith wearies not, 
 Nor faints when burdened sore with care. 
 
 Christ shall appear. 
 
 Then faith, forth from the furnace called, 
 Before the throne shall stand 
 And by the King be praised; 
 
 And, as the universe beholds, 
 
 Christ shall its honour show; 
 
 And o’er the soul, like oil o’er Aaron’s beard, 
 Glory and joy, celestial joy, shall flow, 
 
 And to eternity endure. 
 
VIII 
 
 JOY UNSPEAKABLE 
 
 “ Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now 
 ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeak¬ 
 able and full of glory; receiving the end of your faith, even 
 the salvation of your souls ”•—I Peter 1:8, 9. 
 
 F OR Peter to see Jesus, was to love Him, to 
 love Him was to worship Him, and to 
 worship Jesus was to forsake all and follow 
 Him. From that time Peter became a fisher of 
 men. A proof of his apostleship was the fact that 
 he had seen Jesus. Jesus pronounced a blessing on 
 Thomas because he believed when he had seen, hut 
 a greater blessing on the one who should believe 
 without seeing. 
 
 Allow me to venture the statement that never a 
 truer heart beat than the heart of the impetuous 
 Peter. He loved his Master. When they walked 
 together along the dusty highway, or sat by the sea¬ 
 side, he hung on His every word, and made the dis¬ 
 covery that Jesus only had the words of eternal 
 life. He loved Jesus when his eyes beheld Him, 
 he loved Him more when He left. As far as we 
 can discover, Peter never allowed a doubt concern¬ 
 ing the power of his Master to work all miracles, 
 
 and after he was left alone, by the power of this 
 
 60 
 
JOY UNSPEAKABLE 
 
 61 
 
 Christ, lie himself healed the sick and raised the 
 dead. 
 
 Impetuous love, implicit faith, tumultuous joy 
 —a joy unspeakable and full of glory, were char¬ 
 acteristic of this fisherman disciple. 
 
 “ Whom having not seen, ye love.” Can any per¬ 
 son be found who loves Napoleon, or Alexander, or 
 Caesar ? Can Plato, or Aristotle, or Pythagoras 
 boast of enthralling the affections of any person of 
 the twentieth century ? More than this, do the 
 disciples of Mohammed, or Confucius, or Buddha 
 follow their leaders through love or through fear 
 and frenzied fanaticism? There is no real love 
 where the cross is not known. “ We love Him be¬ 
 cause He first loved us.” 
 
 Christ is not dead, but liveth forevermore. He 
 lives to-day in the love of His followers as truly as 
 when men saw Him face to face. Men will give 
 their lives for Him, not because of some promised 
 sensual reward in the world to come, but because 
 they love Him and would glorify His name. How 
 worthy is Jesus Christ of the best affections of our 
 hearts, and how poor, in comparison, is the love 
 we give! 
 
 “ Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
 
 That were a present far too small: 
 
 Love so amazing, so divine, 
 
 Demands my soul, my life, my all.” 
 
 Man is so constituted that his affections must be 
 centered on some being or thing. Different men 
 
62 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 have different treasures, hut wherever these treas¬ 
 ures may he, there is the heart. Some love money, 
 some love houses and lands, some their homes, 
 others pleasure and rioting. How far beneath the 
 immortal dignity of man are all these! To love 
 God, and all other lovely things in God, is the 
 highest center of the affections. Augustine says, 
 “ For he loves thee too little who loves aught with 
 thee, which he loves not for thee, 0 love, who ever 
 hurnest, and art never quenched! 0 charity, my 
 God, kindle me! ” 
 
 “ In whom, though now ye see Him not, yet be¬ 
 lieving.” Faith is not faith unless it is operative 
 in the dark. That person who must have signs and 
 wonders to inspire faith, is a whole-souled unbe¬ 
 liever; that person whose confidence in God flags 
 in danger or disappointment, has need of strength 
 from on high; and that person who must have gifts, 
 blessings or revelations to produce faith and obedi¬ 
 ence, is following Jesus for the loaves and fishes. 
 True faith is not in things, but in Christ. 
 
 A love that grows cold, or in the least degree 
 seeks another center, when absent from the person 
 of its affections, is at best a poor love. Genuine 
 love increases with distance, and glows more 
 warmly as the days go by. True love cannot be 
 dampened by trials and burdens. If your love for 
 God grows cold and amid trials, temptations, perse¬ 
 cutions, misunderstandings, sickness, or any other 
 
JOY UNSPEAKABLE 63 
 
 thing, there is an icy center, carnality, that should 
 he removed. 
 
 God is anxious that we should love Him when 
 most invisible; He desires that we should lean on 
 Him when He is not to be seen; to trust Him that 
 He will fit us for our burdens and our burdens for 
 us. Mocking trials and bitter tears should not cool 
 the ardour of our love. God loves and cares for us 
 whatever the circumstances. 
 
 “ Ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of 
 glory.” Note the fact that no man is called upon 
 to rejoice in a shadow, or in an untruth. Faith is 
 not accepting an untruth with such determination 
 that it becomes a truth, real faith touches God 
 through Jesus Christ. Founded on Christ, really 
 and consciously, the believer must rejoice. “ Let 
 the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout 
 from the tops of the mountains.” 
 
 The apostle tries to express the extent of the 
 Christian’s exultation. Joy is defined as a lively 
 emotion of happiness. But the world has all this. 
 Can the Christian have no more? In answer the 
 Galilean disciple doubles up the expression, and de¬ 
 clares that we “ rejoice with joy.” This expresses 
 a genuine emotion of happiness, springing up, not 
 grudgingly or by force, but spontaneously, from the 
 depths of the soul. This is a rejoicing that has a 
 fountain of joy from which it springs. Some re¬ 
 joicing is only on the surface, and beneath is a deep 
 current of discontent and unrest. But this is not 
 
64 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 so. Well done, Peter. But let me ask, “ Does not 
 the world have all this? Does not the mother for¬ 
 get her anguish when from the depths of her 
 mother heart springs an unbidden stream, a stream 
 of rejoicing because of the beautiful infant son who 
 for the first time is placed in her arms and nestles 
 up to her bosom? ” This is not imaginary joy, it 
 is real. Does this duplicate the Christian’s privi¬ 
 lege ? Let us hear from Peter again. 
 
 “ Ye rejoice with joy unspeakable.” Wonder¬ 
 ful ! This begins to account for some of the strange 
 scenes we sometimes see. Men and women clap¬ 
 ping their hands, laughing, weeping, shouting, run¬ 
 ning, jumping, and other like manifestations. They 
 have a joy that is unspeakable, it is inexpressible, 
 and when they have done their best they all declare, 
 “ The half has never yet been told.” But can not 
 the world duplicate this? Peter, did you ever at¬ 
 tend the forum and witness there the indescribable 
 scenes of inexpressible joy when the favourite 
 charioteer gained the day, or when the footman 
 who was the idol of the people finished first? If 
 you never saw those things, or parallel events, it 
 might be well to go to the modern baseball or foot¬ 
 ball game, or the political convention, or a dozen 
 other events of every-day occurrence. We would 
 be glad, Peter, if you would give us a promise that 
 our joy would excel that of all these. Will you try 
 again ? 
 
 And he does. This time he introduces an ele- 
 
JOY UNSPEAKABLE 
 
 65 
 
 ment which this world does not possess. He goes 
 to headquarters, the source from which spiritual 
 possibilities emanate, and lays hold on a principle 
 that grows or is produced only there, and carrying 
 it hack exultingly, he takes the hitherto empty 
 pitcher of earthly joy, and crowds it full, yea, he 
 presses it down, he shakes it together, he runs it 
 over, he fills this unspeakable joy with glory. Do 
 you know what he means ? Thrice blessed soul, 
 thou art favoured of God! Is there a vagueness in 
 the idea of glory that is painful? Then ask God 
 to give you to understand; and, better yet, to pos¬ 
 sess His glory. 
 
 I confess my inability to express in words the 
 meaning of the apostle, but I am not prepared to 
 confess my inability to understand and to possess 
 that of which he speaks. What is glory? I an¬ 
 swer, its definition can be known only by those who 
 possess it? It is like the white stone in which a 
 new name is written that no man knoweth save him 
 that receiveth it. 
 
 There is an eternal variety in this glory-filled, 
 heavenly joy that manifests itself in ever-varying, 
 ever-changing, ever-new unfoldings and startling, 
 but rapturous, revelations. 
 
 The glory of the saint of God here is the same 
 in principle as the glory of heaven. The only dif¬ 
 ference is in the quantity and in the surroundings. 
 The glory here is an earnest, a foretaste, a forfeit 
 of the glory of the upper world. It is a sample 
 
66 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 given to us here, liberally and without measure, it 
 is true, that we may know something of what God 
 has in store for us and press forward, even though 
 the battle is fierce or the duties tiresome. But 
 when the full fruition is given, when faith is lost 
 in sight, when earth gives way for heaven, when 
 sorrows fade, when tears cease, when groans die for¬ 
 ever from our lips, when our hearts sense the things 
 that are prepared, when the feet of the glory-laden 
 soul strike the streets of the celestial glory, and it 
 feels the throbs and pulsations of the joys of 
 heaven, and joins in the anthems of saints and an¬ 
 gels, then, and not till then, it has received to its 
 full extent, but ever to increase, “ the end of faith, 
 even the salvation of the soul.” 
 
IX 
 
 THE MYSTERIES OF REDEMPTION 
 
 “ Of which salvation the prophets enquired and searched 
 diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come 
 unto you: searching what, or ichat manner of time the Spirit 
 of Christ which teas in them did signify, when it testified 
 beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should 
 follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto them* 
 selves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are 
 now reported unto us by them that have preached the gospel 
 unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which 
 things the angels desire to look into .”—I Peter 1: 10-12. 
 
 T HE all-consuming theme of prophecy, from 
 Genesis to Malachi, from the garden to 
 the end of Old Testament times, was “ the 
 sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should fol¬ 
 low.” He was prefigured in the beast slain to 
 clothe our sinful first parents, in the sacrifice of 
 Abel, in the ark of Noah, in the offering up of 
 Isaac, in the scarlet thread of Rahab, in the altar, 
 the ark of the covenant, the slain beasts and birds, 
 and even in the lives of such men as Moses, Joshua, 
 Samson, and David. 
 
 What a glorious privilege had fallen to the lot of 
 our fisherman disciple to stand in the midst of the 
 wondering throng at Pentecost and, for the first 
 time, to proclaim to them, in no uncertain lan¬ 
 guage, that the man they had crucified was the Mes¬ 
 siah, the Prophet, the Promised of the Father. 
 
 67 
 
68 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 And how good of the Lord to choose Peter for the 
 spokesman! Poor Peter’s heart was crushed. He 
 had denied his Lord. He had denied him with an 
 oath. Bitter tears had been wrung from his eyes. 
 But now he is given the opportunity to in some 
 sense atone for his failure, and, Peter-like, he is 
 not slow in improving the occasion. Standing 
 boldly before the very people, who had heard his 
 denial, he proclaimed that He whom they had 
 crucified was the Christ. 
 
 Did you ever say something to your best friend 
 that you were sure had caused his heart to bleed; 
 and did you ever note the thrill of joy when in 
 some way you were permitted to set the matter 
 right, or to prove by some self-denial the kindly 
 feelings of your heart? If so, you can appreciate 
 the feelings of Peter on this memorable day. Noth¬ 
 ing but blood can wash away sin, but loyalty satis¬ 
 fies and soothes an injured conscience. 
 
 The prophets foresaw that a great blessing was 
 kept in store for a future generation. They saw 
 that this blessing had to do with salvation and the 
 grace of God. They had realized in their own 
 hearts enough of this grace to cause them to desire 
 a deeper view. 
 
 As a consequence they searched diligently to find 
 out what it was to be, when it was to be given, and 
 the manner of times in which it should come. The 
 figure is of a person examining closely to catch the 
 most minute details, bringing the page nearer the 
 
THE MYSTERIES OF REDEMPTION 69 
 
 eyes, stooping down as in examining ores in which 
 precious metals are contained. This close applica¬ 
 tion to the task of searching the secrets of the Al¬ 
 mighty is no doubt represented in the stooping, in¬ 
 quiring attitude of the cherubim over the mercy 
 seat. “ Angels desire to look into ” the secrets of 
 God’s grace and mercy to wayward men. 
 
 Oh, the rich blessings, the marvelous revelations 
 that are forfeited by the carelessness of our search. 
 Look closer. Stoop down. Break through any in¬ 
 difference that may remain, and come boldly to a 
 throne of grace, and you shall obtain mercy and 
 find grace to help in time of need. There is no 
 wall between, the way into the holiest is open 
 to all. 
 
 While the prophets were not rewarded with a full 
 vision of these blessings, yet they obtained enough 
 of the “ earnest ” to keep them longing and won¬ 
 dering. They knew God, they knew the power of 
 grace, they knew the blessings of grace; but they 
 were convinced that they had not received of the 
 fulness as it should be given to future genera¬ 
 tions. 
 
 It is useless to attempt to draw the distinction in 
 the religious experiences of the two dispensations, 
 suffice to know that grace in its dispensational ful¬ 
 ness was for Enoch, for Noah, for Abraham, for 
 David, for the prophets and for John the Baptist 
 as well as for Peter, James and John. 
 
 To shut out everyone from the blessings of the 
 
70 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 redemption of Christ until this redemption should 
 he consummated would he to cast a suspicion upon 
 Christ by the covert insinuation that there was in 
 the mind of the Father a lingering doubt as to the 
 sufficiency of His Son to meet the issue and bring 
 salvation. 
 
 Oh, the glory of a vision of Christ! Bach 
 through the ages my soul peers, it looks closely, it 
 stoops down, it searches. Great men are there. 
 Nebuchadnezzar is there in his Babylonian glory; 
 Alexander weeping for another world to conquer; 
 Caesar, statesman, author, soldier, at the head of 
 the Roman legions; Constantine marching to vic¬ 
 tory under the Christian labarum; Polycarp, the 
 aged, dying for the man he could not deny; Luther 
 putting to flight the minions of Romanism; John 
 Wesley with his Spirit-filled followers. Some of 
 the persons I see are beautiful, some are repulsive. 
 But amid the throng there shines the face of One 
 whose countenance is more marred than any seen; 
 He hangs between the heavens and the earth, bleed¬ 
 ing, groaning, dying. With the prophet I exclaim, 
 “ Who is this ? ” The answer returns, “ This is 
 the Man who died for thee.” Thank God for a 
 mother, a Sunday-school teacher, a preacher, a 
 Bible which told me the old, old story, which so im j 
 pressed it on the scrolls of my childish mind that 
 its memory shall never be effaced. He died that I 
 might live. 
 
 If such a vision, looking backwards, is glorious, 
 
THE MYSTERIES OF REDEMPTION 71 
 
 why should not a forward vision be glorious ? 
 When Abraham saw the day of the Son of Man, he 
 became the “ friend of God ”: when Moses got a 
 vision of the Prophet like unto himself, he forsook 
 the throne, the glories, the riches of Egypt, esteem¬ 
 ing even the reproach of Christ much to be pre¬ 
 ferred. When David’s harp learned to sound the 
 praises of the Lord’s Anointed, he could say, “ We 
 will rejoice in Thy salvation, and in the name of 
 God we will set up our banners.” When Isaiah 
 saw the vision he said, “ He was wounded for our 
 transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: 
 the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and 
 with His stripes we are healed.” Read the whole 
 wonderful story in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. 
 He was despised, He sorrowed, He was rejected, 
 He was afflicted, He travailed, He died. 
 
 “ Stay, let me weep while you whisper, 
 
 ‘ Love paid the ransom for me.’ ” 
 
 Such was the “ forward ” vision the prophets 
 caught of Him who spoke in righteousness, the 
 Mighty to save. 
 
 But these are not all who desire to fathom the 
 mysteries of redemption. As we have seen, the 
 cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat are in¬ 
 tently looking that they may understand the mercy 
 and grace of God. Although they cannot fathom 
 yet they believe and are glad to do all they can to 
 further the plan, even now angels are hovering 
 
72 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 around to carry back to heaven the tidings of a 
 prodigal’s return, ministering spirits linger with 
 every saint of God to assist him in his journey to 
 the skies, and if we are true to the end, on pinions 
 that outfly the lightnings, they will carry us to a 
 land of rest. 
 
 But angels can never tell the mysteries of re- 
 demption, they can never know the sweet pulsations 
 of that joy divine which a prodigal feels when he 
 first reaches home. There is much meaning in the 
 expression we so often hear, “ I would sooner be a 
 redeemed soul than an archangel.” 
 
 Some spend their lives bewailing their past sins. 
 Why should this be so ? True, my sins made the 
 blood of Christ a necessity, but, while sin is an 
 awful thing, yet, because of sin, I have a part in 
 Jesus Christ. Without blood I could never be re¬ 
 deemed, but had I never sinned I could have no 
 part in the Saviour. I did bewail my sins once, 
 for, unconfessed and unforsaken, they separated 
 me from God, but when the blood reached my soul 
 I ceased to mourn, and the joy of the Lord wipes 
 out the memories and sorrows of the past. Thank 
 God! 
 
 Again, what a glorious privilege to preach the 
 gospel “ with the Holy Ghost sent down from 
 heaven! ” “ The morning stars sang together and 
 
 all the sons of God shouted for joy ” when God 
 “ laid the foundations of the earth.” When Zerub- 
 babel laid the foundations of the second temple, the 
 
THE MYSTERIES OF REDEMPTION 73 
 
 people wept and shouted until the noise of the 
 weeping could not he distinguished from the noise 
 of the shouting. 
 
 But there is a greater privilege. God is hewing 
 out of the granite quarries of this world living 
 stones with which to build an habitation of God 
 through the Spirit. The building is laid on the 
 foundation of the apostles and prophets, and He 
 shall bring forth the headstone thereof (Jesus 
 Christ) with shoutings, crying, “ Grace, grace unto 
 it.” He gives me the opportunity to work in His 
 quarries, to fit stones for their place in the temple. 
 He allows me to work with Him for the salvation 
 pf a lost world! 
 
 God has a harvest field, the world, in which there 
 is work to do. I may not be able to work with the 
 young men in bringing in the sheaves, but, like 
 Ruth, I can glean in a humble place, and be re¬ 
 warded with handfuls of grain. But when mealtime 
 comes I can sit down with the reapers, Wesley, 
 Bramwell, Finney, Luther, I can eat of their bread 
 and dip my morsel in their vinegar, and rejoice. 
 And in the end, while I may not receive a reaper’s 
 pay, I can hear God’s “ Well done ” and be united 
 with my heavenly Boaz, Jesus Christ, world with- 
 put end. 
 
X 
 
 KEEPING THE HEART 
 
 “ Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, he sober, and 
 hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you 
 at the revelation of Jesus Christ —I Peter 1:13. 
 
 I T means much to be patient. There is so much 
 to he done and so many hindrances; the pains 
 are so severe and so persistent that it seems 
 they never will depart; the misunderstandings seem 
 so unreasonable that they are actually vexing; the 
 crosses are so heavy, so bloody, so agonizing, the 
 confinements so galling! If we could only wrench 
 these bars away, lay down these crosses, explain 
 these misunderstandings, relieve these pains or 
 drive through these hindrances, all would he well. 
 But no, the prejudices refuse to depart, the walls 
 are firm. 
 
 Nothing but grace could enable Peter to endure. 
 He must have his liberty. God recognized this fact, 
 and when he was in prison sent an angel to help 
 him out. But this impulsive nature, all right when 
 sanctified, must he curbed or ruin will follow. In 
 this passage Peter is wielding the two-edged sword, 
 it strikes both the reader and the writer. Peter, 
 himself, must learn to patienly “ hope to the 
 end.” 
 
 74 
 
KEEPING THE HEART 
 
 75 
 
 By tlie way, did Peter ever take time to sit down 
 and think anything out ? Did he ever study out a 
 sermon or a course of action ? Read his epistles 
 and see how he sweeps you irresistibly, not hv force 
 of argument, hut by a strong impulse, from valley 
 to hilltop, from one mountain peak to another, 
 never tarrying at any one place only long enough 
 to drive one sure nail and then on. His inspira¬ 
 tion hears the stamp of action, not of study. It 
 savours of the freedom of the seaside, the rolling 
 of the tempest, the sunshine and shadows, the joys 
 of the successes and the sorrows of the failures of 
 a Galilean fisherman, and not of the schools. 
 
 John loved to sit at Jesus’ feet or recline on His 
 breast; he must learn to labour in the great harvest 
 field; Peter, already filled with action, must learn 
 to sit at Jesus’ feet. How blessed to live constantly 
 in the presence of Jesus, to be ever drinking in of 
 the fulness of the Spirit. Brother Lawrence says, 
 “ The time of business does not with me differ from 
 the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of 
 my kitchen, while several persons are at the same 
 time calling for different things, I possess God in 
 as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees 
 at the blessed sacrament.” 
 
 The Christian man’s main work is stated thus by 
 the wise man: “ Keep thine heart with all dili¬ 
 gence, for out of it are the issues of life.” Care¬ 
 fulness, sobriety and hopefulness are three things 
 
76 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 necessary in keeping the heart, and these three 
 things are mentioned in the passage before ns. 
 
 Cakefulness. “ Gird up the loins of your 
 mind.” The mind and affections of man, fallen in 
 the general wreck, are inclined to looseness. They 
 love to linger in forbidden fields and ponder over 
 unholy ends, and are loath to give careful attention 
 to solid things, especially the things of God. How 
 easy for the natural man to retain the memory of 
 foolish stories or circumstances, and with difficulty 
 he retains solid matter. This weakness is aug¬ 
 mented by the influence of chaffy, sentimental lit¬ 
 erature, classical or otherwise. Who can prove this 
 allegation untrue? 
 
 What unregenerated man is capable of so con¬ 
 trolling his affections that he can say, “ My heart 
 is fixed.” On the contrary, his affections are con¬ 
 tinually changing, unstable as water, like the 
 troubled sea when it cannot rest. 
 
 But if the “ loins of the mind ” are girded up 
 the subjects for thought will be carefully chosen, 
 the affections will be studiously fixed in God and 
 heavenly things, and the whole man will be watch¬ 
 ful and at attention. 
 
 The figure of the text represents readiness. 
 When the prophet’s lips had been touched with the 
 live coal and his sin purged, he could quickly reply 
 to the call to service, “ Here am I, send me.” If 
 the mind is dissolutely dragging against the things 
 of time and dabbling into the dirty pool of worldly 
 
KEEPING THE HEART 
 
 77 
 
 cares and riches, how can one quickly leave all to 
 answer the call to service ? God wants minute men. 
 He wants men who sleep on their arms with their 
 coats on, while they are in the enemy’s country. 
 He wants men who can never be caught ungirded. 
 
 Then, again, the girded mind is prompt and ex¬ 
 peditious. It cares for details, but wastes no time 
 with trifles. Generally, if you want a rush job 
 done employ a busy man, for very often the other 
 man is unoccupied because of his slowness and in¬ 
 efficiency. Talents are given the servants of God 
 to be used, but if any man has not (does not use 
 to profit that which he has), from him shall be 
 taken away even that which he has, and this that 
 is taken away shall be given to the man who al¬ 
 ready has ten talents, and improves them. 
 
 The girded mind is, as far as possible, disen¬ 
 gaged from worldly things and pursuits. No man 
 that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of 
 this world, that he may please him who has chosen 
 him to be a soldier. How any man whose head is 
 full of worldly business and plans can make a suc¬ 
 cessful soul-saver or even private Christian—is a 
 question worthy of consideration. A heart that is 
 only partly surrendered to God is all the devil’s; 
 lukewarmness is an abomination, sickening to the 
 Lord. 
 
 A mind that is girded, by that very fact mani¬ 
 fests a determination that is pleasing to God. No 
 man would run a race of any importance hampered 
 
78 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 with superfluous clothing, but if he enters the lists 
 stripped for action he shows his determination to 
 either win or make the attempt. Determination 
 is half the battle. Many an engagement has been 
 lost because of a lack of purpose. 
 
 “ We want no cowards in our band 
 Who will their colours fly; 
 
 We call for valiant-hearted men 
 Who are not afraid to die.” 
 
 A girded mind is a strong mind. It rejoiceth 
 as a strong man to run a race. Dangers and diffi¬ 
 culties grow insignificant to the one who dares. 
 Such an one 
 
 “ * * * asks impossibilities, 
 
 Impossibilities are given.” 
 
 Weakness is manifested by languor and inaction; 
 strength produces alertness and activity. Can you 
 not divide the weak Christians of your acquaint¬ 
 ance from the strong by this rule ? 
 
 Finally, a girded mind is a holy mind. Separa¬ 
 tion, consecration, devotion, trueness to purpose, 
 purity, all these and all kindred virtues, complete 
 the grand end or purpose of salvation—likeness to 
 God, and power to glorify and enjoy God. 
 
 2. Sobriety. “ Be sober.” No intoxicated 
 man, whether his condition is caused by strong 
 drink or a surfeit of the world, is fit for any post 
 that demands vigilance. Constant sobriety is the 
 price of spiritual liberty. A drunken nation is on 
 the verge of ruin. The professed Christian, who 
 
KEEPING THE HEART 
 
 79 
 
 is so filled with the world that he says, “ I am rich 
 and increased with goods and have need of noth¬ 
 ing/’ is wretched and miserable and poor and blind 
 and naked, and in such a condition he is on the 
 verge of utter ruin. 
 
 “ Let your moderation he known,” is the com¬ 
 mand of the apostle. Radicalism is manifested as 
 much in extreme formality as in extreme notions 
 of religious straightness. A formality void of the 
 Spirit, and a rigidness void of the melting, are 
 abominations; hut if formality could he filled with 
 life it would meet on an equal footing with rigid¬ 
 ness melted with love. A zealous, Spirit-filled 
 formalism, coupled with melted, fiery radicalism, 
 so-called, produce moderation. 
 
 Temperance is akin to moderation. The com¬ 
 mand is, “ Be temperate in all things.” This com¬ 
 mand is effective in fasting as well as in eating, 
 in waking or in sleeping, in speaking or remaining 
 silent, in work or play. In case of a doubt it is 
 generally better to choose the side of self-denial, 
 hut this is not an infallible rule, and if continually 
 followed would lead to asceticism. In general, in 
 the absence of direct divine revelation, a sanctified 
 judgment is a tolerably safe guide. 
 
 Sobriety demands humility, for the man who 
 thinks of himself soberly is not apt to place too 
 high an estimate on his own worth. It is generally 
 better to err on the side of under- than over-esti¬ 
 mation of one’s own worth. Take a low seat and 
 
80 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 then if you are exalted you will have praise of 
 those who behold, but if you take an exalted place 
 and are abased your fall will be great. 
 
 3. Hopefulness. “ Hope to the end for the 
 grace that is to be brought unto you at the revela¬ 
 tion of Jesus Christ.” Matthew Henry paraphrases 
 this passage thus: “ Hope perfectly or thoroughly 
 for the grace that is brought to you in, or by, the 
 revelation of Jesus Christ: by the gospel which 
 brings life and immortality to light: hope perfectly, 
 trust without doubting to that grace which is now 
 offered to you by the gospel.” 
 
 Hope is the optimistic prophet of the soul. 
 Without hope we not only become pessimistic but 
 gloomy and even melancholy. Hope is an anchor 
 to the soul; it reaches the steadfastness of an un¬ 
 seen divinity. Hope is the lifter up of our heads. 
 Though all around is dismal and unpromising, hope 
 clears the way to victory, and shouts its triumphs 
 even amid defeats. 
 
 “ Why art thou cast down, O my soul ? and why 
 art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: 
 for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of 
 my countenance, and my God.” 
 
XI 
 
 OBEDIENCE AND THE FORMER LUSTS 
 
 u As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves accordr 
 ing to the former lusts in your ignorance .”—I Peteb 1:14. 
 
 P ETER was with the Master in the holy 
 mount and beheld Him when the fashion 
 of His countenance was changed and His 
 raiment became as white as snow. What an im¬ 
 pression this scene made on the susceptible heart 
 of Peter! Henceforth his life must he fashioned 
 after the life of his divine Ideal. He would he 
 Ohristlike. 
 
 He suggested building tabernacles and taking up 
 his abode in the mount, but God showed him a bet¬ 
 ter way, and sent him out to preach the transfigured 
 life to a lost world. The shining raiments of the 
 mount were no more of an inspiration to the be¬ 
 wildered disciple than were the hungry faces of the 
 multitudes at Pentecost. He beheld the visions 
 of God on the desolate hilltop, but now he catches 
 a vision of God’s transforming power, entering, re¬ 
 newing, regenerating, sanctifying the hearts and 
 lives of lost men. If the former vision is glorious 
 the latter vision exceeds in glory. 
 
 Standing up in the midst of the wondering 
 
 throng, this once fearful hut now renewed disciple 
 
 81 
 
82 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 proclaimed to those who would forbear as well as 
 those who would hear that the Man whom they had 
 crucified with wicked hands was both Lord and 
 Christ, the one whom David had foreseen, the hope 
 of the ancients, the joy of the Church. 
 
 The sight of this transfigured disciple proclaim¬ 
 ing a crucified but now risen Christ pricked the 
 multitudes to the heart, and so set them to longing 
 for conformity to the same Image that they cried, 
 “ Men and brethren, What shall we do ? ” 
 
 In the passage before us the writer exhorts us 
 to flee from those things which were the cause of 
 our undoing, with each clause sinking deeper into 
 the cause of our perverseness; then suddenly turn¬ 
 ing away from this vision of man’s uncleanness, he 
 catches, in the next verse, the full vision of God’s 
 holiness, and man’s possibilties in attaining to that 
 holiness. 
 
 But what a vision of man’s wretchedness, of my 
 wickedness, is comprised in these words! No mat¬ 
 ter how disagreeable the task, let us look, for a few 
 moments, into the hole of the pit from whence we 
 were digged, and then thank God for a Deliverer. 
 
 Ignorance. How little the natural man knows 
 of God! He can behold the glorious sun shining 
 down from the heights of heaven, and never catch 
 a glimpse of the divine majesty that placed it 
 there. Neither forests or waving fields, gentle 
 breezes or refreshing rains, summer’s gladness or 
 winter’s snows, plenty or famine, preach any ser- 
 
OBEDIENCE AND FORMER LUSTS 83 
 
 mons to his darkened mind. Divine providences, 
 gentle or severe, are of little worth to him. He can 
 tell the nature and properties of plants and min¬ 
 erals, knows the haunts and attributes of wild ani¬ 
 mals, can reason wisely of the forces of nature and 
 their inherent powers, but cannot see the God whose 
 handiwork these things are. 
 
 These “ natural ” men can see the beauties of 
 Shakespeare and Milton; analyze with learned nice¬ 
 ness the works of Dickens or Kipling; they can 
 digest volumes of mathematics, science, of litera¬ 
 ture, but can see nothing in the Word of God, the 
 Book of books. 
 
 Oh, brethren, let us teach men to love the Word 
 of God. Let us throw aside our wise sayings, let 
 us stop trying to modernize the sacred desk, and 
 let us make this our one aim, to enlighten men’s 
 minds concerning the mightiest theme of eternity, 
 and save their souls. I know some will not listen 
 to the voice of those who would charm them with 
 the old, old story, but if we do our duty their blood 
 is off our skirts. 
 
 Corrupt Affections. Hot only are men’s 
 minds perverse, but their affections are evil. It 
 seems as though one glance at the great mass of 
 humanity would convince any right-minded man 
 of this fact. Why do men love pleasures more than 
 God? Why must appeals be made to men’s appe¬ 
 tites or love of fun to eke out a miserable pittance 
 for the work of God? Why are the circus, the 
 
84 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 theater, the parks and movies over-full and the 
 house of God lying waste? If men’s affections 
 are not perverse why will they compass sea and 
 land, undergo any hardships or self-denials to ob¬ 
 tain riches, and why will they spend these riches 
 so lavishly for their own pleasure or profit, and 
 give to the cause of God with grudging hand, or 
 not give at all? 
 
 See that fine looking, well-kept young man en¬ 
 tering yonder grog shop. He stays hut a short time 
 until he comes out reeling, simpering, falling in 
 his own vomit. Shameful degradation has taken 
 possession of his glory. Why does he delight in the 
 thing that thus causes his downfall? 
 
 If one could hut go with the Christian mission¬ 
 ary into the depths of Africa, of India, of China, 
 or even of London or New York, and behold the 
 wretchedness and debauchery, the uncleanness and 
 crime, he would carry away a vivid remembrance 
 of the depths to which “ the former lusts ” would 
 carry a man unhindered by the preventing grace 
 of God, or the restraining power of law or society. 
 
 Pebveeted Will. If the unregenerated man 
 is left free to “ fashion himself ” his ruin is ac¬ 
 complished. Led on by the perversion of his own 
 heart and the ignorance of his mind his will is 
 forced to go wrong. 
 
 This is where parents so often make a sad mis¬ 
 take, and, oh, how often they say, “ I see it now, 
 but it is too late.” Children of tender years are 
 
OBEDIENCE AND FORMER LUSTS 85 
 
 left to choose their own amusements and compan¬ 
 ions. Vile thoughts are thrust into their minds by 
 evil associates and the downward journey is begun. 
 In due time they turn away from the church, they 
 forsake the family altar, they do not kneel at their 
 bedsides, they forget the Bible. Their wills, un¬ 
 controlled by proper parental government, are fash¬ 
 ioning them. Finally, wilful, headstrong, perverse, 
 with the bits in their teeth, they repudiate their 
 parents’ religion, they refuse to obey, and declare 
 they can and will take care of themselves. Out 
 into the dark they go, away from God, from home, 
 from heaven, to stumble on the dark mountains of 
 sin, to fall and rise no more. A deceived heart, 
 encouraged by a perverted will and vile affections, 
 has turned them aside. 
 
 Is this your son or daughter ? Are the reins held 
 with loving firmness that the will of that child may 
 be taught to fashion itself after God’s pattern? 
 
 But now we come to the end of this ugly picture. 
 Thank God for grace that can change all this! 
 And from disobedient and gainsaying men refash¬ 
 ion us into obedient, humble children. A’Kempis 
 prays, “ Set me free from evil passions, and heal 
 my heart from all inordinate affections: that being 
 inwardly cured and thoroughly cleansed, I may be 
 made fit to love, courageous to suffer, steady to per¬ 
 severe.” 
 
 Obedience. “ To obey is better than sacrifice, 
 and to hearken than the fat of rams.” Obedience, 
 
86 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 divinely inspired, is not a spiritless, slavish ab¬ 
 negation of self, so forcibly illustrated in Roman 
 Catholic monasticism, but a sprightly, joyous pur¬ 
 pose to do God’s will, knowing that the following 
 of that will is to one’s own best good and eternal 
 gain, as well as the greatest glory to God, our 
 greatest benefactor. 
 
 Obedience is a self-forgetful grace. Self-abase¬ 
 ment, in the Spirit, places the soul in line with the 
 requirements of God and on the plane of our high¬ 
 est good. The vainglorious vaunting of self, so 
 common with the world, is inconsistent with god¬ 
 liness and is another proof of the utter blindness 
 of the unregenerate heart; but that elimination of 
 self, called in Christian phraseology “ humility,” 
 is a grace of the highest worth and greatest benefit, 
 but is seldom seen. 
 
 If twelve legions of angels stood ready to obey 
 the Man of Calvary, even to the extent of deliver¬ 
 ing Him from His tormentors, why should I, a 
 humble man, a worm of the dust, consider it be¬ 
 neath my dignity to run quickly at His word to 
 do the most menial service or the hardest tasks ? 
 
 The spirit of obedience settles all questions that 
 may arise concerning duty. This form of obedi¬ 
 ence is not slavery, it is the joyous bound of child¬ 
 hood conquered by love. 
 
 But you say, “ If this is true, where is the 
 cross ? ” To which we would answer, Are not 
 heavy burdens carried gladly for the one you love? 
 
OBEDIENCE AND FORMER LUSTS 87 
 
 They are heavy, to be sure, they weary the shoul¬ 
 ders, they may cause the tears to flow, but would 
 you for all this throw them down? Would you 
 say, “ Wife, I am sorry indeed that I am forced 
 to bear such burdens for you and the little ones ? ” 
 Not if there is any manhood left in you. You look 
 over the feelings of pain, and truthfully say, “ I 
 bear my burdens gladly for the ones I love.” Like* 
 wise the heart of the Christian says: 
 
 “ The old rugged cross, how I love it, 
 
 Its burdens, reproaches and shame; 
 
 And naught else on earth do I covet 
 But to bear it in Jesus’ name.” 
 
 An obedience that cannot bear the test of disap¬ 
 pointments, of burdens, of heartaches or of crosses 
 is not genuine obedience. A child that runs with 
 as great zeal to do the unpleasant things as the 
 pleasant is an obedient child. A Christian who has 
 learned to obey in trial the same as in joy is made 
 of martyr stuff. He is patient in tribulation and 
 in everything gives thanks. 
 
XII 
 
 CALLED UNTO HOLINESS 
 
 “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ife holy 
 in all manner of conversation ”—I Peter 1:15. 
 
 P ETEK and his brother Andrew were down 
 at the Sea of Galilee fishing. Jesus, just 
 returned from His wilderness temptation, 
 passing by, saw them, and said, “ Follow me, and I 
 will make you fishers of men.” They did not ques¬ 
 tion for a moment, they did not even ask the 
 privilege of burying their father, or taking the 
 nets, but, “leaving all,” they followed Him. 
 
 The Lord had been crucified and the disciples 
 were broken-hearted. Seven of them were together 
 and Peter said, “ I go a-fishing.” They all replied 
 that they, too, would go. After toiling all night 
 with no success, at the command of Jesus, who ap¬ 
 peared to them, unrecognized, they cast their nets 
 on the right side of the ship and enclosed a great 
 multitude of fishes. Then followed the conversa¬ 
 tion between Jesus and Peter in which the Lord 
 commanded Peter to feed His sheep. 
 
 Thus for the first and for the last time was our 
 fisherman disciple called. How he appreciated the 
 call is only revealed by his after life and the man¬ 
 ner in which he glorified God in his death. 
 
 88 
 
CALLED UNTO HOLINESS 
 
 89 
 
 My brethren, what a glorious calling is ours! 
 Out from the things of time, the things that per- 
 plex and annoy; out from the sins of the world, the 
 sins that eat as a canker at the vitals of man’s im¬ 
 mortality; out from the pleasures of the world, 
 pleasures that glitter as a bubble, and burst, and 
 are gone; out from the sorrows of earth, sorrows 
 that depress and drive the soul to despondency; out 
 from the enjoyment or endurance of Egyptian flesh- 
 pots, prodigal swine-pens, from roaring furnaces, 
 and lions’ dens, into the glorious light and liberty 
 of the children of God. Thank God for the mar¬ 
 velous change. 
 
 Men are “ called ” to various earthly positions 
 and occupations, but this calling is “ unto holiness.” 
 That calling is earthly, this calling is heavenly. 
 That calling is transient, this calling is eternal. 
 
 Notice who it is that calls. “ I the Lord have 
 spoken and have called the earth from the rising 
 of the sun till the going down of the same.” Pa¬ 
 tiently, tenderly, persistently, this heavenly Herald 
 calls. His voice is heard from Eden to Patmos, 
 from creation to judgment. 
 
 What pathos in His voice as in the cool of the 
 evening He called our fallen parents, and how the 
 guilty pair feared to meet their divine Benefactor! 
 He called the antediluvian world by the preaching 
 of Noah; He called Abram to leave his kindred 
 and gods and to go to a country of promise; He 
 called Israel out of the iron furnace, Egypt, and 
 
90 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 led them gently for forty years through the wilder¬ 
 ness of trial; He called His disciples from their 
 nets and from their tax-gathering and made them 
 savers of souls; He calls you and me from the 
 things of time and makes us kings and priests unto 
 God with the promise that we shall reign on the 
 earth. 
 
 God calls in every way possible to win a soul. 
 His gentle as well as His severe providences re¬ 
 mind us of our duty to Him. Day and night, year 
 in and year out, He is knocking, calling, wooing, 
 at my heart’s door. He never wearies nor ceases 
 to call. While there is any hope He continues to 
 plead. 
 
 I catch a vision of a kind, patient form standing 
 in the door of the little cottage around which fond 
 memory clusters so many joyous days. I hear her 
 call and now I would gladly hasten to respond. 
 But we folded those cold hands in death, we ten¬ 
 derly closed those once tear-stained eyes, and 
 wrapped that beloved form in a beautiful white 
 robe, emblem of purity—you know the rest. 
 
 Turning tearfully from this scene (how strange 
 that we linger at the house of grief!) I behold an¬ 
 other and a more glorious vision. The gates of 
 heaven are open wide, and in its portals is the face 
 of One that is more marred than any seen. His 
 hands, His feet, and His side are pierced, on His 
 brow are marks of a thorn crown, and across His 
 back ugly scars from the cruel scourge. He is 
 
CALLED UNTO HOLINESS 
 
 91 
 
 calling; hear Him, u Come unto me all ye that 
 labour and are heavy laden and I will give you 
 rest.” 
 
 0 my soul, why so cold ? Know ye not that yon¬ 
 der Form is the Christ of God? Do you not know 
 that the almighty heart is filled with glowing love 
 for thee? Know you not that His rest which He 
 shall give is glorious ? O God, soften, melt, tender 
 my heart, remove every vestige of stoniness, and 
 let me melt like wax in the furnace of Thy fulness 
 of love. 
 
 I note the character of Him who calls. He is 
 holy. I stand in awe before the task of describing 
 to any degree the holiness of God. Such a task is 
 too great for mortal man. 
 
 Could I receive from the hand of God a spark 
 of the celestial Mind and with this as a guide go 
 forever downward into the unfathomable chasms of 
 the damned, both of men and of angels, then I 
 could behold God’s holiness as it is revealed in His 
 hatred for sin. Could I, guided by the same wis¬ 
 dom, mount forever the pinnacles of heaven ’3 
 effulgent glories and search unwearied the depths, 
 the height, the length, the breadth of the divine 
 Being whose nature is holy, then I could find some 
 of God’s holiness in its glorious and essential 
 being. 
 
 This majestic, this awful God has called me, 
 why should I delay? Mending nets and gathering 
 taxes are legitimate pursuits, but when God beck- 
 
92 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 ons me away, why should I linger? If God calls 
 me He means to make of me something this world 
 could not make. God knows me and sees in my 
 being possibilities man could never see. He may 
 exercise these talents by putting me to feeding 
 sheep on the “ back side of the desert,” or break¬ 
 ing up the fallow ground and smashing the clods 
 in some secluded spot in His great field, or He may 
 set me to gleaning with sadness behind the reapers 
 who shout as they garner in the sheaves. If I am 
 true, will He not reward me at the last? If the 
 reward is not the greatest, the consciousness of hav¬ 
 ing done my duty is a great reward. 
 
 When Philip of Macedon heard of the beauty of 
 Athens he said, “ I must have this town either 
 through gold or through the sword.” How strange 
 that mortal man should neglect all the glories and 
 riches of heaven to which he is called and choose 
 instead the perishing glory of time! George Nitsch 
 says, “ Oh, that we only had a bunch of grapes out 
 of the land of Canaan, and were able to dip the 
 point of our staff in heaven’s flowing honey! We 
 would then lose our desire for the sour drinks of 
 this present life, and despise them, as the children 
 of Israel did the manna in the wilderness.” 
 
XIII 
 
 CALLED UNTO HOLINESS 
 
 “ But as he which has called you is holy, so be ye holy in 
 all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye 
 holy; for I am holy ”—I Peter 1:15, 16. 
 
 F ROM his childhood Peter had followed the 
 occupation of a fisherman. His nets 
 brought up “ both good and bad/’ and he 
 had become accustomed to sorting out and reject¬ 
 ing the had and carefully preserving the good. 
 After all, it is an enviable accomplishment to be 
 able to draw the fine shades of demarcation between 
 the good and the near-good. Many an otherwise 
 good workman has failed because of a weakness 
 here. The failures are they who build on a good 
 foundation but erect their superstructure of wood, 
 hay and stubble. These the fires of trial will de¬ 
 stroy. On the other hand, the successes are they 
 who build of gold, silver and precious stones, mate¬ 
 rials which the tests only cause to shine more bril¬ 
 liantly. No genuine gold need fear the test that 
 reveals its character. 
 
 How a fisherman delights in calling attention to 
 the fine qualities of his catch! In casting his nets 
 into the deep seas of God’s Word and of personal 
 spiritual revelation Peter had brought up many 
 
 peculiar treasures, hut none greater than those men- 
 
 93 
 
94 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 tioned in the verses under consideration: God is 
 holy; the holy God has called; since God is holy, 
 we can be holy; since God is holy, we must be holy; 
 and, this holiness should manifest itself in each 
 word, thought and action of our lives. 
 
 God is holy. Benjamin Whichcote says, “ If a 
 man has wrong suppositions in his mind concern¬ 
 ing God, he will be wrong through all the parts of 
 his religion.’’ Holiness is the antithesis of sin. 
 Because of His holiness God is inexorably and 
 eternally opposed to sin. No man can be approved 
 of God while he wilfully harbours evil in his heart 
 or life. If men will get it into their minds that 
 God is holy, and will obtain a proper realization of 
 what holiness is and how it is opposed to sin, they 
 must inevitably see the impossibility of serving God 
 and the devil. 
 
 The awful holiness of God so places Him in op¬ 
 position to sin that He will eventually sweep the 
 universe with the bosom of His wrath, make every¬ 
 thing outside of hell immaculately clean, and con¬ 
 fine sin forever within the adamant walls of perdi¬ 
 tion. Some people say that any place outside of 
 heaven will be hell. How strange that they cannot 
 see that this would be surrendering all but the 
 definite place called heaven to the devil! No, the 
 fact is that everything outside of hell will be heaven 
 or will be so cleansed from pollution, or the pos* 
 sibility of pollution, that nothing will remain to 
 hurt or destroy. 
 
CALLED UNTO HOLINESS 
 
 95 
 
 The holy God has called. Although God is holy, 
 and, as a consequence, is unalterably opposed to sin, 
 yet in His infinite wisdom and grace He found a 
 way to save unholy men. Forth from the realms 
 of light, down into this dark, sinful world, He sent 
 His only begotten Son to carry the glad news of an 
 open fountain into which sinners might plunge and 
 be clean. At the heart’s doors of rebellious men 
 this heavenly Messenger stands knocking, calling, 
 pleading. Though oft rejected and insulted He 
 does not leave, but calls all the more tenderly. 
 
 0 my soul, know thy worth and thy day of salva¬ 
 tion. Behold thy Bedeemer, thy Friend; forsake 
 thy earth-born pleasures and flee to this Friend of 
 sinners, recline upon His bosom and drink in of 
 the sweetness and fragrance of His gracious Spirit. 
 Samuel Rutherford says, “ Think ye it a small 
 honour to stand before the throne of God and the 
 Lamb, and to be clothed in white, and to be called 
 to the marriage supper of the Lamb, and to be led 
 to the Fountain of living waters, and to come to the 
 Well-head, even God Himself, and to get your fill 
 of the clear, cold, sweet, refreshing Water of life, 
 the King’s own well, and to put up your own sinful 
 hand to the Tree of Life, and take down and eat 
 the sweetest apple in all God’s heavenly paradise, 
 Jesus Christ, your Life and your Lord ? Up your 
 heart! shout for joy! your King is coming to fetch 
 you to His Father’s house.” 
 
96 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 Since God is holy, we can be boly. God is not 
 a tyrant to command His creatures to perform im¬ 
 possibilities. He is not a weakling, lacking power 
 to assist the struggling honest soul. Neither is He 
 miserly, withholding grace and strength that men 
 so much need. He is able to deliver and to preserve 
 the godly. He does not give His Spirit by 
 measure, but abundantly, and when He gives His 
 Spirit, He gives of His own nature which is holy. 
 There is no need in the human family, no matter 
 how great, that God will not supply. Every possi¬ 
 bility in the atonement of Christ is at the disposal 
 of him who will turn from sin and join the ranks 
 of the willing and obedient. 
 
 How much more we would prosper if we would 
 stop measuring God’s ability by our own weakness, 
 and acknowledge that in Jesus Christ all fulness 
 of grace and deliverance dwells, and that this ful¬ 
 ness is manifested for our temporal and eternal 
 felicity. 
 
 Since God is holy we must be holy. How any 
 man who reads the Bible, and claims to believe 
 what he reads, can escape this conclusion is a stand¬ 
 ing mystery. God commands nothing that is un¬ 
 essential to our salvation; and when He says, “ Be 
 ye holy, for I am holy,” He knows that holiness is 
 an absolute essential to our well-being. 
 
 Of course any of us can refuse to be made holy, 
 but when spiritual well-being is at stake holiness is 
 a necessity. When Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Ye 
 
CALLED UNTO HOLINESS 
 
 97 
 
 must be born again,” He did not mean to teach that 
 Nicodemus was forced to be converted, but that if 
 he desired to enter the kingdom of heaven, he must 
 be born again. The new birth was an essential 
 qualification to his eternal happiness. And just as 
 truly is holiness of heart and life an essential 
 qualification that we may enter heaven. 
 
 This holiness should manifest itself in each 
 word, thought and action of our lives. God begins 
 His work of purification in the heart, and when the 
 heart is made right the words, thoughts and actions 
 will be right, for do men gather thorn-apples from 
 grapevines or thistles from fig trees? Or does a 
 sweet fountain send forth bitter water ? 
 
 What a glorious privilege is here! The mighty 
 God, the infinitely happy Deity imparting, along 
 with His purity, His own joy to His needy crea¬ 
 tures! Jesus said, “ These things have I spoken 
 unto you that my joy might remain in you, and 
 that your joy might be full.” Surely this is “ ful¬ 
 ness of joy.” 
 
 Isaac Pennington says, “ There is in God a ful¬ 
 ness of blessedness and perfection, which He will 
 not always lock up in His own bosom, but will find 
 a time to let down upon His seed, and upon His 
 creatures, that they also may taste of, and fill them¬ 
 selves with the sweetness and fatness of His life 
 and Spirit.” 
 
XIV 
 
 THE COMING JUDGMENT 
 
 “ And if ye call on the Father , who without respect of per¬ 
 son judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of 
 your sojourning here in fear .”— I Peteb 1 : 17. 
 
 A NDKEW JUKES says, “ Only on dark 
 cloudy days can the bow of heaven be seen 
 spanning the lower earth. Then, mid 
 dark waters, when the sun breaks out, though the 
 cloud may be dark, a bow appears amid the dark¬ 
 ness; half a ring—half that ring with which the 
 regenerate soul is now married to the Lord. The 
 lower world yet hides the rest of the ring; but on 
 high ( a rainbow ’ shall be seen ‘ in a circle round 
 the throne.’ ” 
 
 Along with other men, our fisherman disciple had 
 his seasons of passing through dark waters, but he 
 learned that this life is only a sojourn, and that he 
 was living in the midst of strangers who were hos¬ 
 tile to his profession and who would exert every 
 power to cause him to make shipwreck of grace and 
 thus displease God, hence the need of fear. 
 
 He had seen his Master command the winds and 
 calm the raging sea; he had seen the demoniac sit 
 clothed at the feet of Christ, and the multitude go 
 
 backwards and fall to the earth before the calm gaze 
 
 98 
 
THE COMING JUDGMENT 
 
 99 
 
 of the Son of man; hut now he catches a glimpse 
 of the great white throne and Him that sits thereon, 
 before whose face the earth and the heavens flee 
 away and in view of the majesty and awfulness of 
 that hour, he counsels us to pass the time of our 
 earthly life in fear. 
 
 This life is a sojourn. A sojourner is a tempo¬ 
 rary resident, one who will stay but a short time 
 and then be gone. The Christian realizes that here 
 he has no continuing city, but he seeks one to 
 come, a city which is out of sight, whose builder 
 and maker is God. The worldly man’s hopes and 
 aims are too degrading and transitory to be worthy 
 the quest of an immortal soul. “ He builds too low 
 who builds beneath the skies.” 
 
 This life is but a rehearsal where men prepare 
 themselves for the great realities of eternity; it is 
 only a school in which they learn lessons and fit 
 themselves for the eternal sphere of action in the 
 other world. How many persons have trifled away 
 their school days and afterwards spent their lives 
 in regretting their lack of fitness to meet the great 
 problems with which they were confronted! In 
 like manner, there are many who trifle away their 
 earth-lives in dreams of sin, and they finally awake, 
 when it is too late, to the fact of a misspent life 
 and consequent lack of preparation for the great 
 problems of eternity. Eternal derelicts! Drifting 
 out into the night of regrets and the hell of lost 
 hopes, without rudder or anchor, to be dashed for- 
 
100 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 ever in their helplessness against the fiery rocks of 
 perdition! Eternally weeping ont their remorse 
 over a mined life! But their tears will never fall 
 in mercy’s sight. 
 
 Oh, my friend! for Jesus’ sake, for your own 
 soul’s sake, cease your trifling, gird up the loins of 
 your mind, call upon God, and pass the time of 
 your sojourning here in fear. 
 
 Our surroundings are not conducive to growth 
 or even continuance in grace. Isaac Watts under¬ 
 stood this point when he wrote: 
 
 “ Must I be carried to the skies 
 On flowery beds of ease, 
 
 While others fought to win the prize 
 And sailed through bloody seas? 
 
 "Are there no foes for me to face? 
 
 Must I not stem the flood? 
 
 Is this vile world a friend to grace, 
 
 To help me on to God ? ” 
 
 It seems to he the continual study of worldly 
 men to invent new methods of alluring from the 
 paths of righteousness those who otherwise would 
 he pious. Theatres, movies, amusement parks, new 
 and vulgar dances, ungodly secret societies and 
 cluhs, fashionable and immodest dressing, money¬ 
 making schemes, “ and such like,” spring up on 
 every side in an ever-increasing multitude, until 
 they have become as much a pest as the frogs of 
 Egypt, and their name is legion. 
 
 Besides these things which allure are others 
 which are opposed to the grace of God. False doc- 
 
THE COMING JUDGMENT 
 
 101 
 
 trines, higher criticism, infidelity, formality, oc¬ 
 cult science, shallow evangelism, a time-serving 
 ministry, unreasonable and wicked men who perse¬ 
 cute the way, and many other notions and isms, are 
 bitterly arrayed against the gospel and those who 
 profess a personal interest in its blessings. 
 
 There is great need of carefulness on the part of 
 the Christian that he may properly meet the beset- 
 ments of the way. When our first parents came 
 from the hands of God, in their innocence, they 
 knew nothing of sin, hut when evil came into the 
 world it became necessary that we should know 
 enough of sin to avoid it, enough of ourselves to 
 properly practise self-control, and enough of God’s 
 
 will to follow it. 
 
 » 
 
 It is a mistake to say that all we need to preach 
 is the positive side of religion. On the contrary, 
 enough must he said of negatives to warn people 
 that the end of the ways of sin is death. Many a 
 person has made shipwreck of faith because he had 
 not been taught certain things were sinful and that 
 indulgence in evil would forfeit the favour of God. 
 Either all negative or all positive produces an over¬ 
 balanced religion, while the religion of the Bible is 
 well balanced, composed of hatred for sin and love 
 for God and our neighbours. 
 
 Besides being beset by foes without, there are 
 certain appetites and desires which are perfectly 
 natural and legitimate, hut concerning which self- 
 denial must he practised or they will monopolize 
 
102 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 our attention and thus cause our overthrow. Jesus 
 said, “ If any man will come after me, let him deny 
 himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” 
 
 Then, the honest heart is careful to know the 
 will of God and when it is known, to perform it. 
 There is too much haphazard religion, too much 
 blindness and too little studying the will of God. 
 Search the Scriptures, for they testify of Jesus 
 Christ and reveal the path of duty. 
 
 The heart must he filled with a filial fear of God 
 and an earnest desire to do His will. The fear of 
 the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 
 
 All this carefulness should be exercised in view 
 of the fact that we must all stand before the awful 
 judgment seat. The passage before us states three 
 facts concerning the judgment: 
 
 We will be judged by the Father. That awful 
 being, before whose blazing throne angels and arch¬ 
 angels, principalities and powers, bow in abject 
 humility, will summon us before His tribunal, and 
 while His omniscient gaze penetrates to the deepest 
 recesses of our hearts, will pass our sentence which 
 we must acknowledge to be just. 
 
 He will judge us according to our works. Not 
 according to our nationality, our family, our colour, 
 our condition in life or our church membership, but 
 according to our works. No man can blame the 
 judge for his condemnation, but in addition to the 
 sentence of the judge the sinner’s own conscience 
 will declare its justice^ on the other hand, the re- 
 
THE COMING JUDGMENT 
 
 103 
 
 ward of the righteous will he all the greater be¬ 
 cause it is based on moral worth as manifested in 
 the whole course of their ransomed and Spirit- 
 guided lives. 
 
 The Father will pass judgment without respect 
 of persons. The money of earth’s millionaires will 
 be utterly worthless, the greatness of kings and 
 lords will be contemned, the learning of the wise 
 will be counted as foolishness, and all these will 
 stand on equal footing with the poorest, the most 
 unlearned and the meanest of earth, for God ac¬ 
 cepts no man’s person. 
 
 0 God, since these things are true, may I pass 
 the time of my earthly sojourn in fear; may I pray 
 without ceasing that when my Lord may come I 
 may meet Him with gladness and enter into His 
 
 joy. 
 
xv 
 
 KEDEMPTION 
 
 “ Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with 
 corruptible things , as silver and gold, from your vain con¬ 
 versation received by tradition from your fathers — I Peteb 
 1 : 18 . 
 
 E VERY good Jew held the traditions of the 
 fathers in great respect. Very often they 
 placed greater stress on such things than 
 they did on the written word. Jesus even accused 
 them of making void the law by their traditions. 
 
 Peter had heard Jesus rebuke the Jews for their 
 extreme notions concerning the Sabbath, had heard 
 His defense when the Pharisee had rebuked Him 
 for eating with unwashed hands, and had heard the 
 scathing rebuke so justly administered to those who 
 tithed mint, anise and cummin, but neglected the 
 weightier matters of the law; but for some reason 
 his Jewish prejudices still clung to him, until he 
 so dissembled that Paul felt called upon to ad¬ 
 minister a stinging rebuke. It is to be hoped that 
 this was the last time he was guilty of such an 
 offense, and we have strong reasons to believe that 
 it was, for in this verse he speaks of being delivered 
 from the vain conversation received by tradition. 
 
 “ Forasmuch ” Seeing or considering that they 
 
 knew how they were redeemed from their vain con- 
 
 104 
 
REDEMPTION 
 
 105 
 
 versation, another reason is added why they should 
 pass the time of their sojourning here in fear. 
 From their present experience of the truth of God 
 they are convinced of the further truth that God 
 shall judge the world in righteousness. 
 
 “ Ye know that ye were not redeemed with cor¬ 
 ruptible things.” This verse presents the negative 
 side of redemption from two angles; for in addi¬ 
 tion to stating what redemption saves us from, it 
 states some things that do not redeem the soul. 
 
 “ Our English word redemption,” says Dr. Gill, 
 “ is from the Latin, and signifies buying again; 
 and several words in the Greek language of the 
 New Testament are used in the affair of our re¬ 
 demption which signify the obtaining of something 
 by paying a proper price for it.” H. B. Smith, in 
 Thr. Theol., says, “ Redemption implies the com¬ 
 plete deliverance from the penalty, power and 
 all the consequences of sin: Atonement is used 
 in the sense of the sacrificial work, whereby the 
 redemption from the condemning power of the law 
 was insured.” Atonement is the price paid for all 
 men whether they are ever converted or not; while 
 redemption is actual deliverance from the power 
 and penalty of sin through that atonement. 
 
 Redemption implies a finished operation which 
 in grace only comes from personal contact with the 
 Redeemer. Since sin and guilt are actualities, the 
 remedy must be actual. Like disease of the body, 
 sin is a disease of the soul, and as bodily disease 
 
106 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 requires the immediate application of a specific 
 remedy, in like manner soul disease requires the 
 immediate application of God’s remedy. 
 
 As sin is the monster which has led humanity 
 captive, it is perfectly natural to conclude that, if 
 a soul is delivered from its awful thralldom, that 
 soul will know the work is done and it is also 
 natural to suppose that along with the conscious¬ 
 ness of deliverance will come the knowledge of the 
 source from which the deliverance proceeds. Would 
 the Almighty God finish as infinite a work as the 
 redemption of a soul and leave that soul in igno¬ 
 rance of the fact that the work accomplished is 
 God’s work ? I think not. 
 
 There is no power in corruptible things to re¬ 
 deem a soul. “ Wherewith shall I come before the 
 Lord, and how myself before the high God ? Shall 
 I come before Him with burnt offerings, with 
 calves of a year old? Will the Lord he pleased 
 with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of 
 rivers of oil? Shall I give my first bom for my 
 transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of 
 my soul ? ” 
 
 Earthly riches of any kind are contemptible 
 when weighed in the balance against the worth of 
 an immortal soul. Though one could possess the 
 riches of the whole world, with all the pleasure, 
 honour and pomp that such great riches could pur¬ 
 chase, and though he were so constituted that he 
 could enjoy all these things to their utmost, yet he 
 
REDEMPTION 
 
 107 
 
 must die, and, if his soul is lost, of what value are 
 all his riches? If riches are of so little value to 
 give enduring happiness, of what value would they 
 be to redeem the soul ? 
 
 Men’s souls are immortal, and since they are im¬ 
 mortal there is no material thing that possesses 
 enough value to redeem them. An immortal soul 
 must be redeemed by an immortal sacrifice. Life 
 must be given for life. 
 
 “Vain conversation.” “Vanity of vanities, 
 saith the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” 
 Yea all our works are sin and death till God 
 breathes upon us his quickening Spirit. The wise 
 man sought after mirth, and pleasure, “ this also 
 was vanity;” he gave himself to wine and folly; 
 he made great works, builded houses, and planted 
 orchards and vineyards; he got servants and maid¬ 
 ens, and had great possessions of cattle; he gath¬ 
 ered silver and gold and men and women singers 
 and musical instruments; but when he looked on all 
 his works he declared that “ all was vanity and 
 vexation of spirit.” 
 
 Yet vain men are prone to follow the vain tradi¬ 
 tions of those who have gone before. Sin does not 
 become any less sinful because its traditions are 
 inherited. I once knew a family of young men 
 who excused their neglect of God on the ground 
 that their ancestors were sinful. Their father, 
 grandfather and great-grandfather were infidels. 
 Did this excuse them ? By no means. “ What 
 
108 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 mean ye tliat ye use this proverb, * * *. The 
 fathers have eaten sour grapes and their children’s 
 teeth are set on edge? * * * Behold all souls 
 are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the 
 soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it 
 shall die.” 
 
 If a man cannot trust in his inheritance as a 
 valid excuse for his sins, neither can he trust in 
 his possessions or even in his own moral worth as 
 a purchase price for his redemption. Very often 
 God strips a man of all he has and even allows him 
 to sink deep in the scale of immorality that he may 
 learn his own weakness and insufficiency and lean 
 alone on God. 
 
 Jeremy Drexelius says: “ There is a time when 
 wounds cause health and temporary loss is gain; 
 and there are many occasions when we are over¬ 
 come for our own good. God sent Jacob away with 
 his thigh out of joint that he might learn, and we, 
 through him, not to trust in ourselves or our own 
 strength, nor yet in that of others, hut to rely on 
 the power and goodness of God alone. But because 
 the sound man trusts in his health, the strong in 
 his strength, the learned in his learning, the rich 
 in his gold, the wise in his wisdom, and because the 
 poor man hopes to be supported by the rich, and 
 the weak by the powerful, therefore God, in the 
 perfection of His wisdom, frequently removes all 
 these, that, when the props on which we used to 
 rest are gone, we may learn to rest on God alone.” 
 
XVI 
 
 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD 
 
 “But (ye are redeemed) with the precious blood of Christ , 
 as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”— I Peter 
 
 1 : 19 . 
 
 ANY traditions, precious to the heart of 
 the Jews, clustered around the temple 
 at Jerusalem. Here the sacred fires 
 
 were always burning; here, for many generations, 
 their ancestors had worshiped, and upon its al¬ 
 tars the sacrifices were continually offered. Every 
 year they congregated from far and near to com¬ 
 memorate the exode from Egypt and to eat the 
 paschal lamb. 
 
 There is no doubt that from his earliest recol¬ 
 lection Peter had journeyed with his parents and 
 acquaintances to the holy city and had listened with 
 wrapt attention to the old, but ever new, story of 
 the deliverance from Egypt, and of the paschal 
 lamb whose blood, sprinkled on the posts and lin¬ 
 tels of the doors, had protected his ancestors from 
 the destroying angel. 
 
 And now he sees another Lamb, a Lamb slain 
 from the foundation of the world; he sees this 
 Lamb in the garden of Gethsemane in such agony 
 of soul that His sweat is mingled with blood; he 
 
110 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 sees Him in the judgment hall, His hack lacerated 
 by the Roman scourge, and His brow pierced with 
 the crown of thorns; again he sees Him on the cross 
 bleeding from the cruel nail wounds in His feet 
 and hands and the spear thrust in His side, until 
 the last drop of His blood is spilled upon the earth, 
 an atonement for the sins of the whole world. 
 
 No wonder the apostle calls this blood precious. 
 No draught from any fabled fountain of youth 
 could ever bestow such buoyancy and life; no nec¬ 
 tar of the gods could impart such abundant im¬ 
 mortality; no ambrosial ointment could give such 
 fragrance and incorruption. But why should we 
 compare the “ precious blood of Christ ” with such 
 childish fancies ? Why ? Because nature, all crea¬ 
 tion and the flight of human fancy all combined can 
 never produce a figure that will not sink into utter 
 childishness by the side of so great a wonder. 
 
 “ 0 sacred Head, now wounded. 
 
 With grief and shame weighed down, 
 
 Now scornfully surrounded 
 
 With thorns, Thine only crown:, 
 
 O sacred Head, what glory, 
 
 What bliss, till now was Thine! 
 
 Yet, tho’ despised and gory, 
 
 I joy to call Thee mine.” 
 
 The Lamb of God was the embodiment of nobil¬ 
 ity, of purity, of innocence and of perfection. No 
 created being could ever approach unto His infinite 
 glory. He is the Lily of the Valley, He is the Rose 
 of Sharon. In Him can be found no blemish; as 
 a sacrifice He is perfect. In Him can be found 
 
THE PRECIOUS BLOOD 
 
 111 
 
 no spot; as a substitute He is all that infinite jus¬ 
 tice demands. 
 
 0 sin-mad world; 0 world-enamoured church; 0 
 my own slow, short-sighted heart! why art thou so 
 little taken up with the most beautiful Flower that 
 ever the Paradise of God produced? FTo wonder, 
 when his ecstatic soul caught a fresh vision of 
 Christ, that Rutherford exclaimed: “ Christ is a 
 well of life; but who knoweth how deep it is to 
 the bottom ? This soul of ours hath love, and can¬ 
 not but love some fair one: and, oh, what a fair 
 one, what an only one, what an excellent, lovely, 
 ravishing one, is Jesus! Put the beauty of ten 
 thousand worlds of paradises like the garden of 
 Eden, in one; put all trees, all flowers, all smells, 
 all colours, all tastes, all joys, all sweetness, all 
 loveliness in one: oh, what a fair and excellent 
 thing that would be? and yet it would be less to 
 that fair and dearest, well-beloved Christ, than one 
 drop of rain to the whole seas, rivers, lakes, and 
 fountains of ten thousand earths. Oh, but Christ 
 is heaven’s wonder, and earth’s wonder! ” 
 
 “ The precious blood of Christ.” The blood is 
 the life. Without shedding of blood there is no re¬ 
 mission of sins. Death annihilates the powers that 
 produce life. When God breathed into man the 
 breath of life and man became a living soul, He 
 breathed into him divine life and virtue. Divine 
 efficacy and grace are the life of the soul, without 
 these the soul dies. The blood of Jesus Christ is 
 
112 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 the manifestation, to sin-blinded, materialistic man, 
 of the fact of the presence of grace to approach the 
 sinner and of efficacy to cleanse, and when this 
 blood flows through the soul, divine life and virtue 
 again spring up, and the dead man again becomes 
 a living soul. 
 
 The blood of Jesus Christ is a necessity to the 
 liberation of captives. Civilized nations have a cus¬ 
 tom of exchanging prisoners of war on the prin¬ 
 ciple of reciprocity, giving equal for equal. Sin¬ 
 ners are blood-guilty. While they have never lit¬ 
 erally driven a nail into the hands of Jesus Christ, 
 yet they have sold out to sin and hell, and by acts 
 of rebellion have forfeited the freedom which be¬ 
 longs to the children of God, sold themselves to sin 
 for naught. From this captivity they must be 
 bought by a gift as great or greater than they. The 
 same blood which they have forfeited by their mad 
 plunge into captivity is a necessity in order that 
 the bolts of their prison house may be thrown back 
 and they may walk forth in the glorious light and 
 liberty of the children of God. Whom the Son, the 
 Blood-Giver, makes free, is free indeed. 
 
 The blood of Jesus Christ is a necessity in order 
 that men may be resurrected from the death of sin. 
 By a lack of faith in their Creator (and He was 
 the Word) men went away from God and died the 
 death of sin; by the same route, reversed, they must 
 return to God, that is by faith. If unbelief 
 brought sinful death, if the departure of an of- 
 
THE PRECIOUS BLOOD 
 
 113 
 
 fended Trinity left men dead in trespasses and in 
 sins, on the contrary, the turning again of His face, 
 the coming again of God to the believing soul, is 
 life. And the only thing that can turn the face of 
 an offended Deity toward an offending man is the 
 reconciling blood of Christ. And the same blood 
 that washes away the sin-spots and kisses away the 
 death and condemnation of the soul, makes it pos¬ 
 sible that the graves of the saints shall fly open and 
 that the redeemed shall come forth to the resurrec¬ 
 tion of life. “ For as in Adam all die, even so in 
 Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in 
 his own order: Christ the first-fruits; afterwards 
 they that are Christ’s at His coming.” 
 
 The blood of Jesus Christ is a necessity to save 
 men from the curse of the law. The law pro¬ 
 nounces the death penalty on all who sin, and, since 
 all have sinned, all are under the curse of the law. 
 A remedy must be found or there is no escape from 
 the consequences of sin. Practically all nations 
 have had a more or less distinct view of the neces¬ 
 sity of a vicarious atonement, and, as a conse¬ 
 quence, they offer their sacrifices of beasts and 
 human beings. Even Caiaphas admitted that it 
 was fitting that one man should die for the sins of 
 the people. 
 
 Marcus Curtius was a legendary Roman hero 
 who lived about the middle of the third century be¬ 
 fore Christ. The haruspices declared that an earth¬ 
 quake chasm in the Forum could be filled only by 
 
114 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 casting into it that on which the greatness of Rome 
 depended. While everyone was doubting as to the 
 meaning of the declaration, Marcus Curtius pre¬ 
 sented himself and declared that Rome contained 
 nothing more indispensable to her greatness than a 
 valiant citizen fully accoutred for battle, and of¬ 
 fered himself for a victim. Having arrayed him¬ 
 self in complete armor, he mounted his war horse, 
 and galloped into the abyss, which immediately 
 closed and assumed its wonted aspect. 
 
 Jesus Christ gave Himself a ransom for many, 
 and by being Himself made a curse He saved those 
 who were under the just curse of the law. 
 
 The blood of Jesus Christ is a necessity to save 
 us from the power and dominion of the devil. 
 There is a good deal of truth in the old saying that 
 if one can find out what the devil wants the path 
 of duty lies in the opposite direction. It makes no 
 difference to the devil how many things we do. 
 We can have the gift of prophecy and understand 
 all mysteries, we can give all our goods to feed the 
 poor and our bodies to be burned, and yet the devil 
 is pleased if we lack the one thing necessary, the 
 love of God, not divinely given love alone,—divine 
 love itself. When it concerns humanity there is no 
 greater, no richer manifestation of divine love than 
 the blood of the Only-Begotten. If we can get hold 
 of this medium of communication between a needy 
 soul and a need-supplying God we are forthwith 
 
THE PRECIOUS BLOOD 
 
 115 
 
 out of the clutches of our arch-enemy and into the 
 hands of a loving God. 
 
 The blood of Jesus Christ is a necessity in order 
 to escape the wrath of God. Not that His wrath 
 must be appeased by the death of His Well- 
 Beloved, but the death of Christ is the highest ex¬ 
 hibition of the love of God yearning for some con¬ 
 sistent plan of salvation. Some plan by which God 
 can escape the moral necessity of punishing the sin¬ 
 ner. Divine love and ingenuity found this plan in 
 the sacrifice of the One, to us, most glorious, the 
 central figure in the adorable Godhead, Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 "Oh, for such love let rocks and hills 
 Their lasting silence break, 
 
 And all-harmonious human tongues 
 The Saviour’s praises speak.” 
 
•XVII 
 
 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD 
 
 “But (ye are redeemed) with the 'precious Hood of Christ, 
 as of a lamb without blemish and without spot .”— I Peter 
 1 : 19 . 
 
 I T was Peter who called attention to the with¬ 
 ering of the % tree which Jesus had cursed. 
 The mind of the fisherman grasped the fact 
 of the curse, for he had been trained in the old law, 
 but it did not catch the other lesson which Jesus 
 desired to teach,—all things are possible to him 
 that believeth. Both lessons are helpful, the one 
 to that timid soul who trembles in sight of the 
 awful majesty of God, and the other to those bold 
 souls who presume to rush into the presence of God 
 as a horse rushes into battle, but take little heed 
 to their lives and spirit. 
 
 A fruitless life, as well as a fruitless tree, is use¬ 
 less and accursed. Justice demanded the death of 
 the barren fig tree, mercy prevailed and it was 
 spared. Justice demands the death of every im¬ 
 penitent sinner, mercy and love prevail and they 
 are spared. 
 
 Now mercy and truth meet together, and right¬ 
 eousness and peace kiss each other, but it will not 
 
 always be thus. At the judgment justice will pre- 
 
 116 
 
THE PRECIOUS BLOOD 
 
 117 
 
 vail and mercy towards the impenitent will be un¬ 
 known. The results which flow from the lives of 
 every individual will then be gathered up and re¬ 
 ward or punishment will be meted out accordingly. 
 Benjamin Pomeroy says, “ Human existence is not 
 a chain of so many links, but a network—a woven 
 web running through the ages and dispensations— 
 relation intersecting relation, relation crossing re¬ 
 lation—a perfect network; so that, although an in¬ 
 dividual is taken away by death to another sphere, 
 he is only removed as the fountain. The streams 
 are left, and left flowing. A stream sent out from 
 its fountain, either literal or moral, is only in¬ 
 debted to its fountain for its origin and outlet; the 
 flowing is its own, independent of its fountain. 
 The closing of a fountain may be but a trifle, but 
 who is equal to the streams? Who can say to the 
 distant outlettings, ‘ Return ye,’ and it is done ? 
 To prostrate the individual, and hush him still in 
 death, is quickly done, but gather him up! Oh, 
 when can he be gathered up? For he has gone out 
 in word and act,—in soul emittings—in moral 
 breath! ” 
 
 We are now living in the only world in which 
 redemption can be secured. The inexorable laws 
 of justice have been turned aside by the Almighty’s 
 gift of an Almighty Sacrifice. Infinite justice 
 could only be satisfied by an infinite sacrifice, in¬ 
 finite mercy could be secured only by the payment 
 of an infinite price, and, thank God! we have both 
 
118 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 in the Christ who trod the wine-press alone. The 
 devil went to the depth of infernal ingenuity to 
 ruin man, and Jesus Christ went to the length of 
 divine power to redeem him. 
 
 The blood of Jesus Christ makes possible a 
 change in the divine attitude towards man, and 
 while it makes possible the redemption of men it 
 also enhances the majesty of the law. To see the 
 almighty Christ suffer because of the sins of the 
 world is a visible proof that the law of God cannot 
 be violated with impunity, and should warn every 
 careless trifler that he should flee sin as he would 
 a venomous reptile. 
 
 Christianity without blood is like a cloud with¬ 
 out water, or a stove without fire. Such a religion 
 is a promise without power or fulfilment, it is the 
 letter, comely and symmetrical when viewed from 
 without, but lacking the Spirit and possessing no 
 saving efficacy. The “ new religion,” the religion 
 which has been evolved by modern thought, con¬ 
 temns the idea of blood-redemption as revolting, 
 but such an evolutionary religion as this leaves the 
 soul untouched, and does not change one unholy 
 tendency. 
 
 There are four powers possessed by healthy 
 blood, which are directly or indirectly noted in 
 nearly every physiology, and which illustrate the 
 powers of the “ most precious blood of Jesus 
 Christ.” 
 
 1. “ The blood is the life.” These are the 
 
THE PRECIOUS BLOOD 
 
 119 
 
 words of the great lawgiver of Israel, who again 
 says, “For it (The blood) is the life of all flesh; 
 the blood of it is for the life thereof: * * * for 
 the life of all flesh is the blood thereof.” No scien¬ 
 tist has ever been able to give a satisfactory defini¬ 
 tion of life, and until they are able to do so they 
 must pardon credulous persons if they are foolish 
 enough to think that Moses got an intimation from 
 God, and gave a real definition, God’s own defini¬ 
 tion. After all, does not every person know that 
 in proportion as our blood escapes in that same pro¬ 
 portion our strength decays and death advances? 
 
 In like manner the blood of Jesus Christ is the 
 life of the soul, and in proportion as we partake 
 of this blood, in the same proportion we become 
 strong and are filled with the Spirit of grace, for 
 His blood is drink indeed. 
 
 2. Blood is purifying. One great office of the 
 blood is to carry away the effete or wornout mattes 
 and replace it with new and vigourous material. 
 When the blood ceases to do this the body decays 
 and death swiftly follows. The multitude of re¬ 
 deemed ones who came out of the great tribulations 
 were those who had washed their robes and made 
 them white in the blood of the Lamb. Those who 
 walk in the light realize that the “ blood of Jesus 
 Christ, His Son, cleanses from all sin,” and they 
 sing praises “ unto Him that loved us and washed 
 us from our sins in His own blood.” 
 
 3. Blood is upbuilding. Let the body be 
 
120 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 wasted and emaciated by fever or any sickness, but 
 if the blood is good the damage is quickly repaired, 
 and in many cases the last estate is better than 
 the first. Thus, when the blood of Jesus courses 
 through the poor, emaciated human soul, the bones 
 which are broken begin to rejoice, the desert blos¬ 
 soms as the rose, it rejoices even with joy and sing¬ 
 ing, yea, the righteous flourish as a palm tree, they 
 grow as a cedar in Lebanon, they are fat and flour¬ 
 ishing, they still bring forth fruit in old age. This 
 may be a mixed metaphor, but what simple meta¬ 
 phor can anywhere near express the glorious truth ? 
 We must turn again to the men of inspiration. 
 The apostle prays that God may “ through the 
 blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect 
 in every good work to do His will.” Christ gave 
 Himself for the church “ that He might sanctify 
 and cleanse it—(making) it a glorious church— 
 holy and without blemish.” 
 
 4. Blood is strength-giving. Cases are on rec¬ 
 ord of persons, who, through loss of blood, were 
 about to die, when not only life but health and 
 strength were given by the infusion of healthy 
 blood. My strength was almost gone, death had 
 boasted of the near-approaching victory over my 
 soul; despondent and sad, yet hoping against hope 
 I peered through the gathering gloom, when, lo, 
 before my astonished sight a crimson stream ap¬ 
 peared. My poor heart bounded with gladness, its 
 door, so long bolted and ivy-covered, flew open, and 
 
THE PRECIOUS BLOOD 
 
 121 
 
 over my enraptured, astonished soul flowed the 
 warm, strength-giving current; I arose, my ankle 
 bones received new strength, my sadness fled and 
 the power of the Lord pulsated within. 
 
 “I awoke, my dungeon flamed with light; 
 
 My chains fell off, my heart was free, 
 
 I arose, went forth, and followed Thee.” 
 
 And now I am enabled to overcome hy the blood of 
 the Lamb and the word of my testimony. Glory 
 be to God! 
 
 There are three things which the Bible declares 
 are accomplished by the blood which we wish to 
 notice. These things in some ways are much alike, 
 but since they technically differ we will separate 
 them, but if you wish to confuse the three, be sure 
 your experience encompasses the three, and the 
 error of the intellect will be forgiven. 
 
 1. “ It is the blood that maketh an atonement 
 for the soul.” We were far from God, dead in 
 sins, and aliens to the covenant of grace; God could 
 not approach us, for His coming would mean death. 
 What could be done ? Jesus Christ stepped be¬ 
 tween, He became our Mediator, our Daysman, our 
 At-onement, for that is what the word means. He 
 made it possible that God could approach man and 
 yet that man should live, and He made it possible 
 for man to approach God and be accepted. 
 
 2. “ Without the shedding of blood is no re¬ 
 mission.” Some imagine that they can bury their 
 past sins in their religious activities and charitable 
 
122 THE FISHEEMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 works; but sucb an endeavour is like bandaging a 
 cancer and believing it is healed. The core of the 
 ugly thing is still eating into the vitals. The only 
 hope is in complete removal. The only hope for 
 forgiveness for past sins lies, not in righteous 
 works, but in the efficacious blood. 
 
 3. “ Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy 
 
 blood.” Man was so irretrievably lost that eternity 
 had but one redemption price; how freely that was 
 given we can never know, or how great was the 
 Gift we can never tell. 
 
 “None of the ransomed ever knew 
 How deep were the waters crossed; 
 
 Or how dark was the night that the Lord passed through 
 Ere He found His sheep that was lost.” 
 
 Those who despised Moses’ law died without 
 mercy, but those who tread under foot the Son of 
 God, and count the blood of the covenant where¬ 
 with they were sanctified as an unholy thing, are 
 worthy of much sorer punishment. Oh, my friend, 
 let us flee to the blood and hide, and there we will 
 be safe; but if the blood shall testify against us 
 not even eternity can remove the remorse. 
 
XVIII 
 
 THE SPOTLESS LAMB 
 
 “A lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily 
 was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was 
 manifest in these last times for you, who by him do believe 
 in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him 
 glory; that your faith and hope might be in God .”— I Peter 
 1 : 19 * 21 . 
 
 O NE day Jesus asked the disciples the opin¬ 
 ions of the people as to whom He was. 
 After hearing the various answers, He 
 asked, “ But whom say ye that I am ? ” Peter, al¬ 
 ways ready with an answer, quickly replied, “ Thou 
 are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” To 
 which Jesus replied, “ Blessed art thou, Simon 
 Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it 
 unto thee, hut my Father which is in heaven.” 
 
 A faith that could look beyond the flesh and be¬ 
 hold divinity was worthy of praise; a faith that 
 can pierce the dark veil that hides the supernatural 
 from our eyes, and detect the presence and work¬ 
 ings of the Spirit of Christ, is worthy of double 
 honour. 
 
 There is no selfishness in the knowledge of 
 
 Christ. When Peter learned the real character of 
 
 the Christ he desired to impart his knowledge to 
 
 others. And in the verses before us he attempts 
 
 123 
 
124 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 a description that will enable ns to locate the Lamb 
 of God. Beginning with the ceremonial represen¬ 
 tation,—the sacrificial lamb,—he proceeds in an 
 ever-ascending scale nntil he reaches the reason for 
 the manifestation of Christ,—that onr hope and 
 faith might he in God. 
 
 Oh, that my soul may have eyes to see the Lamb 
 of God that taketh away the sins of the world! 
 And that, seeing him, I may be enabled to drink 
 in of His nature as I would the cooling waters of 
 a bubbling spring in a parched and desert waste! 
 
 Reader, do you desire to see Him? Then allow 
 me, with John the Baptist, to say, “ Behold the 
 Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the 
 world.” 
 
 1. Christ is here described as a spotless, sacri¬ 
 ficial Lamb. “ A lamb without blemish and with¬ 
 out spot.” No other kind of a lamb was cere¬ 
 monially acceptable, and God could do no less than 
 present a spotless sacrifice. Even Pilate must con¬ 
 fess, “ I find no fault in Him.” Neither the rab¬ 
 ble, the false witnesses, the Pharisees nor the 
 priests could find anything worthy of censure. 
 They did not crucify Him because of His sins, but 
 because of His good works and the fact that He 
 told them the truth. 
 
 2. This sacrificial Lamb was foreordained of 
 God. “ Who verily was foreordained before the 
 foundation of the world.” The omniscient God 
 foresaw the awful degradation of the human race, 
 
THE SPOTLESS LAMB 
 
 125 
 
 and His great heart determined on a remedy. 
 Some say that God could have arbitrarily saved 
 sinners, or that He could have saved them by some 
 other means than the death of His Son; hut let 
 them search the entire volume of Holy Writ and 
 they will not find one thing to hear them out in 
 their statement. On the contrary, from beginning 
 to end, in teachings, in prophecies, in types and in 
 ceremonies, but one thing appears as a remedy for 
 sin—a bloody sacrifice. 
 
 The great heart of the Almighty saw the only 
 remedy, and even before the transgression deter¬ 
 mined the course He would pursue,—He would 
 give His Son, His well-beloved, His only-begotten 
 Son, He would offer Him as a sacrifice, and this 
 sacrifice should he holy and acceptable. Jesus 
 Christ was “ slain from the foundation of the 
 world/’ and Abel could take his lamb and approach 
 God with as great confidence as though he had lived 
 in the days of Peter and Paul. 
 
 True, there was more or less of the shadow or 
 type in ancient worship, but when God accepted a 
 soul it was just as acceptable as at any time since. 
 We cannot tell the religious exercises of the an¬ 
 cients, hut we do know that if they gained the ap¬ 
 proval of God, they had His approval the same as 
 we, for God has always abundantly pardoned. 
 
 The provision for this acceptance was conceived 
 in the heart of God even before the foundation of 
 the world, and was operative as soon as a soul was 
 
126 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 found that needed help, and we hear God saying to 
 the guilty pair, “ The seed of the woman shall 
 bruise the serpent’s head.” 
 
 Oh, wondrous grace! My mighty sins did not 
 separate me from hope, but on the contrary these 
 very sins brought forth from the heart of God that 
 spirit of compassion, foreordained, indeed, before 
 the foundation of the world, but only needed be¬ 
 cause I have sinned. He knew I would sin, He de¬ 
 termined that I might escape my sins. He knew 
 that hell was my just portion, but His mercy con¬ 
 quered justice and I am saved. Thank God for 
 His matchless grace! 
 
 3. The sacrificial Lamb was manifested in the 
 gospel age. “ But was manifested in these last 
 times for you/' The prophets prophesied until 
 John, but John cried, “ Behold the Lamb of God 
 that taketh away the sins of the world.” John the 
 apostle could say, “ The word was made flesh and 
 dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.” 
 
 Jesus said, “ He that hath seen me hath seen the 
 Father also.” In Him all fulness dwelt, and in 
 Him was manifested the glory of the Father. This 
 glory, in the fulness of its revelation, was kept back 
 from the ancients, but burst forth in all its splen¬ 
 dour on the astonished vision of the waiting 
 disciples. 
 
 No wonder the happy company in the upper room 
 acted like drunken men. To them had been re¬ 
 vealed that remarkable grace which had been hid- 
 
THE SPOTLESS LAMB 
 
 127 
 
 den in the heart of God since before the foundation 
 of the world. Such an event and such a revelation 
 could not be commonplace, and its results could not 
 be so trivial as to lightly effect the recipients. As 
 wave after wave of celestial glory streamed through 
 their astonished souls their shouts of joy aroused 
 the populace, who rushed together and said, “ These 
 men are full of new wine.” 
 
 This revelation is not for Peter and his asso¬ 
 ciates alone, but in this place the fisherman disciple, 
 writing to the members of the general church, de¬ 
 clares that it is for them,—and that includes me. 
 
 4. Jesus Christ, the sacrificial lamb, is the 
 means by which we believe in God. “ Who by Him 
 do believe in God ” We sing, 
 
 “The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin; 
 
 The light of the world is Jesus: 
 
 Like sunshine at noonday His glory shone in, 
 
 The light of the world is Jesus.” 
 
 Without Jesus Christ our hearts and minds are too 
 dark to even catch the idea of the infinite God. 
 Men are groping in the awful darkness of sin and 
 superstition, vainly attempting to fathom the great 
 hereafter, but without Christ their minds become 
 more and more dense, and their hope all the more 
 hopeless. 
 
 With boundless, fathomless pity the Prince of 
 Peace, seeing our helpless condition, flew to our re¬ 
 lief, brushed away the veil that hung between, and 
 gave us a vision of the Infinite; cleared away the 
 
128 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 fogs from our darkened minds and gave us an un¬ 
 derstanding; and removed the pall of darkness that 
 enshrouded our hearts, and gave us the ability to 
 believe God to the saving of our souls. 
 
 5. The sacrificial lamb was raised from the 
 dead. “ That raised Him up from the dead 
 Paul says, “ If Christ be not raised, your faith is 
 vain.” If Christ was still among the dead what 
 assurance would we have that He could help us? 
 We might still be hurling at Him the old Jewish 
 taunt, “ He saved others, Himself He cannot save,” 
 and seeing Him impotent, we would refuse to ac¬ 
 cept Him. But He became the first-fruits of those 
 who slept, He conquered death, He led captivity 
 captive, and since He has done all this we can be¬ 
 lieve that He is able to help us and that He will 
 give us a glorious resurrection and a blessed im¬ 
 mortality. 
 
 Then, His resurrection was a necessity to the 
 completion of the plan of redemption. Death as 
 well as the devil must be conquered. The fact is 
 that to be a redeemer He must meet every force 
 that would militate against the salvation of those 
 He came to redeem, and, meeting them, He must 
 conquer, or His redemption would be vain. The 
 last enemy is death, and death must be vanquished. 
 How well He succeeded we can never know, but 
 He met death on its own territory and conquered. 
 He robbed death of its fangs, and the saint ex- 
 
THE SPOTLESS LAMB 
 
 129 
 
 claims, “ 0 Death, where is thy sting ? 0 Grave, 
 where is thy victory ? ” 
 
 6. The sacrificial lamb, being resurrected from 
 the dead, was given glory. In this world He was 
 a man of sorrows; in this world He became obedi¬ 
 ent; in the future world, as well as at the right 
 hand of God at present, He will be and is glorified. 
 Angels may well look on and wonder, archangels 
 may well hide their faces from the effulgent light 
 of His infinite glory, and the spirits of just men 
 made perfect may well shout in adoration of Him 
 who has washed them in His own blood. 
 
 There is no doubt that the heavenly hosts find 
 abundant reasons for mighty rejoicings and tumul¬ 
 tuous praises as the Almighty unfolds before their 
 astonished gaze the councils of His will and the 
 glories of His person; but it seems to me that there 
 can be no greater cause for amazement than the 
 sight of the great Being who could tread the wine¬ 
 press alone, and who could, by His own power and 
 by the strength of His own right arm, regenerate 
 and sanctify a poor, lost, degraded, fallen human 
 spirit, and so renew it that it should shine in holi¬ 
 ness and righteousness as the stars forever and 
 ever. 
 
 O Christ, with angels and archangels, and with 
 all the company of heaven, may I laud and magnify 
 Thy holy name! 
 
 7. All this work and sacrifice of the Lamb was 
 undergone that our faith and hope might be in God. 
 
130 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 It is well that our faith and hope are not in the 
 things of the world, for the world passes away and 
 the lusts thereof; hut instead we are so securely an¬ 
 chored in God that 
 
 “ When the storms of life are raging, 
 
 And the billows tossing high,” 
 
 we have a rock in which we can hide and be 
 secure. 
 
 And why should we murmur at the trials and 
 afflictions of the way? How do we know but that 
 the loving Father has appointed these things be¬ 
 cause He knows that they are a necessity to our 
 eternal salvation, even as winds and waves are a 
 necessity to waft the ocean bark to its desired 
 haven. Some one has said, “ What if we should be 
 visited with sickness, threatened with false accusa¬ 
 tions, perhaps with accidents ? Our trust is in God, 
 our dependence upon Him: and who knows but the 
 divine wisdom has made choice of these afflictions 
 as the means to bring us to eternal glory ? ” 
 
XIX 
 
 OBEDIENCE AND ITS RESULTS 
 
 “ Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth 
 through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see 
 that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently .’’— 
 I Peter 1:22. 
 
 W HEN the day of Pentecost had fully 
 come the Spirit descended on the 
 upper-room company like a rushing, 
 mighty wind, and filled all the place where they 
 were sitting. Every heart was a flame of love. 
 Those mighty joys were too great for such straight¬ 
 ened quarters, and, rushing into the streets, they 
 began to tell what great things God had done for 
 them. 
 
 When the multitude had gathered together, 
 Peter, the Galilean fisherman, transformed and 
 Spirit-filled, preached one of the greatest sermons 
 that human lips have ever uttered. As a result of 
 this glorious manifestation of power three thousand 
 souls were added to the church. 
 
 If we should ask a reason for all this commotion 
 and these signal triumphs, Peter, with his charac¬ 
 teristic simplicity, says that it was because God had 
 
 purified their hearts by faith. An excellent reason, 
 
 131 
 
132 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 for purity always produces a stir, causing heaven 
 to rejoice and the pillars of hell to tremble. 
 
 0 God, Thou hast caused us to understand that 
 the power of the Spirit is not to be found in mere 
 scholastic attainments, nor in excellency of speech; 
 on the contrary, Thou canst take the worm that lies 
 submissive in Thy hands and make it a sharp 
 threshing instrument having teeth, and with it 
 Thou canst beat the mountains and make them as 
 the chaff of the summer threshing floor. Yea, 
 Thou canst use base things to confound the mighty, 
 and things which are not Thou canst use to bring 
 to naught the things which are. Since these things 
 are true, wilt Thou, oh, my God, in Thine amazing 
 kindness, deluge our unworthy, but waiting, recep¬ 
 tive souls with Thy glorious, sin-consuming, won¬ 
 der-working presence! 
 
 But this power comes only in the line of obedi¬ 
 ence and faith. Faith accepts the glorious truth 
 that God has wrought for and will work in us to 
 will and to do of His own good pleasure, while 
 obedience bridges the chasm on man’s side and 
 walks in the light of God’s requirements; the two 
 are a link, coupling a man and his God, and bring¬ 
 ing the man into such contact with the heavenly 
 powers that excellent results are produced, both in 
 his own life and in the lives of others. 
 
 The central thought of the verse before us is 
 obedience and its results. 
 
 The object of obedience is the truth. The mere 
 
OBEDIENCE AND ITS RESULTS 133 
 
 following of ceremonials and ordinances, be they 
 commanded in the most absolute terms, and though 
 the obedience is never so perfect, is not the object 
 of obedience, that object is the truth—to obey the 
 truth is to save the soul. Jesus declares, “ I am 
 the way, the truth and the life.” Hence in obeying 
 the truth we obey Jesus Christ. 
 
 The agent of obedience, or that which makes 
 obedience possible and acceptable to God is the 
 Holy Spirit. We can fulfil all the forms of the 
 commandments of God with the strictness of a Paul 
 who could testify that touching the law he was 
 blameless, and yet be so void of genuine obedience 
 that in the sight of God all our works are but filthy 
 rags. But when the Holy Spirit indicts our works 
 the very least becomes acceptable and worthy of 
 reward. 
 
 The end or aim of obedience we are taught is 
 twofold. First, the purification of the soul; and, 
 second, the love of the brethren. 
 
 The question might be asked, How does obedi¬ 
 ence purify the soul ? In reply we will say: When 
 a person begins to obey God disobedience becomes a 
 thing of the past, and with the passing of disobedi¬ 
 ence sin is removed, for there can be no sin with¬ 
 out the element of disobedience. 
 
 Again, when the desire for obedience is brought 
 forth in the soul, of necessity there arises a desire 
 that the soul may be delivered from those principles 
 or things which hinder or retard obedience. In 
 
134 THE FISHEEMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 such a place the soul will discover that the flesh and 
 the Spirit are at war with each other, and be forced 
 to acknowledge that because of this warfare it can 
 not do the things that it would. Eealizing this con¬ 
 dition of affairs, the spirit of obedience cries out 
 for deliverance from opposing principles, and will 
 not be content till its desire is realized. 
 
 The spirit of obedience denies fleshly lusts that 
 war against the soul, and will eventually bring into 
 captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. 
 
 But obedience will simply be monkish mummery 
 if it is not brought forth and carried on by the 
 Spirit of God. All our works must be wrought in 
 us by the indwelling Comforter, that glorious 
 Helper of our infirmities. 
 
 That man and his God must work together is 
 acknowledged by all. The old proverbs run, “ God 
 helps those who help themselves,” and “ Man’s ex¬ 
 tremity is God’s opportunity.” It would surely be 
 absurd for me to sit idly and expect the Lord to do 
 my work, but it is fair to conclude that after I do 
 my best, and am still unable, God will graciously 
 fill out my deficiencies and finish the task. 
 
 If God sends me, as He did Jonah, to a Nineveh 
 appointment, and I faithfully preach the preaching 
 that God bids me, I have a right to look for the co¬ 
 operation of the Spirit, with results following, com¬ 
 mensurate with my labours and God’s promises. 
 Any results which seem to be short of this show 
 either my lack of labour and faith, or a misconcep- 
 
OBEDIENCE AND ITS RESULTS 135 
 
 tion of the promises of God, for God always does 
 His part. 
 
 The second aim of obedience is the love of the 
 brethren. “ But he that saith he is in the light, and 
 hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 
 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and 
 there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But 
 he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walk- 
 eth in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, 
 because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. * * * 
 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, 
 he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom 
 he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath 
 not seen ? ” 
 
 “ See that ye love one another with a pure heart 
 fervently.” In these words the apostle exhorts his 
 hearers. One characteristic of a Christian is the 
 love of the brethren. We naturally gravitate to¬ 
 wards that company with which we are in agree¬ 
 ment. The old Jews were at agreement with hell, 
 such characters will receive their reward; but the 
 saint of God finds all his ransomed being at agree¬ 
 ment with God and righteousness, and towards God 
 and His saints he will gravitate as inevitably as 
 sparks fly upward. 
 
 Somewhere in God’s beautiful home kindred 
 spirits will eventually meet, drawn towards that 
 great central attraction as surely as steel filings are 
 drawn to the magnet; there the harmony will be 
 complete, there we shall see face to face, and, as 
 
136 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 never has been possible before, fervent love will 
 unite every heart. 
 
 “Oh, for that holy dawning, 
 
 We’ll watch and wait and pray, 
 
 Till o’er the height the morning light 
 Will drive the gloom away; 
 
 And when that heavenly dawning 
 Shall flood the earth and sky, 
 
 We’ll bless the Lord for all He gives, 
 
 And praise Him by and by.” 
 
XX 
 
 THE NEW BIRTH 
 
 “ Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incor¬ 
 ruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for¬ 
 ever .”— I Peteb 1:23. 
 
 T HE old Jews were proud of the fact that 
 they were Abraham’s seed, and, as a con¬ 
 sequence, heirs of the promise. They had 
 become so used to looking upon themselves as su¬ 
 perior beings that when even the Son of God at¬ 
 tempted to rebuke them for their sins He was made 
 to pay the penalty for His transgression by the 
 ignoble death of the cross. 
 
 There is no doubt that our fisherman disciple, 
 along with others, had imbibed such self-righteous, 
 “ I-am-holier-than-thou ” sentiments, and it meant 
 much for him to learn that he must place the con¬ 
 ditions of sonship on a different footing than that 
 on which he had been taught to believe it rested. 
 
 Much more grace did it take when it meant to 
 abandon Abraham as the head of the spiritual fam¬ 
 ily, Abraham the friend of God, Abraham the 
 father of the faithful, and to substitute in his place 
 the despised, rejected, crucified Son of David, the 
 lowly Nazarene. 
 
 But, thank God, Peter and the other disciples 
 
 137 
 
138 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 were ready to make the exchange; they chose 
 Christ, and by so doing, they exalted Abraham. If 
 the Jews had been Abraham’s spiritual children in¬ 
 deed, they would have received Christ, for the faith 
 of Abraham was founded in his most illustrious 
 Son, whose day he saw by faith, and rejoiced. 
 
 While the Jews were Abraham’s children by 
 natural ties, yet, to be his spiritual children, and 
 this means much more than to be his natural chil¬ 
 dren, even they, through whose veins that patri¬ 
 arch’s blood coursed, must drink in of the same 
 Spirit which he imbibed, they must partake of the 
 same nature of which he partook. 
 
 But, because some of them refused to thus par¬ 
 take, Jesus rightfully accused them of being chil¬ 
 dren of the devil; that is, they drank in of the 
 spirit of the devil which was opposition to and 
 hatred for the Son of man. 
 
 To be bom again is to partake of another Spirit. 
 A man may, in a certain sense, be said to be born 
 again when his eyes are open and he sees the beauty 
 and begins to love art, nature, mathematics, his fel¬ 
 low man, or when any of the finer sensibilities of 
 his nature are aroused to discern the higher aims 
 and pursuits of life. 
 
 But this birth is very limited, indeed, when com¬ 
 pared with the “ new birth ” of which our text 
 treats. Those changes are all consistent with and 
 included within the possibilities of the natural 
 man, while the “ new birth ” is within but extends 
 
THE NEW BIRTH 
 
 139 
 
 beyond the natural man and encompasses eternity. 
 It drinks of the spiritual fountain, and that foun¬ 
 tain is Christ. 
 
 The re-birth of the natural man is a discovery of 
 the less degrading elements of a fallen soul (if less 
 degrading they may be called when they do not lead 
 Godward), while the “ new birth ” of the soul is a 
 discovery and a reception of God, of the God-life. 
 
 The re-birth of the natural man is all included 
 within the capabilities of a fallen, corruptible soul, 
 and leaves the corruption just as vile as ever; but 
 the “ new birth ” of the soul, while touching the 
 capabilities of the natural (not sinful) man, comes 
 primarily from without; it is the infusion of an 
 incorruptible seed, and that seed is Christ. 
 
 The re-birth of the natural man is a remolding 
 or refashioning of the fallen soul, while the “ new 
 birth ” purifies and elevates the soul, and makes it 
 godlike. 
 
 But the passage before us is more especially a 
 contrast between the natural or physical birth and 
 the re-birth of the spirit. Or it may be a contrast 
 between the Jewish notions of sonship and God’s 
 ideas of sonship. 
 
 The prevailing Jewish idea of sonship was alto¬ 
 gether natural, or of the corruptible, fleshly na¬ 
 ture ; or at best the reception of the spiritual privi¬ 
 leges, by inheritance, which they supposed were 
 theirs by right since they were the children of 
 Abraham. 
 
140 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 But in partaking of the flesh of our parents,—the 
 descendants of Adam,—we, through them, partake 
 of the sinful, corruptible nature of Adam; this is 
 true of the Jew as well as of the Gentile. Then 
 the only boast the Jew could truthfully make was 
 in his greater opportunities, for he possessed the 
 true oracles of God. 
 
 But in Jesus Christ corruptible seed is exchanged 
 for incorruptible. The Christian no longer traces 
 his ancestry through many generations back to 
 Abraham or to Adam; but through Jesus Christ he 
 is a son of God, not indirectly, but directly,—a 
 real son. 
 
 The first birth is by the will of man and of man, 
 but the second birth is by the will of God. The 
 first birth is so completely of corrupt man that the 
 child is nothing but a corrupt man, totally de¬ 
 praved, as the theologians say, possessing in a 
 greater or lesser degree all the infirmities, in kind, 
 of his parents ; but the “ new birth ” is so com¬ 
 pletely of God that the child is a son of God with 
 the glorious, holy nature of his heavenly parent. 
 He possesses, in a lesser degree, all the spiritual 
 perfections of his heavenly Father. 
 
 The second birth is by the Word of God, which 
 liveth and abideth forever. While those who are 
 born of corruptible seed must die, those who are 
 born of the Word of God shall abide forever. 
 
 Sorrows untold are an accompaniment, or a 
 
THE NEW BIRTH 
 
 141 
 
 necessary result which follows the corruptible birth, 
 but the “ new birth ” is a birth of joy; ever-increas¬ 
 ing, all-consuming joy is the heritage of a child of 
 God. 
 
 Lord, I believe that if my soul fully follows 
 Thee, Thou wilt take away my earth-born sorrows 
 and fill me with heaven-sent joy. Such joys are 
 not found in the passing amusements of the world¬ 
 ling, but are as solid and lasting as the everlasting 
 hills, such joys are only given to the bloodwashed. 
 Oh, the bliss of the glorious knowledge! This 
 joy has already begun in my soul, and shall last 
 while eternity endures. 
 
 Macarius, the Egyptian (350 a. d.), describes 
 the joys of the ransomed in the following words: 
 
 “ At one time they find themselves at a royal 
 banquet, filled with joy, and rejoice with gladness 
 not to be expressed; at another time they are as a 
 bride, enjoying divine repose in the sweet com¬ 
 munion and fellowship of the bridegroom. At other 
 times they are seemingly like angels without bodies, 
 so exceeding light and easy they feel themselves 
 with the body. At other times they are like men 
 overcome with wine; joying and rejoicing in Spirit, 
 and inebriated with divine and spiritual mysteries. 
 * * * At other times they are so enflamed with 
 love by the Spirit that, were it possible, they would 
 take up and enwrap all mankind in their own 
 bowels, making no distinction between bad and 
 good. * * * At other times they are like a 
 
142 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 strong man taking on him the royal armour, engag¬ 
 ing his enemies in battle, and overcoming them; 
 thus the spiritual man takes the heavenly armour 
 of the Spirit and wages war with his enemies and 
 lays them flat at his feet. * * * 
 
 “For when the soul is once arrived to the per¬ 
 fection of the Spirit, and is thoroughly cleansed 
 from all corrupt affections, and united and asso¬ 
 ciated with the Spirit the Comforter, in a fellow¬ 
 ship not to he expressed, and so mixed as to become 
 one spirit with it, then it is all light, all eye, all 
 spirit, all joy, all rest, all gladness, all love, all 
 compassion, all goodness and clemency; for as a 
 stone in the midst of the sea is sourrounded with 
 water, so they who are thoroughly drenched with 
 the Holy Spirit are made like unto Christ. * * * 
 For being thoroughly purified by the Spirit, how 
 can they outwardly produce evil fruits: but every¬ 
 where and at all times the fruits of the Spirit must 
 appear and shine forth in them.” 
 
XXI 
 
 THE NEW BIRTH 
 
 “ Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incor¬ 
 ruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for¬ 
 ever .”—I Peter 1:23. 
 
 T HIS matter of the new birth is important, 
 and its interest never fades. The grass 
 withers, flowers fade, gold will tarnish, 
 and the glory of man will pass away as the morning 
 cloud, but he who is bom of God shall abide for¬ 
 ever; his holy joys are as the perennial flower, as 
 the flowing spring, as the glorious sun which goeth 
 forth from its chamber and rejoices as a strong 
 man to run a race. 
 
 His joys are as the gentle breezes which so grate¬ 
 fully fan the brow of the way-weary traveler, or 
 as the mighty cyclone which sweeps all before it; 
 they murmur as the babbling brooklet on its path 
 through the meadowlands, or rush as the mountain 
 torrent in its precipitous flight; they lie placid as 
 the crystal, lily-fringed lake nestled among the 
 hills, or surge as the mighty ocean against the rock- 
 bound shore. 
 
 0 God, may these joys of the ransomed be my 
 stay through all my wilderness journey, and may 
 I bask forever in the home of ceaseless and im¬ 
 mortal bliss! 
 
 There are a few characteristics of the new birth 
 
 143 
 
144 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 which distinguish it from every other possible 
 transaction which may enter our lives. 
 
 The new birth is extra-physical, it is beyond or 
 above physical laws or methods. We have grown so 
 accustomed to the laws of our physical beings that 
 we seldom exclaim with the Psalmist, “ I am fear¬ 
 fully and wonderfully made.” But the very nature 
 of the new birth makes it so mysterious and inex- 
 plainable that skeptics feel free to declare its im¬ 
 possibility. 
 
 But those who have experienced it know its na¬ 
 ture although they cannot fully describe it, for 
 human language is not sufficient. 
 
 Physical laws govern our physical natures, but 
 this new nature, or renewed nature, is governed by 
 laws peculiar to its own realm. Some of these laws 
 are analogous with the laws of nature, but others 
 are so exactly contrary as to bear no resemblance. 
 
 Let us take Paul’s list of paradoxes to illustrate 
 this point. But how can these contradictory state¬ 
 ments be reconciled? You can search your com¬ 
 mentaries in vain for any clue to their inside mean¬ 
 ing, but I suppose every Bible student knows how 
 commentators will fail just where it seems they 
 are needed most. Perhaps it is because human 
 language fails to express the depths of divine 
 things; with some it is doubtless true that the letter 
 is more esteemed than the spirit. Oh, for that God- 
 given power that will enable us to drink in of the 
 deep things of God! 
 
THE NEW BIRTH 
 
 145 
 
 “ As deceivers, and yet true.” Unregenerate 
 men are governed by laws which, to them, are easy 
 of comprehension. Under certain circumstances 
 they will do and feel certain things, and under sim¬ 
 ilar circumstances they expect others to do and feel 
 the same. But true Christians are governed by 
 other principles, and when sinners looking on ex¬ 
 pect their inflexible laws to operate, and they do 
 not, they are surprised, and, because they cannot 
 conceive of any other motives than their own, they 
 consider that the Christian is a deceiver. Hence, 
 although the saint of God is true to the very mar¬ 
 row, yet he unwittingly becomes a deceiver, and 
 men cannot understand him because he is governed 
 by extra-physical, extra-natural laws. 
 
 “ As unknown, and yet well known.” Paul 
 comes to our rescue. “ He that is spiritual judg- 
 eth (margin, discerneth) all things, yet he himself 
 is judged (margin, discerned) of no man.” How 
 can sin-blinded men “ know ” a man who is gov¬ 
 erned by spiritual laws, for the things of the Spirit 
 of God are spiritually discerned ? And yet the man 
 of the world does know the Christian, for his mo¬ 
 tives and actions are simple and artless—easy of 
 comprehension; it is the Spirit which causes such 
 simplicity that is the unknown quantity. 
 
 “ As dying, and behold we live.” This has a 
 partial parallel in the corn which dies to reproduce 
 itself, but the parallel fails to encompass the whole 
 matter. This man dies and lives at the same time, 
 
146 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 lie does not die to produce another life, but dies and 
 at the same time reproduces his own life. Paul to 
 the rescue again: “ For ye are dead, and your life 
 is hid with Christ in God.” “ Reckon yourselves 
 to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God.” 
 “ I die daily.” In our cleansing we die to sin, but 
 the earth-clinging (not sin-clinging) still lingers 
 with us; even this attachment to earth, to time, must 
 continually die, even though that death is produced 
 by persecutions, by bereavements, by losses, and in 
 proportion as the earth-life dies the super-life, the 
 heavenly life expands and grows, growing up into 
 Christ in all things. Dead and alive, dying and 
 living at the same time—-this is God’s, not man’s, 
 law. 
 
 “ As chastened, and not killed.” “ Whom the 
 Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son 
 whom He receiveth.” God chastened, but did not 
 destroy, the Jewish nation; He chastens us that we 
 may be partakers of His holiness. 
 
 “ As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” “ Blessed 
 are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” 
 One of the necessary characteristics of the new 
 birth is a chastened, sorrowful heart. The child of 
 God remembers the hole of the pit from whence he 
 was digged, but a broken and contrite heart God 
 will not despise. But, thank God, this sorrow is 
 not like the worldling’s sorrow, without hope; this 
 sorrow opens the fountains of eternal joy, and in 
 
THE NEW BIRTH 
 
 147 
 
 the midst of manifold temptations we rejoice with 
 joy unspeakable and full of glory. 
 
 “ As poor, yet making many rich.” Poor in 
 spirit, poor in this world’s goods, yet imparting 
 heavenly riches to as many as will listen to our 
 story. Blessed poverty! Not monkish asceticism, 
 but godly self-denial, holy self-abasement, perfect 
 reliance upon God; such abandonment of earthly, 
 sinful good (pardon the contradiction) will cause 
 any man to be a blessing, to make many rich. 
 
 “ As having nothing, and yet possessing all 
 things.” God chooses the things which are not to 
 bring to naught the things which are. The way 
 into the riches of the Lord is down. Down, down, 
 until the worldly, the carnal self-life is gone; until 
 you can say, 
 
 “ I nothing have, I nothing am, 
 
 My treasure’s in the Bleeding Lamb 
 Both now and evermore.” 
 
 Here at the feet of Jesus, with nothing to claim, 
 with no strength to help yourself, with no goodness 
 to plead, with a vision of your absolute nothingness 
 without the Blood, here you possess all things, for 
 you have Christ. 
 
XXII 
 
 THE NEW BIKTH 
 
 “ Being torn again, not of corruptible seed , but of incor¬ 
 ruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for¬ 
 ever .”— I Peter 1:23. 
 
 T HE new birth is the re-birth of the soul. 
 
 “ As in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
 shall all be made alive.” Marvel of 
 marvels that God can take a soul which is dead in 
 trespasses and in sins and by the infusion of His 
 own nature so reanimate that dead soul that life 
 will spring out of death, and the bones which were 
 broken are made to rejoice! Thank God, there is 
 hope. Though your soul has gone down to the sides 
 of the awful pit, the Eternal One, who inhabiteth 
 eternity, can, if you will now obey the call to re¬ 
 pentance, bring you back, cancel the eternal obliga¬ 
 tion, set aside the just sentence, and restore your 
 hopelessly dead soul, infusing life, eternal life, and 
 that more abundantly. 
 
 The first birth is of the physical man and is with¬ 
 out our knowledge or consent: the second birth is 
 of the immortal spirit, and comes about with our 
 knowledge and by our consent. 
 
 In answer to the question, “ Can a person know 
 
 the time he is born again ? ” a certain religious 
 
 148 
 
THE NEW BIRTH 
 
 149 
 
 paper replied, reasoning from analogy, that since 
 we cannot remember the time of our first birth, 
 of course, we cannot of the second. But analogy, 
 always uncertain, in this case completely fails, for 
 the new birth is accomplished not only within the 
 realm of our knowledge and by our consent, but 
 by our personal invitation and earnest solicitation. 
 That is, we so desire the work to be done that we 
 become a partner with the Almighty in its accom¬ 
 plishment. We are personally interested in the 
 accomplishment of the work, and, as far as our 
 ability goes, we are just as responsible for its con¬ 
 summation as the other party to the agreement. 
 
 Now since the work of the new birth is accom¬ 
 plished by the combined efforts of two person¬ 
 alities, the first, the Almighty as the active, 
 operative agent, and the second, the man, as the 
 passive, actively receptive agent, may we ask, How 
 can the work of the new birth be fully accom¬ 
 plished outside of the full consent and knowledge 
 of both agents? 
 
 This brings us to the point that the first birth 
 is without our will, but the second birth is by our 
 will. We had nothing to do with our first birth, 
 either in consenting or in ordering, but if ever we 
 are born again we must put our will into the thing, 
 and one of the last decisions the struggling soul 
 makes before light breakes in is, “ I will be Thine, 
 0 Lord; I will do Thy will; I will be saved.” 
 
 In such a case God has not only the obedient 
 
150 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 body and the submissive mind, but He also Has the 
 slavery of the unbound will. Such a soul goes to 
 the door and demands that the Lord shall bore his 
 ear, not as a symbol of galling bondage, but of 
 willing, joyous, submissive servitude; the servi¬ 
 tude of a will that cannot be bound, but that 
 desires nothing better than to be the bondslave of 
 the all-wise, all-loving Trinity. Oh, the sweetness 
 of a servitude that carries with it, nay is impelled 
 by the desire to do the will of its Master! 
 
 All earth’s bonds are galling, and its servitudes 
 are bitter; here alone is liberty, here is the free¬ 
 dom of the glad winged angels and the mighty 
 archangels. “ I delight to do Thy will, 0 God.” 
 
XXIII 
 
 VANITY OF HUMAN LIFE WHEN 
 SEPARATED FROM GOD 
 
 “For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the 
 flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof 
 falleth away ”—I Peter 1:24. 
 
 W HEN Peter left all to follow Jesus, 
 the forsaking was just as difficult 
 and the cross just as heavy as though 
 broad acres and shining treasures were left behind. 
 When the mantle of the aged Elijah fell on the 
 youthful Elisha, the young man forsook his earthly 
 prospects along with his plows, “ farewelled ” his 
 friends and kissed his parents, and left his self- 
 seeking life for service for others, and by so doing 
 he inscribed his name in God’s hall of fame. 
 
 In like manner Peter forsook his nets, hid good- 
 by to the old haunts so endeared by the association 
 of years, threw over his worldly prospects and 
 followed the lowly, despised Nazarene, but in so 
 doing he wrote his name high among the great men 
 of the earth. Yes, he brought up from the depths 
 his name which would otherwise have gone down 
 in forgetfulness along with thousands of others 
 who have preferred their nets to the service of the 
 Master. 
 
 151 
 
152 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 Our humble fisherman proved that all the glory 
 of man is a9 the flower of the grass, and received 
 in its stead the glory that comes from God, and 
 heard the Master of ocean and earth and sky 
 declare “ Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona.” 
 
 This passage reveals the vanity of human life 
 when untouched by divinity: 
 
 I. Because of the shortness of time. 
 
 II. Because of the emptiness of human glory. 
 
 I. The shortness of time. Time is but a tiny 
 island in the midst of the vast ocean of eternity. 
 Compared with eternity the longest life is but a 
 breath, a flower, the passing of a shadow. 
 
 When the writer was suffering with typhoid 
 fever, a dear friend brought a beautiful chrysan¬ 
 themum and put it in a vase at his bedside. With 
 nothing else to do the patient lay hour after hour 
 and admired the glory and symmetry of its snowy 
 white petals. But soon with a feeling of sadness 
 he saw it begin to fade. Brown spots appeared on 
 its once wax-like petals, decay had begun. Taking 
 the flower in his hand, he quoted the words of 
 Isaiah: “ The voice said, Cry, And he said, What 
 shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodli¬ 
 ness thereof as the flower of the field: The grass 
 withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of 
 the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is 
 grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but 
 the word of our God shall stand forever.” 
 
[VANITY, SEPARATED FROM GOD 153 
 
 Did you ever in your mind’s eye watch the 
 younger generation crowding their elders off the 
 stage of action, and then pressing forward them¬ 
 selves to their own inevitable end? Our fathers, 
 where are they ? and the prophets, do they live for¬ 
 ever ? Generations, ages, centuries, yea, thou¬ 
 sands of years, have been told, and still the sad 
 story of sickness, pain, death and sorrow goes on 
 until the head grows sick and the heart faint. 
 
 The old man, tottering on the verge of eternity, 
 declares that the events of his boyhood days are as 
 vivid as though they transpired but yesterday. 
 The memories of the old swimming hole, the beech 
 woods, the hillside pasture, the daisy field, the 
 fishing excursions, the skating pond, the little red 
 schoolhouse, his playmates and youthful sorrows, 
 joys and loves come crowding into his fireside rev¬ 
 eries until tears of genuine loneliness chase each 
 other down his furrowed, careworn cheeks. 
 
 I sit ’mid the scenes of my childhood. 
 
 The scenes which fond memory loves; 
 
 I roam by its brooks, in its meadows, 
 
 O’er its hillocks, in shadowy groves. 
 
 I sit once again by the mill pond, 
 
 I watch the gay squirrel at play, 
 
 I list to the blythe robin warble 
 By her nest at the close of the day. 
 
 I welcome the voice of my mother, 
 
 As she calls from the dear cottage door; 
 My father, my brothers, my sisters, 
 
 The circle is welded once more. 
 
 I stroll through the fields now deserted, 
 Where swift boyhood’s feet used to tread; 
 
154 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 I start at the clang of the school bell, 
 
 For it tolls the sad dirge of the dead. 
 
 How little I thought then how transient 
 The scenes of my childish delights; 
 
 It seemed they would last on forever, 
 
 But they fled like the stars of the night. 
 
 Thus I sit ’mid the scenes of my childhood, 
 
 And count o’er the friends of the past; 
 
 I cannot but think life is fleeting 
 
 Once the die for its earth-stake is cast. 
 
 I think of the voices that cheered me, 
 
 I think of the hearts then so dear, 
 
 As memory brings them before me 
 I welcome the heart-easing tear. 
 
 ADd I ask as I count o’er those faces,— 
 
 So many have crossed o’er the tide,— 
 
 “ Shall I meet them again in the home-land, 
 
 Fore’er on the glory-lit side ? ” 
 
 How sad such, a view of things would he with no 
 forward-look! An old man, trembling a moment 
 before he sinks into the grave, looking into the jaws 
 of the hungry monster, death, helpless, hopeless, 
 joyless, Christless and heavenless. Oh, the sadness 
 of that soul whose sun is setting amid the clouds 
 of a misspent life, never again to arise throughout 
 the countless ages of eternity. 
 
 But, thank God, all lives do not end thus. The 
 forward-look of the aged Christian’s heart causes 
 his wrinkled face to glow with the dawning light 
 of hope and joyous expectation. His earthly sun 
 goes down with all the splendour and glory of the 
 fairest of days. Goes down, did I say? Yes, it 
 sets as far as this world is concerned, but rises 
 again in most effulgent splendour in that land 
 
[VANITY, SEPARATED FROM GOD 155 
 
 which needeth not the light of the sun or of a 
 candle, for the Lord God giveth him light and his 
 sun shall never go down. 
 
 II. The emptiness of human glory. The beauty 
 of the flower fades even before the grass withers, 
 in like manner the glory of man often fades before 
 his body decays. 
 
 How little it takes to turn the tide of human 
 glory! The crowd which shouts for the hero to-day 
 will hiss him off the stage to-morrow. The beauty 
 which is so admired to-day will be as a faded leaf 
 to-morrow. The wealth of to-day will burst as a 
 bubble and be gone to-morrow. “ What is your 
 life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a 
 little time, and then vanisheth away.” Take a look 
 along the ages and generations of the past. The 
 wicked have reigned in great pomp and have 
 spread themselves as a green bay tree, they have 
 established themselves as the cedars of Lebanon 
 and have thought that they would continue as the 
 everlasting hills; but the Lord blew upon them and 
 they were not, yea, their place shall know them no 
 more forever. 
 
 Generations crowd swiftly in the footsteps of 
 generations gone before. The old man dies and is 
 buried, and his son crowds rapidly into his place 
 and this man in turn is jostled off the scene by his 
 children who follow. Oh man, mortal min, born 
 but for one brief day! Why, oh, why should you 
 refuse to open your sin-blinded eyes and behold 
 
156 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 jour end ? Why should you refuse to see that the 
 end of a life of sin is sorrow eternal ? Why should 
 you refuse to see that the end of a life of godly 
 consecration is everlasting joy? 
 
 As angry waves beat ’gainst the rock-bound shore, 
 
 And foam with rage, and loudly roar: 
 
 So terribly doth rushing time speed on, 
 
 It passes and fore’er is gone. 
 
 Swift as the red-winged lightnings fly, 
 
 And flash across the angry sky; 
 
 More swiftly time doth hurry on its way. 
 
 Yet men will laugh instead of pray. 
 
 Eager as a warhorse to the fray, 
 
 Where hungry waves of carnage play; 
 
 Undaunted thus doth time speed in its flight, 
 
 ’Tis day a while, then endless night. 
 
 Fiercer than the cyclone’s roaring breath, 
 
 Upon whose wings is borne grim death; 
 
 More fiercely still doth time speed on its course. 
 
 Life now, but soon the shroud and hearse. 
 
 Swifter than worlds wheel on their onward march, 
 
 Or planets sweep the spangled arch; 
 
 So swift, and swifter, doth your earth-life speed, 
 
 To grasp FOREVER in its greed. 
 
 Eternal years wheel towards you in their flight. 
 
 Be quick, escape eternal night; 
 
 This hour you live and seek for earthly joys, 
 
 This next, dread death, your hope destroys. 
 
 If the sorrow of this world, both past, present 
 and to come, could be measured, who could tell the 
 infinite weight of woe, of anguish of heart, of bit¬ 
 ter remorse, of heart-breaking grief, the rivers of 
 scalding tears, the floods of crimson gore spilled on 
 countless battle-fields, the burden of the mother’s 
 heart bereaved of her children, or of the wives who 
 
VANITY, SEPARATED FROM GOD 15T 
 
 look out of tlie window for loved ones who will 
 never return; who can estimate the heart-aches 
 caused by the demon drink, or who can measure 
 the immeasurable griefs of those who have followed 
 in the wake of the all but infinite funeral trains of 
 earth’s fallen? Oh God, where is the end? Is 
 there no hope for the lost sons and daughters of 
 Adam’s fallen race ? The answer comes, “ It is 
 appointed unto man once to die.” But thank God 
 for the Christian’s hope of a glorious resurrection 
 to immortality and eternal life. Who would refuse 
 to choose the eternity of the blest? 
 
XXIV 
 
 ENDURING QUALITY OF THE WORD 
 
 OF GOD 
 
 “ But the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is 
 word which by the Gospel is preached unto you ”— I Peter 
 1:25. 
 
 P ETER failed, but the word of Christ was 
 fulfilled. Thus the impetuous Peter was 
 taught the fickleness of his own boasted 
 strength, as well as the enduring quality of the 
 word of God. 
 
 Riches increase and men set their hearts upon 
 them, but the evil day comes and their wealth 
 vanishes like a shadow. Kingdoms rise and rule 
 with pomp and splendour, but their day of power 
 is the day of their overthrow, for pride cometh be¬ 
 fore a fall and a haughty spirit before destruction, 
 and this is as true of nations as it is of indi¬ 
 viduals. 
 
 But amid all the changing things God’s word 
 endures. Skeptics, critics, fanatics and formalists 
 have assaulted it in vain. Like the impregnable 
 rock of Gibraltar it stands; more than this, it is 
 founded on the Rock of Ages, and while that 
 eternal Rock endures the word of God will stand. 
 
 The word of God changes not. The same pre¬ 
 cious passages which cheered the hearts of the an- 
 
 158 
 
QUALITY OF THE WORD OF GOD 159 
 
 cient fathers, comfort us to-day amid the trials of 
 our earthly pilgrimage; and the passages which 
 come to us with such sweetness and power will he 
 sufficient to lift up the head of the last man in all 
 this world upon whom the enemy of souls shall at¬ 
 tempt his fiendish wiles. 
 
 Truth is always the same. If we could find out 
 the underlying principles which throb in the hearts 
 of the mightiest of God’s angels, we would know 
 the truths which by the grace of God will make 
 us free. 
 
 God’s eternity, God’s heaven, God’s angelic hosts, 
 God’s saints, are all moved and animated by this 
 one undying unchanging principle, truth. And 
 Jesus Christ, the earthly revelation of the God¬ 
 head declared, “ I am the truth.” 
 
 The enduring word which is mentioned in this 
 passage is that word which the prophets foretold 
 should be preached. “ How beautiful upon the 
 mountains are the feet of Him that bringeth good 
 tidings, that publisheth peace.” 
 
 The enduring word is the news of the appear¬ 
 ance of Christ. “ And He turned Him unto His 
 disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes 
 which see the things that ye see: for I tell you, that 
 many prophets and kings have desired to see those 
 things which ye see, and have not seen them; and 
 to hear those things which ye hear, and have not 
 heard them.” 
 
 This enduring word is Christ Himself. “ In the 
 
160 THE FISHERMAN OF GALILEE 
 
 beginning was the Word, and tbe Word was with 
 God, and tbe Word was God. Tbe same was in tbe 
 beginning with God.” 
 
 Tbe man wbo preaches tbe gospel with tbe Holy 
 Gbost sent down from heaven makes known: 
 
 1. Tbe will of God as revealed by tbe prophets. 
 “ Tbe scriptures of tbe prophets ” are a never- 
 failing storehouse of good things out of which tbe 
 wise scribe brings forth things new and old. 
 
 2. He makes known tbe will of God as revealed 
 by tbe apostles. These ambassadors of beaven 
 were commissioned and sent forth by tbe Lord to 
 make His will known to tbe world, and tbe minis¬ 
 ter of tbe new covenant repeats this message in no 
 uncertain manner. 
 
 3. Tbe true minister of tbe gospel makes known 
 Christ Himself. Tbe burden of tbe preaching of 
 Paul was an attempt to reveal Jesus Christ and 
 Him crucified, and tbe herald of the cross, along 
 with Jobn Baptist, cries, “ Behold the Lamb of 
 God, that taketb away tbe sins of tbe world.” 
 
 Oh, that tbe word of God may dwell in my heart 
 richly, that I may be given wisdom to speak a word 
 in season to him that is weary! Ob that God would 
 give tbe power to proclaim to all the unsearchable 
 riches of Christ, and fill up tbe measure of God’s 
 will concerning our duty, that we may rejoice with 
 Him forever, world without end. Amen. 
 
 Printed in United States of America 
 

 
 
 
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 The fisherman of Galilee; a devolional 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00013 4371