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THE CHRIST 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FORTY DAYS. 
 
 REV. A. B. SIMPSON. 
 
 11 
 
 -^i^ 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE PUB. CO,, 
 
 692 Eighth Avenue, 
 
 ]SfEw York, 
 
"BT-^?' 
 
 ■^ L- 
 
 GIFT 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ^ Page. 
 
 Chapter I. General View, - - 5 
 
 II. The First Week, - 39 
 
 *' III. Tlie Second Week, - 76 
 
 '*■ IV. The Lord's Message to the 
 
 UnbeUeving Church, 112 
 
 V. The Third Week, - 146 
 
 " VI. The Great Commission, 174 
 
 *' VII. The Last Meeting, - 227 
 
 '' VIII. The Ascension, - 274 
 
 416507 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2007 witin funding from 
 
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 littp://www.arcliive.org/details/christoffortydayOOsimprich 
 
The Christ of the 
 Forty Days. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 GENERAL VIEW. 
 
 "He showed Himself calive after His pas- 
 sion by many infallible proofs, being seen of 
 them forty day^j, and speaking of the things 
 pertaining to the kingdom of God.** Actsi: 3 
 
 @ ASTER morning is the beginning 
 of a unique and most tenderly in- 
 teresting portion of our blessed 
 Saviour's life. It is the transition 
 period between His earthly ministry 
 and His heavenly exaltation. Like 
 the Indian summer of the year, there 
 
6 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 is a tender veil of loveliness and 
 mystery about it which links it with 
 both worlds, and makes it a peculiar- 
 ly appropriate pattern of life hid 
 with Christ in God, in which we may 
 walk with Him all our days, with 
 our heads in heaven while our feet 
 still tread the earth below. May the 
 Holy Spirit vividly reveal to us such 
 glimpses of this blessed life as will 
 enable us to reproduce it in our own 
 experience and walk with Him with 
 a new sense of His abiding presence 
 and glorious reality ! 
 
 I. THE CHRIST OF THE FORTY DAYS 
 IS A LIVING CHRIST. 
 
 This glad Resurrection morning 
 dispels from the religion of Jesus all 
 the shadows of the sepulchre and all 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 7 
 
 the morbid atmosphere of sorrow, 
 depression and death. The Christ of 
 true Christianity is not a bleeding, 
 thorn-crowned " Ecce Homo,^^ but a 
 glad and radiant face, bright as the 
 spring-tide morning and radiant with 
 immortal life. '^ I am He that liveth 
 and was dead " is His message, and 
 *' Lo ! I am alive for evermore." Oh, 
 may this day impress upon our hearts 
 the reality of a Eisen and Living 
 Christ, until He shall be more actual 
 to us than any other personality and 
 we shall know what it means, not 
 only to be '^ reconciled to God by the 
 death of His Son" but *^much more 
 to be saved by His life ! " 
 
 II. HE IS A VICTORIOUS CHRIST. 
 
 What a picture of easy and utter- 
 
8 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 most triumph is that resurrection 
 scene 1 Satan had done his worst 
 and men had done their best to hold 
 the Captive of the tomb. But with- 
 out an effort the Mighty Sleeper 
 calmly rose before the Easter dawn ; 
 deliberately laying off the grave 
 clothes and wrapping up the napkin, 
 and putting all in place as naturally 
 as any of us this morning arranged 
 our toilet ; and then through that 
 colossal stone that closed His tomb, 
 He passed without even rolling it 
 aside or breaking the seal, and ere 
 the guards could know that He was 
 risen. He was standing calmly in the 
 garden, talking with Mary as though 
 nothing had happened. This is, per- 
 haps, the most overwhelming im- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 9 
 
 pression we have received from all 
 the incidents of His Eesurrection, 
 the infinite facility with which He 
 put His feet on every foe and rose 
 above every obstacle. 
 
 So too, we see the same victorious 
 power expressed in the attitude of 
 the angel who followed Him, and 
 with a single touch rolled away the 
 stone from the supulchre and coolly 
 sat down upon it, and then looked in 
 the faces of the keepers till they 
 grew pale with terror and fled in 
 horror and dismay, without a 
 struggle. 
 
 Such is our Risen Christ still, the 
 Mighty Victor over all His foes and 
 ours. Could we see Him now we 
 would behold Him sitting on His 
 
10 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 Father's throne, undismayed by all 
 the powers of darkness, and ''from 
 henceforth expecting till all His 
 enemies be made His footstool." Oh, 
 how it cheers our timid hearts to be- 
 hold our glorious and victorious Cap- 
 tain, and hear Him say of every ad- 
 versary and over every difficulty, '' I 
 have overcome for you." God help 
 us to see the Captain as Joshua be- 
 held Him, and before Him the walls 
 of every Jericho will fall and the 
 legions of every opposing force shall 
 melt away ! 
 
 UI. HE IS A SIMPLE CHRIST. 
 
 How natural, how easy, how art- 
 less His manifestations were through 
 those blessed forty days I How quiet- 
 ly He dropped down among them, 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 11 
 
 unheralded, unassuming, unattended 
 by angelic guards and sometimes un- 
 distinguished from themselves, in 
 His simple pi^esence ! Look at Him 
 as He meets with Mary in that first 
 morning interview ; standing like an 
 ordinary stranger in the garden, 
 speaking to her in easy conversation, 
 ''Woman, why weepest thou? Whom 
 seekest thou ? " and then, when the 
 moment for recognition comes, 
 speaking to her heart in the one art- 
 less word of persoiml and unutter- 
 able love which disarmed all her 
 amazement and fear, and brought 
 back all the old recollections and 
 affections of her throbbing heart ! 
 See Him again on the way to Em- 
 maus ! How naturally He drops in 
 
12 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 upon the little company as they 
 walk ! How unaflfectedly He talks 
 with them ! How easily He turns 
 the conversation to heavenly themes, 
 and yet how free from strain His 
 every attitude and word ! All they 
 are conscious of, is a strange burn- 
 ing in their hearts and a kindling 
 warmth of love. At length they 
 constrain Him and He allows Him- 
 self to be pressed to enter in. He 
 sits down by their table. He eats 
 bread, as if He had been another 
 disciple like themselves; and only 
 when, as He vanishes quietly from 
 their sight, do they realize that ''It 
 is the Lord!" 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 13 
 
 And yet again on the shores of 
 Tiberias, how exquisite is His ap- 
 proach ! How natural His greeting, 
 how easy the mighty miracle of the 
 draught of fishes, how calm and un- 
 affected the meeting as they reach 
 the shore, the simple breakfast in 
 which He Himself takes part, and 
 the exquisite interview with Simon 
 Peter, whose delicacy of discrimina- 
 tion and tenderness no word can 
 ever express ! Oh, what a picture of 
 that Blessed One who still lives to 
 be our constant Visitor, our ceaseless 
 Companion and Friend ; to meet us 
 like Mswy in our hours of sorrow, and 
 to walk with us, as with them, often 
 imrecognized at first, or to greet us 
 in the cold, sad morning after our 
 
14 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 long hours of waiting and toil and 
 failure, with His marvellous deliver- 
 ance and yet more gracious words of 
 love and instruction. So near, that 
 not even our nearest friends can come 
 so close ! So simple, that His mes- 
 sages come as the intuition of our 
 own hearts; and yet the wonderful 
 Counsellor and the mighty God for 
 all our perplexities and all our hard 
 places. Blessed Christ of the Forty 
 Days, oh, help us, with a faith more 
 simple and a love more child-like to 
 walk with Thee ! 
 
 IV. THE MIGHTY CHRIS1\ 
 
 It is hard for us to realize the Pres- 
 ence that comes with such gentle 
 footsteps and undemonstrative sinv 
 plicity ; but back of that gentle f oim 
 
THE FORTY DAYS l5 
 
 and those noiseless steps is the Om- 
 nipotence that could say, ^'AU power 
 is given unto Me, in heaven and in 
 earth." All power is His in heaven. 
 He is the Lamb in the midst of the 
 Throne, that holds in His Hand the 
 seven seals and unrolls the scroll of 
 destiny and providence for all worlds, 
 and beings, and events. All the 
 mighty acts of God recorded in the 
 Old Testament were but manifesta- 
 tions of His power. All the mighty 
 movements which began with His 
 Ascension are the workings of His 
 Hands. All the movements of Di- 
 vine providence are subject to His 
 command. All the mighty angels of 
 heaven's myriad hosts are subject to 
 His bidding. All the powers of hell 
 
16 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 tremble at His name ! All the prom- 
 ises of God are fulfilled with His en- 
 dorsement. All the laws of nature 
 are subject to His mandates. 
 
 And all power on earth is subordi- 
 nate to His power. Not a wind can 
 blow without His permission, not a 
 disease can strike but as He allows ; 
 not a human hand can hurt us while 
 He shields us with His presence. 
 The circumstances of life, the ene- 
 mies of our souls and the infirmities 
 of our bodies are subject to His word ; 
 the very thrones of earth are subordi- 
 nate to His authority. He can make 
 a Cyrus send back the tribes of Israel 
 by a national decree. He can make 
 a Constantino behold the flaming 
 Cross upon the sky and become a fol- 
 
THE li^OItTY DAYS 17 
 
 lower of the Heavenly Standard. He 
 can open nations and kingdoms to 
 the Gospel, and so He bids us go forth 
 and disciple all the nations because of 
 His Almighty power in our behalf ! 
 
 How mighty the power of the Res- 
 urrection ! It surmounted the power 
 of death and the grave ; it passed 
 through the solid stone ; it defied the 
 stamp of the Roman government and 
 the sentinels of the Roman army. It 
 could pass through the closed doois 
 without rending them asunder. It 
 could bring the miraculous draught 
 of fishes to the Apostle's net with a 
 single word of command. It could 
 rise without an effort in the Chariot 
 of His Ascension. It could anoint 
 those weak and timid men with the 
 
18 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 power that shook the world and laid 
 the foundations of the Church. 
 
 Oh, that our eyes were but opened 
 that we might behold the riches of 
 the glory of our inheritance and the 
 exceeding greatness of His power 
 wrought in Christ when God raised 
 Him from the dea'd and set Him at 
 His own right hand in heavenly 
 places, far above all principality and 
 power and might and dominion and 
 every name that is named, and gave 
 Him to be head over all things to the 
 Church which is His body. Why is 
 it that we do not receive and realize 
 more of this Almighty Christ ? Alas ! 
 because we cannot understand or 
 stand the fullness of His power. God 
 is ready to work through us the tri- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 19 
 
 umphs of His omnipotence, but we 
 must be fitted vessels, open to His 
 touch and able to stand His power. 
 The ordinance that has to bear a 
 mighty charge of powder must be 
 heavy enough to stand the charge 
 without explosion. And so the heart 
 that is to know His power, who is 
 able to do exceedingly abundantly 
 above all we ask or think, must be 
 '* strengthened with might, by His 
 Spirit in the inner man," so that 
 ^'Christ can dwell in the heart by 
 faith." To think of what Christ is 
 ready and willing to do in us and for 
 us would frighten some of us into 
 apoplexy, and actually to realize it 
 would snap the frail thread of hfe it- 
 self. Christ's heart is bursting with 
 
20 THE CHRtST O^ 
 
 resources that the world needs, and 
 that He is ready to use if only He 
 could find vessels ready and willing 
 to use them. 
 
 Oh, for the courage to see the power 
 which He is waiting to place at the 
 service of all who are consecrated 
 enough to use it for His glory, and 
 close enough to receive the heavenly 
 baptism ! He has for us the power of 
 the Holy Spirit, the power of prayer, 
 the power that will conquer circum- 
 stances and control all events for His 
 will, and the power that will make us 
 ourselves the trophies of His grace 
 and the monuments of His indwelling 
 presence and victory. 
 
 We shall find this power as we go 
 forth to use it according to His own 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 21 
 
 commission, ^^Go ye therefore, and 
 teach all nations." Nothing but a 
 work as wide as the world can ever 
 make room for the power which 
 Christ is waiting to bestow. 
 
 V. A LOVING CHRIST. 
 
 How unavailing all His power 
 would be if we were not sure that it 
 is available for us, and that His heart 
 as tenderly loves us as His mighty 
 hand can help us. How tender and 
 loving the Christ of the forty days ! 
 See Him in the garden as He speaks 
 to Mary with tender sympathy : 
 ^' Woman, why weepest thou ? whom 
 seekest thou ? " and then calls her by 
 her name in tones which must have 
 expressed more than words could tell. 
 
22 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 What mourner can doubt henceforth 
 His sympathy and love ? What heart 
 can hesitate to accept His friendship 
 which still speaks to each of us with 
 as direct and personal a call, and 
 gives to each a name of special and 
 affectionate regard. Or look at Him 
 again as He meets witli Thomas, the 
 doubting one, the willful disciple 
 that petulantly demanded that the 
 Lord should meet him with an evi- 
 dence that He had given to none 
 other, and that no human heart had 
 a right imperiously to claim. But 
 how tenderly the Lord concedes eveii 
 his demand, until Thomas is ashamed 
 to accept it ; and, more amazed at his 
 Lord's magnanimity and omniscience 
 than the evidence of His wounds, he 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 23 
 
 cries, ^'My Lord and my God." Who 
 that is harrasssed with doubts and 
 difficulties need fear again to bring 
 them to His presence, who with such 
 condescending love is ready to meet 
 them all, and to make our hearts 
 know by the deeper evidence of His 
 own great love and the revealing of 
 Himself that He is indeed the Son of 
 God? 
 
 And look at his interview with 
 Simon Peter ! What backslider need 
 ever doubt again the Saviour's for- 
 giving love, or fear to come and know 
 that he will be welcomed to a nearer 
 place in His heart and a higher service 
 in His kingdom if only he can say as 
 Simon said, ' ' Thou knowest all things, 
 Thou know^est that I love Thee. " 
 
24 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 So tender, so forgiving, so full of 
 love He comes to- us, to dry our tears, 
 to satisfy our doubts, to forgive our 
 failures, to restore our souls, and 
 then to use us for a higher service, 
 just because we have learned through 
 our own infirmities the depths of His 
 great love. The secret of walking 
 closely with Christ and working suc- 
 cessfully for Him, is to fully realize 
 that we are His beloved. Let us but 
 feel that He has set His heart upon 
 us, that He is watching us from those 
 heavens with the same tender inter- 
 est that He felt for Simon and Mary, 
 that He is working out the mystery 
 of our lives with the same solicitude 
 and fondness, that He is following us 
 day by day as any mother followed 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 25 
 
 her babe in his first attempt to walk 
 alone, that He has set His love upon 
 us, and, in spite of ourselves, is work- 
 ing out for us His highest will and 
 blessing, as far as we will let Him, 
 and then nothing can discourage us. 
 Our hearts will glow with responsive 
 love. Our faith will spring to meet 
 His mighty promises, and our sacri- 
 •fices shall become the very luxuries 
 of love for one so dear. This was the 
 secret of John's spirit. '^ We have 
 known and believed the love that 
 God hath to us." And the heart that 
 has fully learned this has found the 
 secret of unbounded faith and enthu- 
 siastic service. 
 
26 THE CHKIST OF 
 
 VI. THE PHYSICAL CHRIST. 
 
 For He that came forth from Jo- 
 seph's tomb came forth in the flesh, 
 with a material body and the same 
 form that He had laid down in death 
 and the grave. He made this most 
 emphatic in His interview with His 
 disciples after His resurrection. He 
 wished them to be thoroughly as- 
 sured that there wa:s no illusion about' 
 His body. '* Handle me and see " was 
 His emphatic words, ' ' for a spirit hath 
 not flesh and bones as ye see me 
 have." 
 
 Indeed, His spiritual consciousness 
 had not died ; it was only His body 
 that tasted death, and it was His body 
 therefore that was raised from death. 
 The Eesurrection of Christ, then, 
 
THr FORTY DAYS 27 
 
 is a physical fact, and the physical 
 meaning o& the resurrection must be 
 of surpassing importance. It means 
 no less than this, that He has come 
 forth to be the physical life of His 
 people now, and in a little while the 
 Fountain of their immortahty and 
 the Head of their resurrection bodies. 
 What a source of strength and in- 
 spiration it is for us to know that our 
 blessed Lord has still the same physi- 
 cal organization that we possess, and 
 is willing and able to share with these 
 mortal frames His infinite and quick- 
 ening life! He is our living Bread, 
 and as He hved by the Father, so we 
 may live by Him, and not only is He 
 the source of health and strength to 
 our material life, but He cares for the 
 
28 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 wants of the body. Hungry and cold 
 with their fruitless fishing that Gali- 
 lean morning, He saw their need and 
 tenderly asked them, " Children, have 
 ye any meat ? " and then, filling their 
 empty nets and spreading the table 
 on the shore, He said ''Come and 
 dine." So still He thinks of the poor 
 and tlie struggling, the hungry and 
 the helpless ones, and stands beside 
 us in our need, ready and able, by a 
 word, to provide immediate and abun- 
 dant supply. 
 
 Are we to-day in any place of need ? 
 The Christ of the forty days is nearer 
 than we think, able to be ''touched 
 with the feeling of our infirmities,'' 
 and ready to give us the greatest help 
 in time of need. Like the fishers of 
 
Me forty day^ 29 
 
 yonder sea, our empty nets can be 
 filled at His bidding ; the perplexed 
 workman can be directed to the very 
 thing to do; the wretched failure can 
 be all corrected. There is no need 
 that He cannot supply, no counsel 
 that He is not able to give, no regions 
 where His power does not penetrate, 
 no disciple that He does not love to 
 help in every time of need. Oh, let 
 us trust Him more with all our cir- 
 cumstances and sorrows, and our ut- 
 most need will only prove the more 
 the infinite resources of His love and 
 grace. 
 
 VII. THE EVER PRESENT CHRIST. 
 
 For the Christ of the Forty Days 
 is not a transient vision that has 
 
30 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 passed away forever, but the Christ 
 of all the ages. Standing at the 
 close of those blessed days midway 
 between earth and heaven, we hear 
 Him say, ''Lol I am with you all 
 the days even unto the end of the 
 world." That blessed present tense 
 has bridged the past and the present, 
 and has prolonged those heavenly 
 days after the resurrection, through 
 all the days since then. It is not '^I 
 will be," as one who has to go away 
 and come back again; but ^^I am," 
 as a presence that is never to be 
 withdrawn; unseen, it is true, but 
 as real in my absence as now in my 
 presence, I am to remain among you." 
 For in the spiritual world distance 
 and time are eliminated ; and just as 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 31 
 
 the telescope can bring the distant 
 object near to the eye, and the tele- 
 phone can present the voice hundreds 
 of miles away to the listening and 
 attentive ear, so there is a spiritual 
 mechanism that can make Christ as 
 immediate to the heart as though 
 He was still visibly by our side. Had 
 we but another sense, all heavenly 
 beings and realities would be directly 
 present to our perception. 
 
 The promise of this beautiful pas- 
 sage is not only fulfilled in the pres- 
 ence of Christ, in the heart of the 
 believer, which is a literal and glor- 
 ious truth, but it is a presence with 
 us. It is more than the spiritual 
 consciousness of the Lord's indwell- 
 ing. It is His direct personality and 
 
32 THE CHRIST O^ 
 
 constant companionship with all our 
 life, and His omnipotent co-operation 
 in all our needs. It is the presence 
 of One who has all power in heaven 
 and in earth, and whose presence 
 means the defeat of every adversary, 
 the solution of every difficulty, the 
 supply of every need. Oh, it does 
 seem, in these days, as though we 
 could almost see Him moving in the 
 midst of His people, here and there, 
 in His mighty working, on the mis- 
 sion field with the lone worker, in the 
 midst of dangers and foes, in the 
 busy streets of the crowded city, in 
 the mingled incidents of business 
 life, in the whirl and confusion of 
 our intense life to-day, in every de- 
 partment of human society ; touch- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 38 
 
 ing with His hands all the chords of 
 influence and power, moving the 
 wheels of Providence, and working 
 out His purpose for His people and 
 the redemption of the world. Oh, 
 that we might see Him as Joshua saw 
 the Captain when He entered Canaan 
 and camped around Jericho ; as Ste- 
 phen saw Him when he faced the 
 crowd of wolfish foes that thirsted 
 for His blood ; as Paul saw Him amid 
 the tempests of the Adriatic and the 
 lions of the Coliseum ; as John saw 
 Him in the midst of the Throne, hold- 
 ing in His hand the seven stars and 
 walking in the midst of the seven 
 golden candlesticks, and then stand- 
 ing before the Throne with all the 
 seals of human destiny in His own 
 
34: THE CHRIST OP 
 
 right hand ! Then, indeed, no trial 
 could discourage us, no foe intimi- 
 date us, no fear dismay us, no work 
 overwhelm us ; for above every voice 
 of peril or of hostile power, we would 
 hear His gentle whisper, '^Lo ! I am 
 with you all the days, even to the end 
 of the age." 
 
 It is ''all the days," not ''always." 
 He comes to you each day with a 
 new blessing. Every morning, day 
 by day, He walks with us, with a 
 love that never tires, and a blessing 
 that never grows old. And He is 
 with us " all the days ; " it is a cease- 
 less abiding. There is no day so dark, 
 so common-place, so uninteresting, 
 but you find Him there. Often, no 
 doubt, He is unrecognized, as He 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 85 
 
 was on the way to Emmaus, until 
 you realize how your heart has been 
 warmed, your love stirred and your 
 Bible so strangely vivified, that every 
 promise seems to speak to you with 
 heavenly reaUty and power. It was 
 the Lord ! God grant that His living 
 presence may be made more real to 
 us all henceforth, and whether we 
 have the consciousness and evidence, . 
 as they had a few glorious times in 
 those forty days, or whether we go 
 forth into the coming days, as they 
 did most of their days, to walk by 
 simple faith and in simple duty, let 
 us know, at least, that the fact is true 
 for evermore, tuat he is with us, 
 a presence all unseen but real, and 
 ready if we needed Him any 
 
36 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 moment to manifest Himself foi 
 our relief. 
 
 There is a beautiful incident related 
 of the mother of an English school- 
 boy, that when he was a lad she sent 
 him to a boarding school, some dis- 
 tance from her home, where the rules 
 of the school only permitted her to 
 visit once a fortnight. But this was 
 more than her mother he^rt could 
 stand, and so, all unknown to her 
 boy, or his teachers, she rented a 
 little attic overlooking the school, 
 and often, when he little dreamed, 
 she would sit in that upper room 
 with her eyes on her darling 'boy as 
 he played in the yard below or 
 studied in the school-room. He could 
 not see her, nor did he dream that she 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 3T 
 
 was there, but had he cried, or called 
 her name, or needed her for a mo- 
 ment he was within her reach. 
 
 This is a little parable of the sleep- 
 less love and the ceaseless oversight 
 which our Saviour exercises towards 
 His beloved ones, for He has His eye 
 upon us by day and by night ; and 
 although we do not see His face and 
 hands and form as He moves through 
 our pathway, dissipating our foes 
 and clearing our way, yet He is 
 there, ever there ^^all the days even 
 unto the end.'^ Let us believe His 
 promise, let us assume the reality of 
 His presence, let us recognize Him 
 as ever near, let us speak to Him as 
 one ever by our side, and He shall 
 ever answer us, either by the whis- 
 
38 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 pers of His love or by the workings 
 of His hand. 
 
 Thus shall we never be alone, thus 
 shall we never be defenceless, thus 
 shall we never be defeated, thus need 
 we never fear. And even should the 
 lonely vale itself open to us, it shall 
 be but the opening vista of a larger 
 vision and a closer and nearer pres- 
 ence, as we find that neither '^ death, 
 nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, 
 nor powers, nor things present, nor 
 things to come, nor height, nor 
 depth, nor any other creature shall 
 be able to separate us from the love 
 of God which is in Christ Jesus our 
 Lord." 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE FIRST WEEK. 
 
 % s 
 
 ^ET us linger in simple meditation 
 and daily fellowship with Him, 
 upon the scenes and incidents of the 
 forty days. We will look this morning 
 at the three most prominent incidents 
 of the first week after the resurrec- 
 tion. They all occurred upon the first 
 day of the week, the resurrection Sab- 
 bath. The first was the interview 
 with Mary Magdalene in the garden 
 in the early morning ; the second, the 
 walk with the two disciples in the 
 afternoon ; and the third, the appear- 
 
40 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 ing to the eleven as they waited in 
 the upper room in the evening. Each 
 has its own special lessons, — lessons 
 that will help us to realize more viv- 
 idly the presence of Him who is still 
 with us ^^all the days, even unto the 
 end of the age." 
 
 I. THE MORNINa MEETING WITH MARY 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 We have elsewhere spoken of this 
 incident as it illustrates her character. 
 Let us now refer to it as it reveals to 
 us her Blessed Lord and ours. 
 
 1. It reveals to us a Christ who 
 knows each one of us by name. The 
 most marked feature of all this inter- 
 view is the individuality of His rec- 
 ognition. There are two persons very 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 41 
 
 distinctly present. There is no doubt 
 about the personality of Christ, and 
 there is no more doubt about His per- 
 sonal love for Mary Madgalene. It is 
 true she was not prepared at once to 
 recognize Him and receive His greet- 
 ing, but the moment she was ready, 
 His heart was overflowing with the 
 one all-comprehending word, ' 'Mary !" 
 Such a Christ we still have. He call- 
 eth us each by name, and amid the 
 myriads of the universe and of His 
 own. He knows us apart and loves us 
 for ourselves. May the Lord help us 
 to fully realize this soul-inspiring con- 
 sciousness, that each one of us is 
 something to Jesus, everything that 
 we will let Him make us ! His heart 
 to us to-day is only waiting for the 
 
42 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 '^ Amen " of responsive trust. " Yea, 
 I have loved thee with an everlasting 
 love, therefore with loving- kindness 
 have I drawn thee. " Let us go forth 
 to Avrite our name, ^'the disciple 
 
 WHOM JESUS LOVED." 
 
 2. The Christ who is henceforth to 
 be revealed to her as a spiritual rather 
 than a fleshly presence. This is the 
 meaning of the caution, '' Touch me 
 not for I am not yet ascended to my 
 Father ; but go to my brethren and tell 
 them, 'I ascend to my Father and 
 your Father, to my God and your 
 God.' " This seems to be intended as 
 a gentle hint to her that she is not 
 to recognize Him and embrace Him 
 too eagerly in the earthly way, but to 
 learn to know Him as a spiritual pres- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 43 
 
 ence and as the Ascended One, by a 
 touch that can reach Him through 
 all the intervening spaces and in the 
 absence of His visible form. 
 
 There were two touches^ even when 
 He walked the earth, by which men 
 came iu contact with Him. There 
 was the touch of mere physical ap- 
 proach. To this Peter referred when 
 the nmltitude thronged Him and 
 Christ asked, '^Who touched me?" 
 ' ' Why, " Peter answered, ' ' the multi- 
 tude all touch you and throng you.' 
 ''But," said Christ, '^ Somebody 
 TOUCHED me." Christ meant another 
 sort of touch, the touch of faith and 
 spiritual recognition. And this was 
 the touch to which He was educating 
 Mary now, because it was to be the 
 
44: THE CHRIST OF 
 
 way of contact in the coming ages 
 between Him and His people ; the 
 contact which we all may have with 
 Him now. 
 
 It is very doubtful if Jesus Christ 
 appeared after His resurrection to 
 any one who did not know Him spir- 
 itually, and were He to come to us 
 to-day in His mere natural, physical 
 presence, it is doubtless if it would be 
 a real help to our spiritual commun- 
 ion. It would rather distract us from 
 that deeper inner union and fellow- 
 ship which we have with Him in 
 spirit, and awaken njerely our out- 
 ward senses to recognize Him ; and 
 were He to be perpetually with us in 
 this external aspect, the inner senses, 
 which recognize Him, would become 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 45 
 
 enervated and paralyzed for lack of 
 exercise and we would really, in our 
 present state, be separated from the 
 Lord in His highest character and 
 attributes. Therefore it was expedi- 
 ent for them that He should go away, 
 in order that the Comforter might 
 come and lead them into the higher 
 spiritual capacity and communion. 
 
 This was what He was unfolding 
 to Mary, and this is what we need to 
 understand if we would have deep 
 and ceaseless communion with our 
 Lord. When we have been made 
 perfect in this spiritual relationship 
 then we shall pass into a highei physi- 
 cal communion, corresponding to His 
 own resurrection body, and with all 
 the senses of our inner and outer bo- 
 
46 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 ing, we shall apprehend and enjoy 
 Him forever. It is the lack of this 
 higher touch which makes it so diffi- 
 cult for many to receive the healing 
 of the Lord, but it is as true as ever 
 that as many as touch Him are 
 made perfectly whole. 
 
 3. This incident reveals a Christ 
 who is identified with us in the most 
 perfect unity and brotherhood, and 
 receives us into partnership with all 
 His rights and relationships to the 
 Father. ' ' Go and tell my brethren, " 
 He says, '^ that I ascend unto my 
 Father and your Father, to my God 
 and your God." These are wonder- 
 ful words ; higher, perhaps, than wo 
 have dreamed. It is a great thing to 
 know that we are the sons of God, 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 47 
 
 but it is a greater thing to know that 
 we are the sons of God even as Jesus. 
 It is not simply that we are created 
 and born into a sonship in the Father's 
 house, but, by union with Him, we 
 are received into His Sonship with 
 the Father, and looking in the face of 
 God can say, '^My Father and His 
 Father, His God and my God." Let 
 us fully realize and not shrink from 
 the stupendous meaning of these 
 words. The very relationship which 
 Jesus sustains to His Father He has 
 given to us along with Himself ; and 
 to make it good. He has given to us 
 His own nature, His Divine nature, 
 in the measure in which we can re- 
 ceive it ; and so, with the very nature 
 and love of God Himself within us, it 
 
48 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 is true of us^ ^Uhat both he that 
 sanctifieth and they that are sancti- 
 fied are all one ; for which cause he 
 is not ashamed to call us brethren." 
 He is the Son of God as no angel or 
 other created being ever can be, the 
 Only Begotten Son of God, but it is 
 this sonship which He shares with 
 us. And so we are called, in that won- 
 derful passage in Hebrews, ' ' the first- 
 born ones." We are all recognized, 
 not as younger sons, sustaining a 
 lower i-elation to the Father ; but as 
 First-born ones, because our sonship 
 is inherited from the First-born and 
 Only-Begotten. 
 
 Let no one be startled as though 
 this was claiming equality with God. 
 No single believer is equal with 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 49 
 
 Christ, but every true disciple is part 
 of the whole Body, and the whole Body 
 is one with the Head and filled with 
 all His fullness. No single one of us 
 can hold all the fullness of Christ, but 
 the whole Body of the redeemed shall 
 hold it all, and Christ shall appear 
 throughout eternity, not apart from 
 us but as a part of us and we of Him. 
 Therefore, it is not mere resemblance 
 to Christ but identity with Christ, 
 and joint heirship with Him of God 
 and all His fullness. Therefore, He 
 says, even of His Father's love, 
 ^Hhe love wherewith thou hast loved 
 me may be in them and I in them." 
 What is the practical meaning of 
 all this ? It is manifold and marvel- 
 ous. It means that our standing and 
 
50 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 acceptance are as complete as His 
 own. It means that we may pray in 
 His Name so that it will be even as if 
 He were praying, — not we. It means 
 that all His righteousness and nature 
 and personal attributes may be im- 
 parted to us, and appropriated by us, 
 so that He Himself will literally live 
 in us. It means that we are entitled 
 to all His strength and life. It means 
 that we inherit all His glory, and shall 
 sit with Him on His throne as He sat 
 down on His Father's throne. Oh, it 
 is this that makes our love perfect, 
 even in the day of judgment, because 
 '' as He is so are we in this world ! " 
 Beloved, shall we listen from the 
 Resurrection Morning, to the echoes 
 of that message which He bade Mary 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 61 
 
 teJl US all, " My Father and your Fa- 
 ther, My God and your God," until 
 from the Father's Hps it whispers 
 back to the rejoicing heart, ^^Son, 
 thou art ever with me, and all that I 
 have is thine ? " 
 
 II. THE WALK TO EMMAUS. 
 
 It is the afternoon of the same 
 bright Sabbath. Two simple-hearted 
 men, who had been the friends of 
 Jesus, are walking from Jerusalem 
 to a little village in the country, and 
 talking of the things that have lately 
 come to pass in connection with 
 Jesus. Soon they are conscious of a 
 third, who has incidentally joined 
 them. There is iK^thing in His man- 
 ner to awaken special interest until 
 
53 THE CHRIST 01* 
 
 He begins to talk with them about 
 the theme of their conversation, and 
 gradually leads it awhile, as He 
 opens up to them, as an intelligent 
 Rabbi might be expected to do, the 
 Old Testament Scriptures concerning 
 the Messiah. Still all they are con- 
 scious of is a warmth of their hearts 
 as the light begins to break on their 
 spiritual understanding. They are 
 strongly drawn to their new compan- 
 ion and as they reach the gate of 
 their little home, they earnestly press 
 Him to tarry with them under their 
 humble roof. He consents, and pass- 
 ing in sits down with them to their 
 evening meal. Still acting as the 
 stronger spirit, tkey allow Him to 
 preside and bless the bread before 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 53 
 
 they eat. But lo ! as He breaks the 
 bread before them, the spell that had 
 bound their vision from recognizing 
 Him is broken, and suddenly they 
 behold in His face the old light and 
 expression of Jesus of Nazareth ; it 
 grows bright with the halo of His 
 heavenly glory for a moment, and 
 then He vanishes out of their sight, 
 and they look at one another with 
 amazement and joy, and know that 
 it is the Lord. 
 
 How we thank the dear Master for 
 that scene ! How near it has brought 
 Him to our lives ! How simple it has 
 made His coming and communion ! 
 How glorious to know that He is the 
 same yesterday, to-day and forever ! 
 
 h It teaches us of the incidental 
 
54 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 and casual coming of our Lord to uj 
 in all the walk-s of life. This was nc 
 set appointment, but He just droppec 
 down beside them and entered, with- 
 out introduction, into their simple 
 conversation. It tells us that still He 
 is willing to come into the ordinary 
 intercourse of our life, and is really 
 with us, in the work-shop, in the 
 kitchen, and along the busy street. 
 Nor does it need that we should be 
 illustrious and specially important, 
 for these two disciples whom He thus 
 honored are but little known. Only 
 the name of one is left us, and this 
 one cannot be certainly identified ; the 
 other we do not even possess sufficient 
 light to speculate about. Thank God 
 that we do not know them, for it hints 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 65 
 
 to US that the most obscure and com- 
 monplace of God's children may count 
 upon the recognition andcompai^on- 
 ship of Jesus in the most common- 
 ' place circumstances of their life. 
 
 " The busy mart, the communion task, 
 May furnish all we ought to ask ; 
 Room to deny ourselves— a road 
 To lead us daily nearer God.*' 
 
 2. It teaches us that He may be 
 often with us unrecognized. This is 
 not spoken of as their fault. We are 
 told that 'Hheir eyes were holden" 
 that they could not know Him, and 
 later, that ''He opened their eyes and 
 they knew Him." There is much 
 precious significance in this. The 
 Lord is often pxQSieiit in our lives in 
 things that we do not dieam possess 
 
56 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 any significance. We are asking God 
 about something which needs His 
 mighty working, and the very instru- 
 ment by which He is to work is by our 
 side, perhaps, for weeks and months ' 
 and years all unrecognized, until, sud- 
 denly, some day it grows luminous and 
 glorious with the very presence of the 
 Lord and becomes the mighty instru- 
 ment of His victorious working. He 
 loves to show His hand through the 
 unexpected. Often He keeps us from 
 seeing His way until just before He 
 opens it, and then immediately it is 
 all unfolded, and we find that He was 
 walking by our side in this very thing, 
 long before we even suspected its 
 meaning. 
 He wants us to recogidze His pres- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 67 
 
 ence where we cannot see it and where 
 nothing seems to speak of it, but" all 
 about us is ordinary and human. Oh, 
 it is in the faces and forms which seem 
 just as ordinary to us as His did to 
 them, that the Lord is often nearest 
 to us. Let us therefore walk hence- 
 forth as though every sound was the 
 foot-fall of His steps, and every per- 
 son the embodiment of Himself ! 
 
 3. It teaches us of a Christ who 
 may be always recognized by His 
 Word. For it was thus He spoke to 
 them. He might have told them of 
 much besides. He could ha ve brought 
 back with Him the secrets of the un- 
 der world from which He had just 
 come, but He gave no hint of its 
 ^wful mysteries. He might have 
 
58 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 amazed them by some picture of the 
 celestial country to which He was 
 going so soon, but He attempted not 
 to dazzle them with such visions. He 
 might have poured out some marve]- 
 ous teachings like His own incom- 
 parable parables. But no ! He simply 
 takes the old Bible and interprets it in 
 the light of the very things of which 
 they had been speaking, — His own 
 death and resurrection. S*-Beginning 
 at Moses and all the prophets He ex- 
 pounded to them from all the Scrip- 
 tures the things concerning Himself. ' 
 Thus, beloved, we can all have His 
 fellowship still, and thus we canevei 
 test every revelation and every mys- 
 tery. Does it correspond with the 
 Scriptures, and does it speak of the 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 59 
 
 things concerning Himself? How 
 wonderful it must have been to hear 
 Him expound the sacrifice of Abel, 
 the offering up of Isaac, the Brazen 
 Serpent, the Paschal Lamb, and all 
 the wondrous types that speak so elo- 
 quently of Him ! So He is willing to 
 talk with us still, and make the Bible 
 live and shine with heavenly illumi- 
 nation and vividness, until our hearts 
 shall burn within us as He talks with 
 us by the way. It is thus, beloved, 
 that the presence of Jesus is revealed. 
 The Bible becomes a new book, a book 
 for our hearts, and a book full of our 
 living Saviour. Oh, that He may 
 come to us these forty days, and thus 
 open to us its deeper mysteries of 
 life and truth, and its meaning for 
 
60 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 our generation and our own life and 
 work ; for this book is something to 
 you that it is not to another, and some- 
 thing for our day that it never was to 
 the world before ; and in order to 
 make it so, we must have the living 
 Christ Himself, to open it to us and 
 to open our understandings to re- 
 ceive its light. 
 
 4. This incident teaches, however, 
 something more than even the pre- 
 cious word of Christ, for it tells us of 
 His actual manifestation to them. 
 As He blessed and brake the bread 
 ' ' they knew Him. " Oh, there is such 
 a thing as this, — the actual revealing 
 of Christ in His personality to the 
 soul, until it knows for itself, with 
 the consciousness that none can gain- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 61 
 
 say, that He has been there. It is 
 not simply the consciousness of His 
 presence in the heart by the Holy 
 Spirit, for this we may always have ; 
 but there is a direct revealing of 
 Christ as a Presence greater than our 
 hearts, or all hearts — a presence that 
 sometimes is specially made manifest 
 for His own wise purpose to the tried 
 or waiting heart. Sometimes He 
 comes a little nearer in His own glori- 
 ous majesty, and makes the spirit feel 
 that He has passed by in all His as- 
 cended glory, and laid His hand upon 
 us and done something for us as 
 mighty as His own omnipotence. So 
 sometimes He came to the Apostles. 
 Such was that day when He visited 
 Paul on the way to Damascus and 
 
62 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 conquered him by a look and word of 
 love, and then sent him for ever more 
 on his new and heavenly way, a flam- 
 ing torch of light and love. So, too. 
 He came in His great life work, occa- 
 sionally, in hours of crisis, to the 
 apostle and made him understand 
 that the Master had been there for a 
 brief moment and spoken the decisive 
 word which turned the course of all 
 the coming years. So He came to him 
 at Corinth in the moment of his de- 
 pression and said, '^ Fear not, for I am 
 with thee, and no man shall set on 
 thee to hurt thee, for I have much 
 people in this city." So, again. He 
 came to him in that dark hour when 
 he had just passed through the awful 
 scenes of his arrest in Jerusalem and 
 
THE FORTY :OAYS 63 
 
 his trial before the Sanhedrim, and 
 said, ^'Fear not, Paul, for as thou 
 hast testified of me at Jerusalem so 
 must thou also bear witness of me at 
 Rome." So, again, on the Adriatic, 
 in that wild hurricane. He stood for 
 a moment on the midnight deck and 
 gave the word which brought all that 
 crew to land. And so in the court of 
 Nero, when all forsook him ; and in 
 the Coliseum, when . the lions con- 
 fronted him, he said, ^^The Lord^ 
 stood by me and strengthened me, 
 and I was delivered out of the mouth 
 of the lion." 
 
 So still He comes to us at times, 
 just for a moment, perhaps, but that 
 moment is enough to heal our bodies 
 from the wreck of disease, to rescue 
 
64: THE CHRIST OF 
 
 US from some hour of extremity or 
 peril, or to cover all the future with 
 blessing and power. He knows when 
 we need the mighty visitation. We 
 may not see it with our outward eyes, 
 but the soul will be conscious that He 
 has passed by, and that things can 
 never be again as they have been be- 
 fore, and over all our life is written 
 Jehovah Shammah. Blessed promise 
 for every loving disciple, —Lord, help 
 us to claim it for ourselves, and do 
 thou make it real to every one of us 
 some time during these Forty Days,^ 
 '^ If a man love me he will keep my 
 words, and I will love him and will 
 manifest myself unto him." 
 
 5. This incident teaches us that the 
 manifestation of Christ's special pres- 
 
THK FORTY DAYS 65 
 
 ence is transient and is speedily with- 
 drawn ; and so the moment th^y rec- 
 ognize Him He vanishes out of their 
 sight. Had He Hngered^ they would 
 have been thrown off the former plane 
 of f aith^ and disarmed for the simpler 
 walk to which He called them. One 
 glimpse was enough for the present, 
 and in the memory of that look they 
 must walk in simple trust, even as 
 the mariner on the voyage catches 
 one glimpse of the star and sails by 
 that one glimpse for days on the path- 
 less sea. For ' ' we walk by faith not 
 by sight/' and 'Hhough now we see 
 Him not, yet behoving we rejoice with 
 joy unspeakable and full of glory." 
 
66 THU CHRIST OF 
 
 III. THE MEETING IN THE UPPER ROOM 
 
 WITH THE ELEVEN. 
 
 • 
 
 This is the sequel of the afternoon 
 and follows close upon it. It is in- 
 tended, therefore, to teach still further 
 lessons about the Eisen Lord. It is 
 the incident recorded by both Luke 
 and John of the evening of the first 
 day of His Eesurrection. Through 
 the closed doors of the Upper Koom 
 He quietly entered, and spreading out 
 His hands in benediction He twice 
 repeated the gracious word, '^ Peace 
 be unto you ; " and then added, ''As 
 the Father hath sent me, even so send 
 I you; '' and breathing upon them said, 
 ''Receive ye the Holy Ghost." In 
 this interview, also. He made His 
 physical identity very real and cer- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 67 
 
 tain to their doubting hearts. ^'He 
 showed them His hands and His^feet/' 
 and ate among them as of old. From 
 this dehghtful incident we learn for 
 our comfort : — 
 
 1. That Jesus Christ has physical 
 life and has a real body just like our 
 own, with every member and organ 
 complete, even in His glorified hu- 
 manity. This gives intense reality 
 to the conception of our Lord. He 
 is no shadowy apparition, but the act- 
 •ual flesh and even bones, which they 
 could handle and see, and which 
 could partake of food. This body 
 was the real subject of the resurrec- 
 tion, for His spirit had never died ; 
 and this body is the type and pledge 
 of our resurrection in the body, and 
 
68 THE CHRIST 05* 
 
 the source of that physical heahng 
 which we now may draw from Him 
 as the foretaste and earnest of our 
 own future resurrection. 
 
 2. We learn, also, that His body is 
 infinitely spiritualized and exalted 
 a.bove even its former state. It is 
 the same body, but it is unspeakably 
 finer, mightier and more glorious. 
 The same piece of steel may be re- 
 fined from the ordinary nail to the 
 exquisite hair spring, but it is still 
 the same. Nay, it could even be 
 converted into vapor by chemistry, 
 but it would still have the property 
 of matter. It could become intan- 
 gible to the touch, and invisible to 
 the eye, and be simply an ethereal 
 fluid, and then it could be* trans- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 6& 
 
 formed again to the solid state. We 
 know yet but little of the converti- 
 bility of matter, and what we know 
 is a coarse illustration, - almost un- 
 worthy of the subject before us, — of 
 Christ's body. We may not under- 
 stand all the properties of the Eesur- 
 rection, but let us reverently believe 
 the simple facts, and believingly re- 
 ceive the life of our glorious Head 
 who has made us members of His 
 body, His flesh, and His bones. 
 
 3. The Christ of this beautiful pic- 
 ture is the Messenger of Peace to 
 our troubled hearts. The secret of 
 rest is to receive the risen Christ 
 and accept His two-fold peace. First, 
 peace with God on the ground of His 
 comj)lete atonement ; and, secondly, 
 
70 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 ^^the peace of God which passeth all 
 understanding," through His indwell- 
 ing presence as the rest of our 
 troubled hearts. 
 
 4. Not only peace, but power, is the 
 gift of the Living One. ' ' He breathed 
 on them and said, 'Receive ye the 
 Holy Ghost.'" This was the begin- 
 ning of Pentecost, but not its fullness. 
 It is from the lips of Jesus that we 
 must ever receive the fullness of the 
 Comforter, even as His very breath ; 
 and so He waits to breathe on each 
 of us, as oft as He touches us, the 
 fresh anointing of the very same 
 Spirit who dwelt in Him and who 
 comes to us colored, softened, sweet- 
 ened by His indwelling in the blessed 
 Jesus and as the very Spirit of Jesus, 
 
THE FORTY DAYS Yl 
 
 This is our power, and this power we 
 must receive by appropriating faith, 
 and its faithful appropriation to His 
 service and glory. 
 
 5. The great commission for service 
 of course accompanies the promise 
 and touch of power. '' As the Father 
 hath sent me even so send I you." 
 Indeed, this is the great object of all 
 the manifestations of the Eisen Christ. 
 To each of the disciples He either di- 
 rectly gives, or at least intimates, the 
 same great obligation to bear to others 
 the blessing which they cannot keep 
 for themselves without losing it. Oh, 
 let us realize that this Christ of the 
 Forty Days is the Christ who is reach- 
 ing out to all who know Him not, and 
 who would be impatient of us if we 
 
72 . THE CHRIST OP 
 
 were content to receive His blessing 
 for ourselves alone. He sends us 
 forth with His blessing, clothes us 
 with His own authority, gives us His 
 very own Name and power. The 
 Lord help us to be faithful to Him 
 below as He faithfully represents us 
 before His Father above. 
 
 And so these three appearings rep- 
 resent three calls. The first is His com- 
 ing to the individual ; the second, His 
 coming to the little company, and the 
 third, to the assembled congregation 
 of believers. So still He comes to us 
 alone, comes in our friendships and 
 family circle, and comes in the as- 
 sembly of His saints. 
 
 Again, the first was His coming as 
 a friend, the second as a teacher, tho 
 
THE FORTY DAYS Y3 
 
 third as a Master to send forth His 
 disciples to His work. And, finally, 
 the first emphasizes the Christ Him- 
 self, the second His Word, and the 
 third His Spirit. 
 
 And now, in conclusion, what does 
 all this mean for us to-day? Not 
 only, beloved, that these forty days 
 may be prolonged for us until His 
 coming again, but, perhaps, that in 
 these last times they may be specially 
 repeated as the precursors of His Sec- 
 ond Coming. For as He gradually 
 and slowly withdrew from earth, lin- 
 gering those forty days from the 
 Cross to the Throne, so gradually will 
 He return ; and before we see Him in 
 the clouds we shall be conscious of a 
 nearer presence on the earth below. 
 
74 ' THE CHRIST OF 
 
 It is said that a Eussian Emperor 
 used to visit incognito all parts of his 
 realm, that he might know his people 
 and be able rightly to rule them. 
 Were it strange that blessed Christ 
 should even now be passing to and 
 fro about this earth, on many a special 
 inspection, before He erects His 
 Throne and calls His Cabinet around 
 Him from the men and women whom 
 He has proved and tried ? We know 
 that Nehemiah, as he returned to 
 Jerusalem, went out alone and sur- - 
 veyed the ruined city, and then sum- 
 moned his hosts to restore it ; and so 
 Christ, even to-day, in the dark night 
 of the ages, is walking about Zion 
 surveying her bulwarks and her 
 ruined towers, and preparing for her 
 
THE FORTY DAYS ^5 
 
 Restoration in Millennial glory. Oh, 
 that we may know Him now and be 
 with Him then, that we may not miss 
 the Morning Star, and so be up in 
 time to pass full-robed into the Wed- 
 ding Feast with the Risen Sun of 
 Righteousness on that Millennial Day 
 which is drawing nigh ! Amen. 
 
 ^3^ 
 W 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE SECOND WEEK. 
 
 THE UNBELIEVING DISCIPLE. 
 
 ^;xHE meeting on the first Sab- 
 t bath evening in the upper cham- 
 ber had found one disciple absent. 
 '^Thomas called Didymus was not 
 with them when Jesus came." The 
 disciples seem to have sought him 
 during the days that followed, and 
 carried to him, in his discouragement 
 and despondency, the joyful tidings 
 of the Master's appearing. But his 
 true and tender heart, just because it 
 loved so much, was unable to take in 
 
THE FORTY DAYS ITY 
 
 the message which seemed too 
 good to be true ; and with an obsti- 
 nacy born not only of self-will and 
 unbelief 5 but also, perhaps, in some 
 measure, of a love that would not 
 dare to trust its hopes to anything 
 less than absolute certainty, he de- 
 clared, ''Except I shall see in His 
 hands the prints of the nails, and 
 thrust my hand into His side, I will 
 not believe." At length the week is 
 past, and the following First Day 
 evening finds them again assembled 
 to talk about the one absorbing theme. 
 Suddenly, as before, Jesus reveals 
 Himself in their midst, and instantly 
 approaching Thomas, He holds out to 
 him His hands and opens His garment 
 for him to thrust his fingers into His 
 
78 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 once wounded side. The act is, doubt- 
 less, free from all severity or even 
 suggestion of harshness and censori- 
 ousness. With tenderest condescen- 
 sion, He seems to entirely look over the 
 obstinate unreasonableness of the dis- 
 ciple, and to be anxious only to remove 
 his difficulties and to help him to be- 
 lieve, for He adds, ^'Be not faithless 
 but believing." But Thomas is over- 
 whelmed, not so much by the physi- 
 cal evidences presented to him, as by 
 the heart-searching omniscience of his 
 Lord and the tender grace that has so 
 submitted to his proud and unbeliev- 
 Tiig demands ; and refusing, it would 
 seem, to accept the proffered evidence, 
 he throws himself at his Master's feet, 
 with one adoring cry, '^My Lord and 
 
• THE FORTY DAYS 79 
 
 my God. " And as Jesus beholds him 
 He adds with gentle reproof, and yet 
 benediction, ^'Thomas, because thou 
 hast seen me, thou hast believed; 
 blessed are they that have not seen 
 and yet have believed." 
 
 What are the lessons of this beauti- 
 ful scene for us, and how does the 
 Lord still reproduce this incident of 
 the Forty Days in our lives ? 
 
 1. It reveals a Christ who specially 
 recognizes and honors the Sabbath 
 Day. 
 
 True, it was not the Hebrew Sab- 
 bath, but the first day of the week ; 
 but advisedly we call it the Sabbath, 
 for it has undoubtedly taken the place 
 of the hallowed Old Testament Sab- 
 bath, and surely the name is prefera- 
 
80 THE CfiRlST 0^ 
 
 ble to the heathen Sunday, called after 
 one of the gods of the Anglo-Saxons. 
 Of course, ^Hhe Lord's Day "is the 
 sweetest name, but we cannot always 
 force it into the phraseology of cur- 
 rent speech ; and between the two 
 names which usually denote the day, 
 it certainly is preferable to use the 
 Bible name where we cannot, without 
 pedantry, employ the simpler '^Lord's 
 Day " of the New Testament. Christ 
 has undoubtedly taught us that He is 
 Lord of the Sabbath Day, and as its 
 Lord He has adopted it and modified 
 it by a change of time and a change 
 and elevation of its spirit and signifi- 
 cation. There can be no doubt that 
 among the instructions which he gave 
 to His disciples during the Forty Days, 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 81 
 
 when we are told that *^ He spake to 
 them of the things pertaining to the 
 kingdom of God," the Lord revealed 
 to them abundant reasons and gave 
 them authoritative commands for the 
 change of the day, or their own prac- 
 tice would not have been changed, as 
 we find that it was. So for us their 
 conduct is conclusive of something 
 back of it, namely, His own explicit 
 injunctions. 
 
 We believe, therefore, that He took 
 the Old Testament Sabbath, which 
 had come down through the ages and 
 passed through Judaism, a tempo- 
 rary dispensation that for a time 
 linked itself with the Sabbath which 
 was much older, and that he incor- 
 porated it into the New Testament 
 
82 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 system, with the added significance 
 of His Resurrection and the appro- 
 priate change from the day that only 
 signaUzed the finishing of creation, 
 to that which expressed the beginning 
 of the new creation which the resur- 
 rection of Jesus has introduced ; and 
 as He designed it to possess a special 
 significance. He Himself observed it 
 with the most sacred emphasis. 
 
 It is very impressive that he should 
 have held Himself from the presence 
 of His brethren for an entire week, 
 that He might mark the more em- 
 phatically His coming the second time 
 on this dL.y. All His previous appear- 
 ings had been on the same day the 
 previous week, and He allows the 
 long interval of six days to pass, not- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 83 
 
 withstanding all their longing to be- 
 hold Him again, and the affectionate 
 interest of His own loving heart to 
 them, that He might come to them 
 again on the first day and signalize 
 their meeting in the upper chamber 
 as the foundation of the permanent 
 worship of the future church. 
 
 Wise and happy are they who thus 
 imitate their Lord and separate this 
 hallowed day from other days unto 
 Him and His fellowship and service ! 
 The scrupulous observance of the 
 Lord's day will always be found to be 
 a test of consistent Christian living, 
 and a source and channel of strength 
 and grace for all the week. The coun- 
 tries that have desecrated the Lord's 
 day are marked by irreligion, immo- 
 
84 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 rality and national decline, and 
 those that honor God's day are corre- 
 spondingly blessed. And the individ- 
 uals who hold this sacred day distinct 
 from secular care and occupation will 
 always find that it is the key to a 
 happy, holy and successful week, and 
 that they who rob it of its rest and 
 sacredness rob themselves and not the 
 altar of their God. Like the best room 
 of our house, it should be kept apart 
 from the work-bench and the imple- 
 ments and employments of our secu- 
 lar toil, and as we would not bring the 
 kitchen and the shop into our parlor, 
 so let us not take our bartering and 
 bargaining, our secular cares and 
 plans, our newspapers and our letter- 
 writing, and all the confusion and tur- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 85 
 
 moil of the week into its inner cham- 
 ber, which, hke the ancient Holy of 
 Holies, should be for the Lord alone 
 and the choicest blessings of His pres- 
 ence and communion. It is not the 
 sanction of law that makes it sacred, 
 but the higher law of love and blessing 
 which Jesus has brought to it. It is 
 the day we keep for Him, and we maj 
 be very sure it is the day that He keeps 
 for us and the day in which He comes, 
 above all others, to meet His own in 
 His own sacred courts and in their 
 secret closets. Let us remember, 
 therefore, that the Christ of the Forty 
 Days is still the Christ pre-eminently 
 of the First Day, whose presence and 
 benediction will still overshadow, 
 until the end of time, the Christian 
 
86 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 Sabbath and make it the Day of days. 
 
 2. The Christ of the Forty Days is 
 one who comes on the Sabbath to 
 speak to the very hearts and consci- 
 ences and experiences of His disciples. 
 
 He is one who knows what they 
 have been doing all the week and 
 what they have been thinking and 
 saying. He had missed Thomas that 
 former Sabbath evening, and knew 
 well what it was going to cost Him. 
 He had heard his willful words and 
 unbelief during the week in answer 
 to his brethren. He shows him that 
 He knows all his sin and doubt. And 
 so still He meets us on this day and 
 in His house. Have we not often 
 wondered as we felt our hearts un- 
 veiled and our inmost thoughts re- 
 
THE FORTY BAYS 87 
 
 vealed by some message from His ser- 
 vant that seemed to show us all we 
 ever did, and almost to be the echo of 
 our own thoughts during the days 
 that had passed before ? Perhaps we 
 had instinctively felt that somebody 
 had been reporting our words or our 
 acts to the preacher. Perhaps the 
 very question that we have been ask- 
 ing and wishing somebody would 
 answer, comes back to us in the light 
 of His word, as spoken by one who 
 knew not of our thoughts, and we 
 wonder and adore, like Thomas, at the 
 feet of Him whose '^word is quick 
 and powerful, sharper than any two- 
 edged sword, piercing even to the 
 dividing asunder of the soul and 
 spirit, and of the joints and mar- 
 
88 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 row,and is a discerner of the thoughts 
 and intents of the heart. Neither is 
 there any creature that is not mani- 
 fest in His sight, but all things are 
 naked and open to Him with whom 
 we have to do." 
 
 Nor is this always accompanied by 
 a sense of reproof and condemnation, 
 for it is most comforting to know 
 that we are in the presence of One 
 who has already diagnosed our disease 
 and laid His hand upon the sore that 
 He might heal it, and we feel like add- 
 ing with the Apostle, ^' Let us, there- 
 fore, come boldly to the throne of 
 grace that we may obtain mercy and 
 find grace to help in time of need." 
 
 It is very touching to notice how 
 promptly the Master went at once to 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 89 
 
 Thomas. The very first that He 
 sought out was the one who was 
 troubled and perplexed. And so this 
 morning if there be a heart that has a 
 single care or questioning, it is to this 
 one that He is coming now with help 
 and blessing. He has light for your 
 perplexity, strength for your weak- 
 ness, comfort for your sorrow, love 
 for your loneliness and supply for all 
 your need. For His blessing is always 
 in season and exactly suited to the 
 very need of the present moment. 
 Let us, therefore, bring Him even our 
 darkest doubts, our deepest despond- 
 encies, our most unworthy thoughts, 
 the things we naturally would seek to 
 hide ; for He knows all already and 
 has come to deliver us from them and 
 
90 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 bring us grace and help in the time of 
 need; that is, the very grace we need 
 to-day. 
 
 3. We learn from this story that the 
 Christ of the Forty Days is a Christ 
 of infinite patience and tenderness to 
 the doubting and even to the sinning. 
 
 How gentle His treatment of 
 Thomas, — how free from all upbraid- 
 ing! how careful He was to avoid 
 every irritation and offence, and to 
 withold the gentle reproof He did ut- 
 ter until Thomas was restored ! He 
 even condescended to meet His im- 
 perious demand literally and fully, 
 and conceded all that Thomas claimed. 
 He knew it was not the highest kind 
 of faith to give Thomas, but He gave 
 him what he asked and then told him 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 91 
 
 how much better the higher faith 
 would have been. How gently He 
 has led us all ! How many times He 
 has answered prayer in temporal 
 things for us as the sign of His will- 
 ingness to do greater things, and given 
 us evidences of His love and care, to 
 nurture our faith to higher ventures 
 and achievements ! How tenderly He 
 has borne with us in our backslidings 
 and our unbeliefs ! How much He 
 has done for our imperfect faith ! 
 How often He has forgiven our un- 
 worthy doubts, and even, when our 
 faith failed, did not suffer His faith- 
 fulness to fail, so leading us on gently 
 until we had learned to trust Him in 
 some measure worthy of His faithful- 
 ness,love and power. If there be only 
 
92 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 anhonestpurpose,Hewill take the faith 
 that is just as a grain of mustard seed, 
 and cherish it into maturity and do 
 exceedingly abundantly above all its 
 deserving. 
 
 Even the honest sceptic is not re- 
 jected from His mercy, and held in so 
 far as he will follow the light he al- 
 ready possesses. The prayer, ^'God 
 help me if there be a God," if it is all 
 the prayer the doubting can offer will 
 not be in vain, as has been sometimes 
 strangely proved. The soul strug- 
 gling from old traditions into the full- 
 ness of the gospel, and slowly letting 
 go its limitations and prejudices, need 
 not be discouraged if it does not get all 
 at once into freedom. The Master will 
 take all that you can give and will 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 93 
 
 lead you further if you will follow on. 
 The suffering one, who has caught 
 a glimmer of the light of the healing 
 power of the Great Physician, need 
 not fear that he will be rejected be- 
 cause he is struggling with doubts 
 and fears. Only follow the light that 
 is clear, and press on into all that is 
 added, and ' ' ye shall know if ye follow . 
 on to know the Lord.'' '' He will not 
 break the bruised reed nor quench the 
 smoking flax," nor will he, amid all 
 your fluctuations, *^ fail or be discour- 
 aged with you till He shall have 
 brought forth judgment into vic- 
 tory." Blessed, patient Christ, how 
 thou hast borne with us! How thou 
 hast lifted us up when we were fallen, 
 and brought us back from our stum- 
 
94 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 bling and ''established our goings !" 
 Oh, help us to be more like thee in 
 our gentleness and patience with them 
 that are out of the way ! 
 
 4. This incident teaches us that the 
 true answer to all our doubts and diffi- 
 culties is the revelation of Christ 
 Himself. 
 
 Jesus healed Thomas of his scepti- 
 cism, not by reasoning with him, but 
 by showing him Himself. He reached 
 out and showed to him the marks of 
 the nails, and opened His bosom and 
 said, /'Eeach hither your hand and 
 thrust it into my side and feel, if you 
 will, the very beating of my heart." 
 And Thomas needed no more ; he had 
 seen the Lord, he had felt His living 
 flesh, and, above all, he had realized 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 95 
 
 His heart-searching omniscience and 
 he was satisfied. 
 
 This is the answer to all our doubts 
 and questionings. This is the an- 
 swer God has given. For ^^ God, who 
 at sundry times and in divers man- 
 ners spake in time past unto the fa- 
 thers by the prophets, hath in these 
 last days spoken unto us by His Son. " 
 Jesus Christ is God's last word to us. 
 The sceptic is not going to be con- 
 vinced by your reasoning, but by 
 God's Christ. Show him the Lord 
 Jesus, the marvelous though simple 
 story of His life, the vivid picture of 
 His death, but above all the tost).- 
 mony of His Eesurrection, and the 
 revelation of His living presence and 
 power to-day among His people as 
 
96 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 the unchanging Christ of the Forty 
 Days, and He, too, will say, '^ My Lord 
 and my God." 
 
 Christ wants us to show Him to 
 the world. Our argument is not our 
 logic and theology, but our Lord Him- 
 self. ''Ye shall be witnesses unto 
 me." This is all He needs, that we 
 shall tell about Him and make Him 
 real to men. This also is the solution 
 of all the sinner's difficulties. You 
 cannot save him by preaching theol- 
 ogy to him, but show him Christ, his 
 crucified, living, welcoming Saviour, 
 and all his doubts have fled. This 
 is the solution of all questions about 
 sanctification. We may seek for 
 blessings and experiences, for states 
 and conditions, and find that we have 
 
^THE FORTY DAYS 97 
 
 to go over it all again and again ; but 
 let us only see Jesus ^^made unto us 
 of God our wisdom, righteousness, 
 sanctification and redemption," and 
 we are satisfied, and go forth with 
 the joyful cry, ^^I live, yet not I but 
 Christ liveth in me." "I can do all 
 things through Christ that strength- 
 eneth me." 
 
 This is the solution of all questions 
 about healing. It is not enough to 
 know the theory and doctrine : we 
 must behold the life and receive it 
 from Him. Let us but see Jesus as 
 our Eisen Lord and our Living Head, 
 and ourselves as '* members of His 
 body. His flesh and His bones," and 
 our physical being shall be baptized 
 into His life and fullness, and go forth 
 
98 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 with all-sufficient springs of heavenly 
 life. This is the answer to all our 
 difficulties with circumstances, in our 
 work for Christ and our earthly trials. 
 Let us but see the Master's hand in all, 
 and above all let us only behold the 
 Captain marching upon the field, and 
 lo ! our fears are gone, and we begin 
 to shout, '^Thanks be unto God who 
 giveth us the victory through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 Beloved, this Christ is standing by 
 your side to-day, unrecognized so long. 
 He cries to you, ^' Behold me standing 
 at the door and knocking ! If any 
 nian will hear my voice, and open the 
 door, I will come into him and sup 
 with him and he with me." Look 
 away to Him from yourself, from 
 
THE FORTY BAYS 99 
 
 your troubles, from your doubts, from 
 your theories ! It is a person you 
 need, and this person is the Christ of 
 the Gospel, the Christ of the Forty 
 Days, the Christ who is ^Hhe same 
 yesterday, to-day and forever," and 
 the Christ who is hovering over you 
 now and waiting to possess your heart 
 forever. 
 
 5. The Christ of the Forty Days is 
 Divine, 
 
 ''My Lord and my God" was the 
 testimony of the man who had doubt- 
 ed, and whose doubts were in one mo- 
 ment turned into a testimony which 
 would be blasphemy if applied to 
 any one else than God. This expres- 
 sion, Lord, signifies the place of su- 
 . pi*eme control and government over 
 
100 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 all nature and providence ; and the 
 other word, God, is expressive of the 
 absoluteness of God in His Divine na- 
 ture as the external and supreme Cre- 
 ator and All-sufficient and Almighty- 
 One. Thomas recognizes the glorious 
 presence before him as no less than 
 the eternal God, the God of the Old 
 Testament in all the majesty of His re- 
 vealing, the God of nature and provi- 
 dence in all the glory of His power and 
 dominion. Oh, it is much for us to 
 fully realize that this is indeed the 
 name and character of our Christ ! 
 This was what Peter meant that day 
 when he stood before the proud San- 
 hedrim and declared that '^ God hath 
 made this Jesus, whom ye have cruci- 
 fied, both Lord and Christ." He saw 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 101 
 
 Him, that hour, the supreme and ma- 
 jestic Lord of nature and of men, hold- 
 ing in His hand the very hves of the 
 men before him, and having all power 
 in heaven and in earth. It is one 
 thing for us to say these words ; it is 
 another, in our inmost being to real- 
 ize, in our quickened consciousness, 
 we are talking to One and intimately 
 linked with One who holds in His 
 hand this moment all events and des 
 tinies. 
 
 It is He of whom Isaiah says, ^^ All 
 nations before Him are counted as 
 nothing ; He taketh up the isles as a 
 very little thing. The Creator of the 
 ends of the earth f ainteth not, neither 
 is weary; there is no searching of His 
 understanding." Oh, beloved, is this 
 
102 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 Christ our Christ? Does He stand 
 over against our difficulties and above 
 our adversaries, and have we crowned 
 Him Lord of all ? The secret of this 
 for us means that He has become our 
 Lord and our God. 
 
 6. This Christ expects our implicit 
 faith. 
 
 Two kinds of faith He speaks of 
 here. " Thomas, thou hast seen and 
 hast believed." This He does not 
 despise ; but accepts it, such as it is, 
 but on it He pronounces no high ben- 
 ediction. It is the faith that has 
 sprung from sight and reached its 
 conclusion from outward evidence. 
 But there is another aim, — a higher 
 faith. Upon this He pronounces an 
 everlasting blessing as He looks into 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 103 
 
 our faces in these coming ages, upon 
 everyone who will meet this bene- 
 diction: ^^ Blessed is he who has not 
 seen and yet has believed." He 
 doubtless means that it would have 
 been better for Thomas to have be- 
 lieved the testimony of his brethren, 
 even before he saw his Lord ; then, 
 indeed, would he have received a 
 blessing which perhaps none of them 
 had received. He had an opportunity, 
 given perhaps to none other, of be- 
 lieving before he beheld a manifesta- 
 tion of Christ. All the others 
 seemed to have beheld him for them- 
 selveb before they believed. Thomas 
 might have believed on their word, 
 and had this mighty blessing, but he 
 missed it and it passed over to us in 
 
104 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 later times. Happy they that have 
 claimed it ! Happy we if we shall 
 always claim it, and venturing out 
 on the simple word of our God shall 
 always dare to take Him by simple 
 faith before we see the moving of 
 His hand or the evidences of His 
 power, aud even shout with the He- 
 brew prophet, '^Though the fig-tree 
 shall not blossom, nor fruit be on 
 the vine, yet will I rejoice in the 
 Lord and glory in the God of my 
 salvation." 
 
 Is there anyone reading these words 
 who is yet unsaved? Beloved, the 
 greatest blessing of your existence is 
 before you ! Will you take Him at 
 His word and dare this moment to 
 believe that as you go to Him in your 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 105 
 
 unworthiness and helplessness, He 
 does not cast you out, but now re- 
 ceives you and saves you according 
 to His word? Blessed art thou at 
 this very moment ! Thou hast not 
 seen, but thou shalt see, the glory 
 and the grace of God. Is there any 
 one reading these words, who has 
 not believed His mighty promise of 
 deliverance from sin and perfect 
 keeping through His indwelling pres- 
 ence and Holy Spirit ? Beloved, He 
 bids you take Him this moment at 
 His mighty word if you but yield 
 yourself and claim it. '^ If we con- 
 fess our sins He is faithful and just 
 to forgive us our sins and cleanse us 
 from all unrighteousness." ^'Now 
 are ye clean through the word that I 
 
106 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 have spoken unto you." ^' The blood 
 of Jesus Christ (God's Son) cleanseth 
 us from all sin." ^^Come ye out 
 from among them and be ye separate 
 and I will receive you. For I will 
 dwell in them, and walk in them, and 
 I will be their Father, and they shall 
 be my sons and my daughters, saith 
 the Lord God Almighty." ^^I will 
 put my Spirit within you, and cause 
 you to walk in my statutes, and ye 
 shall keep my judgments. " Will you 
 believe these promises just now with- 
 out waiting for some internal evi- 
 dences or some manifested fruit in 
 your life ? Will you dare to believe 
 that God becomes this to you this 
 very hour, and until your life-work 
 is done ? Will you press forward and 
 
THE FORTY DAYS lOT 
 
 hold fast the profession of your faith 
 without wavering ? Blessed art thou ! 
 for thou hast not seen, and yet hast 
 believed, and already He is about to 
 answer your trust by the witnessing 
 voice of His Holy Spirit and the joy 
 of His full salvation. 
 
 Is there anyone reading these words 
 who has longed to feel the power of 
 His touch in your body, and been 
 waiting for some external sign or 
 manifestation before fully resting 
 and abandoning yourself to His 
 power ? Beloved, will you not ven- 
 ture to trust Him who ^^ Himself 
 took our infirmities and carried our 
 sickness ? " Is not this enough ? Will 
 you not roll them on Him this very 
 hour? ^'The prayer of faith shall 
 
108 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 save the sick." Will you not spring 
 to meet this promise, and dare to be- 
 lieve that the Lord does raise you up ? 
 ^'When ye pray believe that ye re- 
 ceive the things that ye ask." Will 
 you so receive ? Blessed art thou al- 
 ready, trusting one ! blessed far more 
 in the trusting than the answer that 
 is coming, surely coming, for that is 
 not the blessing ; it is not that He is 
 going to give you the thing that you 
 trusted for but it is that He can trust 
 you, that He can take you into the 
 place of His confidential ones, and 
 rejoice in you as one that can trust 
 your God without reserve, and to 
 whom He can confide the banner of 
 His conflict and His testimony before 
 the world. 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 109 
 
 Is there anyone reading these hnes 
 who has long been wandering why 
 his prayers have not been answered, 
 and waiting for some evidence in the 
 providence of God? Beloved, God 
 has delayed the evidence to give you 
 the opportunity for your greatest 
 blessings, but wants you to be one of 
 the heroes of faith who will stand in 
 the forlorn hope and the front of 
 the battle, following at your Leader's 
 command, although no other soldier 
 may stand by your side and no way 
 may seem possible through those 
 ranks and foes. God help you not 
 to miss your opportunity and your 
 chaplet of victory ! Press out to meet 
 your Captain. ' ' Said not I unto thee, ' ' 
 He cries, 'Hhat if thou wouldest be- 
 
110 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 lieve thou shouldest see the glory of 
 God ? " Lift up this very moment the 
 hands that hang down, and strength- 
 en the feeble knees ! '^ Believe your 
 God, so shall ye be established ; be- 
 lieve His word, so shall ye prosper." 
 Send forth the choirs of praise into 
 the front of the battle. Claim your 
 answer and declare your victory, and 
 already your own heart will feel the 
 march of the Conqueror and His 
 benediction on your head. ^' Blessed 
 is he that hath not seen and yet hath 
 believed. ' ' This power to believe God, 
 when we have nothing but God to 
 believe, is itself blessing. It is said 
 of Abraham that he was like Him 
 whom he believed, who '^calleth the 
 things that are not as though they 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 111 
 
 were." Faith is a kind of God-like- 
 ness. 
 
 Let us not miss our opportunity 
 and God's expectation of us ! Has 
 He not a right, after all His patience, 
 after His love, after all His power, 
 after all His revealing of Himself to 
 us, to expect our perfect trust, and 
 shall He not have it henceforth from 
 all our hearts in all our ways 3 
 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE LORD'S MESSAGE TO THE UNBELIEV- 
 ING CHURCH. 
 
 "Afterward He appeared unto the eleven 
 as they sat at meat, and upbraided them 
 with their unbelief and hardness of heart, 
 because they believed not them which had 
 seen Him after He was risen. And He said 
 unto them, Go ye into all the world, and 
 preach the Gospel to every creature. He 
 that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, 
 but he that believeth not shall be damned." 
 Luke xvi : 14 16. 
 
 fHIS interview was probably the se- 
 quel to the incident in connection 
 with the restoration of Thomas. It 
 could not have occurred on the first 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 113 
 
 Sabbath of the Eesurrection, because 
 we are told that ^'He appeared unto 
 the eleven as they sat at meat," and 
 there were not eleven disciples at the 
 first interview. Thomas was absent. 
 At the same time it was an early in- 
 terview after the resurrection ; audit, 
 undoubtedly, seems to have been the 
 one, the first part of which has been 
 already described in connection with 
 Thomas. The sentence with which 
 it is introduced in Mark, respecting 
 His upbraiding them with their hard- 
 ness of heart and unbelief, because 
 they believed not them to whom He 
 had appeared after His resurrection, 
 seems very significantly to apply to 
 Thomas, and what the Lord said to 
 him at that time, The words which 
 
114 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 follow in Mark are probably the con- 
 cluding messages of the interview, as, 
 turning from Thomas to the other ten, 
 He gave them this great commission, 
 and the credentials of His power, say- 
 ing, ''Go ye into all the world, and 
 preach the Gospel to every creature. 
 He that believeth and is baptized shall 
 be saved; but he that believeth not 
 shall be damned. And these signs 
 shall follow them that believe : in my 
 name shall they cast out devils ; they 
 shall speak with i_aw tongues ; they 
 shall take up serpents ; and if they 
 drink any deadly thing, it shall not 
 hurt them ; they shall lay hands on 
 the sick and they shall recover." 
 
 This is His message to the Church 
 under the Christian Dispensation. It 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 115 
 
 must be in force until all the world is 
 evangelized, and it must be taken to 
 gether and not piecemeal; and so long 
 as the command to preach the Gospel 
 to every creature is in force, so long, 
 also must the promises of Christ's co- 
 operating and supernatural power be, 
 also, regarded as operative. And yet, 
 the attitude of the Church has been 
 one of chronic unbelief in regard to 
 this matter, an unbelief in the prom- 
 ises equalled only by tardiness in obey- 
 ing the command. As she springs, 
 however, to meet the latter, she seems 
 to be recovering and regaining her 
 faith in the former; and it is, indeed, 
 remarkable that the revival of the 
 missionary spirit in our day is marked 
 by the restoration of the supernat 
 
lit) THE CHRIST OF 
 
 ural gifts of the apostolic age. The 
 unbehef of His Church in these 
 things seems to be almost hinted at in 
 the way the passage is introduced. It 
 begins with the account of His up- 
 braiding the eleven for their unbelief, 
 and their spirit would seem to have 
 been typical of the sin which was so 
 easily to beset the ages which were to 
 follow. May the Lord help us to rise 
 out of this paralyzing influence, and 
 fully to understand and enter into the 
 meaning and the power of these 
 mighty words, which He has left to 
 us to the end of time, as His Great 
 Commission ! 
 
 1. We learn from this incident the 
 nature arid conditions of the GosjJel, 
 
 The word '^Gospel," of course, 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 117 
 
 means the glad tidings of salvation, 
 through the finished work of Jesus 
 Christ, to all the world and all the 
 ages, in so far as the men who hear 
 it are willing to meet the simple con- 
 ditions. It is, indeed, ' ' glad tidings. " 
 It tells rebellious men that God is 
 reconciled, that justice is satisfied, 
 that sin has been atoned for, that the 
 judgment of the guilty may be re- 
 voked, the condemnation of the 
 sinner cancelled, the curse of the 
 law blotted out, the gates of hell 
 closed, the portals of heaven opened 
 wide, the power of sin subdued, the 
 guilty conscience healed, the broken 
 heart comforted, the sorrow and 
 misery of the Fall undone, the very 
 King of Terrors himself destroy ed. 
 
11» THE CHRIST OF 
 
 and all the evils and miseries of 
 ruined humanity completely over- 
 come, and transformed into blessings 
 more glorious and lasting than Adam 
 ever lost, or unfallen man could ever 
 have enjoyed. And the condition of 
 all this blessing is stated in the sim- 
 plest terms. There is no restriction 
 in the terms, for the message is ad- 
 dressed to every creature, and the 
 only condition is, " He that believeth 
 and is baptized shall be saved, but he 
 that believeth not shall be damned." 
 It is evident, therefore, that the rite 
 of baptism is not a condition ; its 
 omission will not bring condemna- 
 tion, though its acceptance is com- 
 manded wherever it is possible. The 
 one essential condition, therefore, is 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 119 
 
 simply believing ; tlmt is, believing 
 the ''glad tidings." 
 
 This is not spoken of as some ab- 
 struse and unattainable experience, 
 but the simple, frank acceptance of 
 the glad tidings as true and as our 
 own. It is, in a word, to believe the 
 facts respecting Jesus Christ and His 
 finished work, and to accept and ap- 
 propriate the salvation for ourselves, 
 and simply believe that it becomes 
 our own by virtue of our accepting 
 it. The logical process is as simple 
 as the alphabet. Christ offers salva- 
 tion to me; 1 heartily accept it; there 
 fore I have it, because I accept it, and 
 because God has promised it to all 
 who will accept it. There is no mys- 
 tery about this, — no strain. It is as 
 
120 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 plain as the untutored faith of the Kt- 
 tle newsboy, lying on a heap of filthy 
 straw, who had caught a glimpse of 
 the Gospel in a street-meeting, and 
 sent for a missionary, in his dying 
 moments, to ask him the broken ques- 
 tion: ^ ^ Missionary, is it true as how 
 you said that Jesus Christ would save 
 any feller who ax'd him ? " " Yes," 
 said the missionary, ''it is true. He 
 says so." " Then," said the little fel- 
 low, as he clasped his dying hands 
 and looked into heaven with a face 
 already shining with the heavenly 
 light, ''He saves me, 'cos I axes 
 Him." 
 
 That is the Gospel, in its simplicity 
 and its profundity — simply believing 
 the glad tidings, and taking the bene- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 121 
 
 fit to ourselves without doubt or ques- 
 tioning. This is the answer that Paul 
 had that night for the rude jailer at 
 Philippi, '' Believe on the Lord Jesus 
 Christ and thou shalt be saved." This 
 is the simple message which the rud- 
 est, crudest minds of heathendom can 
 always understand, and which they 
 only miss whose self-sufficiency and 
 earthly wisdom is looking for some- 
 thing higher and harder. It is the 
 Gospel for the masses, the Gospel for 
 the heathen, the Gospel for the child, 
 the Gospel for the whole creation. 
 Oh, that we might send it forth that 
 there might be no son or daughter of 
 Adam's race who has -not heard the 
 glorious tidings, so free to all and so 
 easy for everyone to receive 1 
 
122 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 He adds, ''and is baptized," nor 
 can we divorce this from believing, 
 nor should we divorce the believing 
 from the baptism. - 
 
 It is a great mistake to make bap- 
 tism a gospel or a theology which can 
 in any measure detract from the 
 prominence of Christ and the sim- 
 plicity of faith. To every heart that 
 truly accepts the Gospel, it is a sacred 
 obligation and delightful privilege to 
 make full acknowledgement in God's 
 appointed way, of our Master and 
 Lord, and, like Him, thus to fulfill all 
 righteousness. And to those who 
 have learned the deeper and sweeter 
 meaning of the ordinance itself as 
 the special symbol of death and res- 
 urrection with Christ, it is a joy un- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 12:3 
 
 speakable to enter with Him into the 
 death of self and sin and rise into the 
 fullness of the resurrection life ; but 
 when we have said this we have said 
 all. Its absence did not debar the 
 dying thief from the courts of Para- 
 dise, nor will it bring the loss of sal- 
 vation, under this precious verse, to 
 any believing heart ; and they that 
 make it a means of regeneration, a 
 condition of salvation, or a rigid term 
 of Christian fellowship, go further 
 than the Lord Jesus intended here, or 
 the Apostle Paul for a moment toler- 
 ated, w^hen he said, " Christ sent me 
 not to baptize but to preach the Gos- 
 pel," and baptism is not the Gospel, 
 although a most blessed symbol and 
 seal of its reality and fullness. 
 
124 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 2. Christ has made His people 
 trustees of the Gospel for the tvorld. 
 
 He never meant that we should 
 keep it as a selfish luxury /but should 
 receive it and pass it on as a sacred 
 trust for all our sinful race. He 
 might have sent it to the world by 
 some other means. There is not an 
 angel in heaven but would have been 
 glad to bear such a message, and 
 would have counted it high honor 
 and Divine joy, but Christ has given 
 this privilege to redeemed men, and 
 in a grea.t measure has limited its 
 diffusion by the human instrumen- 
 talities which spread it. How dis- 
 appointed and grieved His heart must 
 be to see this precious trust withheld 
 from those for whom He designed it, 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 125 
 
 and consumed for the selfish advan- 
 tage of a few ! How would a great 
 benefactor feel if he gave a million dol- 
 lars to relieve the poor of our city, and 
 placed it in the hands of certain 
 trustees, and then found that those 
 men were spending it for the support 
 and enjoyment of themselves and 
 their families and friends, and that the 
 hundreds of poor children for whom 
 it was intended were getting no bene- 
 fit from his generous gift ? 
 
 Such has been, literally, the attitude 
 of the Church of Christ for most of 
 the centuries of the Christian age. 
 It seems appalling when we stop to 
 realize it ! But here He does not 
 allow the responsibility to be easily 
 shifted off upon the abstract idea of 
 
126 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 the church, for it is a personal re- 
 sponsibiHty with each of the eleven, 
 and it has been transferred from 
 them to every other disciple person- 
 ally, until the ages shall end. His 
 word was a distinct and individual 
 message, which necessaiily implix^d 
 their individual action, for it was the 
 command that scattered them, one 
 by one, into all the world, and sent 
 them forth unto every creature ; and 
 the same command rests still upon 
 every follower of Jesus, up to the 
 utmost measure of his ability to ful- 
 fill it. 
 
 In this view of it, it is a very 
 simple and a very awful responsi- 
 bility, and looking in the face of 
 every one of us, the Master simply 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 127 
 
 asks^ *^ Are you going to do what I 
 tell you, or not ? " There is no possi- 
 bility of evasion. He simply says, 
 " Go ye," and we must go or dis- 
 obey. We believe, therefore, that 
 every individual Christian is bound 
 to his very utmost to spread the 
 Gospel, and to go personaljy if he or 
 she can, without absolutely neglect- 
 ing obligations at home which are 
 imperative, and which we can take 
 as an excuse to the bar of God. 
 
 3. The extent of this commission is 
 to the whole world and the whole 
 creation, 
 
 •All national restrictions are over- 
 swept by the broad and universal 
 scope of redeeming mercy. Every 
 race and country is included in the 
 
128 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 heart of God and the blood of Cal- 
 vary; and, not only so, but every 
 creature. This includes far more 
 than every man and woman. The 
 word translated ^ ^creatine," means 
 creation, and it certainly includes the 
 material and lower orders of crea- 
 tion. ''V^hat!"you may ask, ^^are 
 we to preach the Gospel to the beast 
 of the field, to the forests, to the 
 wilderness and to the mountains ? " 
 Yes, there is not et thing on earth, 
 animate or inanimate, but is go- 
 ing to be benefited by the spread- 
 ing of the Gospel and the coming of 
 the kingdom of Christ. That *is 
 what He means. The whole material 
 universe is to be made free through 
 its uplifting power. How it has 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 129 
 
 civilized the nations !* How it has 
 explored Africa and colonized and 
 cultivated its desolate places ! How 
 it is to drive away barbarism, cruelty, 
 malaria, disease, barrenness, and at 
 last, death itself, from the whole 
 creation which '^ groan cth and trav- 
 aileth in pain together until now, 
 waiting for the time when the crea 
 tion itself shall be delivered from the 
 bondage of corruption into the glori- 
 ous liberty of the children of God ! " 
 Nowhere in the New Testament 
 are wo told that the whole world 
 will accept the Gospel, but we are 
 always told that the whole world will 
 receive it, and Christ's purpose will 
 never be fulfilled until all the tribes 
 shall be evangelized and shall have 
 
130 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 had the opportunity of accepting or 
 rejecting the great salvation. As 
 yet, a thousand miUions of our race 
 have not had the opportunity. One 
 hundred thousand every day are pass- 
 ing into eternity, for the first time to 
 know their Saviour and their God, 
 and cry, as they meet Him, '^No 
 man cared for my soul." With every 
 vrord of this sentence, as you read it, 
 a sad and sinful human spirit is pass- 
 ing into the presence of the Saviour, 
 who is now looking down upon you, 
 and finding to its amazement that 
 He died for its salvation, and that 
 you knew that salvation, and might 
 have helped that poor sad spirit to 
 know it, too. What must Christ 
 think of you, as He turns, this mo- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS ISI 
 
 ment, from that poor, shrinking, as- 
 tonished soul to listen to your prayers, 
 and then the next moment beholds 
 another come with the same sad 
 cry ? One would think that He must 
 almost lose heart in the prayers of 
 His people and in the tender minis- 
 tries of His love to us, when He 
 knows that our brethren are perish- 
 ing through our indolence and neg- - 
 lect. 
 
 It is useless for us to lay the matter 
 over upon His omnipotence and say 
 that He has power to save them in 
 some other way. Then, surely. He 
 went to needless expense in preparing 
 the costly machinery of the Cross 
 and the Gospel, if there had been 
 some other way of attaining the 
 
1B2 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 same results. It is very certain that 
 G-od would never have sent His Son 
 to die if salvation could have been 
 obtained in any other way. Doubt- 
 less, all that tenderness and mercy 
 can do to alleviate and to modify the 
 unspeakable loss and misery of ruined 
 men, will be done, for '^he that 
 knew not and committed things 
 worthy of stripes shall be beaten with 
 few stripes," but to be beaten with 
 few stripes is far less than to be re- 
 deemed, cleansed and made meet to 
 be partakers of the nature of God 
 and the glory of heaven. To stand 
 outside those gates is hell enough to 
 one who has looked within, and we 
 know that without a new heart and 
 the blood of Jesus, no son of the human 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 133 
 
 race can ever enter heaven and share 
 the prospects of God's redeemed. 
 Whatever else awaits these myriads, 
 it is not our salvation. Alas ! al^s ! 
 we know too well that most of them 
 have sinned against the light of Na- 
 ture, and have passed out of this 
 mortal life with the consciousness 
 already of unpardoned sin and the 
 fearful looking for of judgment. 
 
 Oh, beloved, let us awake from all 
 our dreams ; and, for the sake of hu- 
 man pity and heavenly love, let us 
 do what can be done to meet the 
 simple, solemn, honest, imperative, 
 irresistible command of Him who 
 would not have spoken it if weaker 
 speech could have sufficed. 
 
 The practicabihty of obeying this 
 
134 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 command miakes the duty miore bind- 
 ing. Dr. Hudson Taylor has shown 
 that, in five years, every human be- 
 ing in China can be evangehzed by 
 sending merely one thousand mis- 
 sionaries to that country ; and if this 
 be so, two thousand more would 
 reach all other races beneath the sun 
 who have not yet heard the Gospel. 
 To do this, and support them for one 
 year, would cost only three million 
 dollars, and this would be less than 
 the fortune of many a single Chris- 
 tian in this country. And to do it for 
 five years would take only six mil- 
 lions more ; that is, nine millions al- 
 together in the next five years, or 
 less than tw^o milhons a year.-^ A 
 smaller sum than the pettiest State 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 135 
 
 in Europe could easily spend in some 
 trivial war, would be enough to ac- 
 complish the most majestic campaign 
 that the universe has ever witnessed. 
 
 May God help us each to under- 
 stand the thought of our Captain, 
 our Ascended Christ, and to meet it 
 before this century shall close, faith- 
 fully and gloriously ! 
 
 4. The commission is accompanied 
 with majestic credentials— credentials 
 worthy of so great a calling. 
 
 Sending forth His ambassadors, 
 this Mighty, Anointed King, gives to 
 each His signet ring and declares 
 that the signals of His power will 
 attend their ministry, if they will 
 but fulfill the simple condition of 
 that power. '' These signs shall fol- 
 
136 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 low them that beheve. In my name 
 they shall oast out demons ; they 
 shall speak with new tongues ; they 
 shall take up serpents ; and if they 
 drink any deadly thing it shall not 
 hurt them ; they shall lay hands on 
 the sick, and they shall recover," 
 We have here, first, the source of 
 this supernatural power: ^'In my 
 Name." They were to recognize 
 themselves as representing Christ; 
 they were to stand as men, with a 
 Person behind them who was unseen 
 to the woiid, except through His 
 supernatural operation through their 
 words. They were to be His repre- ^ 
 sentatives; He was to be their power. 
 They were to be hands upon the 
 dial, and He the force behind. They 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 137 
 
 were so to recognize themselves, they 
 were so to introduce themselves to 
 the v^orld, they were ever to put 
 Christ in front and stand behind 
 Him, and then expect to see Him 
 work. ''In my Name" was the 
 watchword of all this power. 
 
 How different this has been ! The 
 Church has got a name, and frequent- 
 ly it is not the name of Christ at all, 
 but of some human founder or of 
 some doctrinal phase. It goes to 
 meet the world and the devil in the 
 name of a Wesley or an Episcopate 
 or a Presbytery, or a doctrine of 
 Baptism or a method of Methodism. 
 True^ these are Christ^s churches, 
 but the very principle on which 
 r,heir distinctiveness is founded ob- 
 
I'dH THE CHRIST OP 
 
 scures His name. The minister has 
 frequently a name so great that it 
 quite obscures the name of his Lord 
 and renders it quite unnecessary. 
 He is known for his learning, for 
 his eloquence, or his influence, more 
 than for the supernatural power that 
 f ollow;s close behind him iind accom- 
 plishes his ministry. Such workers" 
 cannot expect these signs to follow 
 in His name. We must recognize 
 ourselves as but figure heads, and all 
 the power in the unseen presence 
 that follows behind us and presses 
 us forward as the expression of its 
 working. 
 
 Again, the forms in which this 
 power was to be manifested are 
 specifically expressed. The casting 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 139 
 
 out of demons was to be one. This 
 was, doubtless, meant to be the very 
 same ministry which Chri:*it had ex- 
 ercised for the dehverance of those 
 possessed of evil spirits, a form of 
 affliction which has existed in all 
 ages and countries, and which still, 
 undoubtedly, is the cause to which 
 may be traced a great multitude of 
 morbid mental conditions and forms 
 of insanity. In the ministry of the 
 Apostles this power was frequently 
 exercised, and became a testimony of 
 great weight before the heathen 
 world. It was the most impressive 
 form of Paul's work, both in Philippi 
 and in Ephesus. It has been mar- 
 velously revived in these last days, 
 and has been peculiarly prominent in 
 
140 ♦the CHRIST OF 
 
 the work of the Mission Field, es- 
 pecially in China ; although, of 
 course, all that we have seen of the 
 manifestation of Christ's power has 
 been but fragmentary, compared 
 with what we might expect if the 
 whole body of His Church were 
 united in faith and fellowship in the 
 power of the Holy Ghost. The gift 
 of tongues was also promised and 
 marvelously realized in the Apostolic 
 Church, although this form of spir- 
 itual and supernatural influence was 
 more abused than any other, and less 
 practical in its effectiveness, and 
 seems to have been in a large meas- 
 ure withdrav/n at an early period. 
 The taking up of serpents, and the 
 drinking of any deadly thing, seems 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 141 
 
 to refer to the power to resist the 
 element of poison where it comes 
 from living or inorganic sources; and 
 this has often been fulfilled in the 
 protection of God's servants from 
 wild beasts and reptiles, the counter- 
 acting of otherwise fatal stings from 
 venomous creatures, and especially 
 the influence of mahgnant contagious 
 diseases and unwholesome air and 
 climatic surroundings. 
 
 The most prominent of these forms 
 of supernatural power, because that 
 which seems to have the most prac- 
 tical application^ and to be peculiarly 
 manifest in the facts which are oc- 
 curring in the church to-day, is the 
 healing of the sick in the name of 
 Jesus. There is no doubt that this 
 
142 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 was regarded by the Lord as super- 
 natural healing, and the laying on of 
 hands designed as a symbolical act 
 expressing His touch of power. The 
 fact that this was promised is estab- 
 lished by many other passages, and 
 the evidence of its fulfillment is found 
 in the whole Apostolic history, the 
 allusions in the Epistles, the story of 
 the first four centuries of Church 
 History, and the records of the past 
 two hundred years in Protestant 
 Christendom, especially in the last 
 twenty-five. Such healings are not 
 always miraculous, although the de- 
 sign of those referred to here is of 
 this character. 
 
 There seems to be a double pro- 
 vision for healing : one distinctly mi- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 143 
 
 raculous, and the other the more or- 
 dinary working of the Divine life and 
 power in the beheving disciple. All 
 these manifestations mentioned in 
 Mark are called ''signs," and intended 
 to be emphatic evidences to the world 
 of the presence and power of Christ 
 and the reality of His name. They 
 are referred to, later, in the closing 
 words of the Gospel, ''the Lord work- 
 ing with them and confirming the 
 word with signs following." 
 
 Dean Alf ord, in commenting on 
 this passage, declares that the prom- 
 ise of supernatural power was not in 
 tended to be limited to the first age of 
 the Church ; but should the occasion 
 at any future time arise for the need 
 of such manifestations, they may be 
 
i 1:4 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 reasonably expected in accordance 
 with, this promise. The good Dean 
 neutralizes his valuable admission by 
 saying, ^'' Where the Gospel has been 
 preached^ as it has been in Christian 
 countries, they are not needed now to 
 establish the evidences of Christian- 
 ity ; and in heathen countries, where 
 the power of Christian nations ex- 
 tends, they are not needed because of 
 these nations.'^ 
 
 This is certainly a very weak ad- 
 mission. In the most advanced Chris- 
 tian nations there is a deep need to-day 
 for a real faith in something supernat- 
 ural, especially in a religion which in- 
 volves supernatural elements. Faith 
 is becoming a sort of reasoning, and 
 Christian life a baptized morality and 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 145 
 
 benevolent activity, but the expecta- 
 tion of anything actually supernatu- 
 ral, either in the hearts or bodies of 
 men,is tabooed as fanaticism. There- 
 fore Christ has spoken out in the heart 
 of Christian nations by the exhibi- 
 tions of His miraculous power, even 
 in these last days. And as for the in- 
 fluence of Christian nations in 
 heathen countries, the very name of 
 Christian in China and Japan has 
 usually been associated with the peo- 
 ple who introduce licentiousness and 
 rum, and whose moraUty is lower 
 than heathenism. There is, indeed, a 
 mighty need for the old credentials of 
 the Gospel; and if Christ can find the 
 faith He is seeking for, He is as ready 
 as ever to manifest His power. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE THIRD WEEK. 
 
 THE SCENE ON THE SHORES OF 
 TIBERIAS. 
 
 ** This is now the third time that Jesus 
 showed Himself to His disciples, after that 
 Hf had risen from the dead." — .Tohnxxi: t4. 
 
 fHIS passage makes it certain that 
 the incident recorded in this 
 chapter follows the scenes from which 
 we have just turned in the previous 
 chapters. It was probably the third 
 week after the Resurrection. During 
 the previous week, the disciples had 
 gone up to Gralilee, according to His 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 14? 
 
 previous command and appointment, 
 having only waited in Jerusalem the 
 one week after His Resurrection in 
 order that Thomas might be restored 
 from his unbelief. They had doubt- 
 less returned to their former home, 
 and expected soon to meet their Lord 
 according to His appointment. But 
 He did not come, it would seem, and 
 as the days passed by and their 
 means of livelihood may have failed 
 them, for the^e were poor men, their 
 faith and hope began to fade and 
 their prospects to grow dark and dis- 
 couraging. Then it was that the 
 impetuous Simon proposed to several 
 of their number to return to his for- 
 mer calling, at least for a time, and 
 getting into his little fishing boat. 
 
148 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 with six of his brethren, he cast the 
 net into the sea and waited for the 
 reward of his toil. All night long 
 they stayed at their posts and per- 
 haps battled with the waves of the 
 stormy little sea, till their hearts 
 grew weary and faint as they found 
 that their labor was in vain. And 
 as the cold gray dawn slowly crept 
 over the earth their nets were empty 
 still. Then it was that a human form 
 was dimly seen upon the shore and a 
 voice spoke to them in ordinary tones, 
 ^^Sirs, have ye any meat ? " and they 
 answered ''No." ''Cast the net on 
 the right side of the ship," was the 
 somewhat startling but quiet re- 
 sponse, "and ye shall find." Perhaps 
 without fully realizing the right of 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 140 
 
 the speaker to give such a command, 
 they immediately obeyed ; and no 
 sooner had they done so, than their 
 nets were filled with fishes. The 
 quick heart of John at once recog- 
 nized the Lord. As soon as Peter 
 heard that it was Christ, he swam to 
 the shore and drew the net to land 
 filled with great fishes, one hundred 
 and fifty and three. Then the Lord 
 tenderly prepared the morning meal, 
 of which they were in such sore 
 need, and bade them bring the fish 
 which they had caught, and partake 
 of the food which He had already 
 prepared for them. As soon as their 
 hunger was satisfied He turned to 
 Simon Peter and repeated the three- 
 fold question, '^Lovest thou me?" 
 
150 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 with such dehcate allusion to Si- 
 mon's fall, and such tender forgiving 
 and restoring graciousness that it 
 seemed less like a reproof than a re- 
 newal of His commission and a call 
 to higher service than he had ever 
 dreamed of before. With one added 
 reproof in answer to Peter's im- 
 petuous and almost presuming ques- 
 tion, and one gentle hint with regard 
 to the disciple whom Jesus loved, the 
 scene closes and the Master vanishes 
 from their presence and our view, 
 leaving this wondrous incident and 
 its heart searching lessons imprinted 
 upon our hearts forever. 
 
 1. It teaches us that the Christ of 
 the Forty Days comes to deh'ver as 
 when baffled and perplexed and to re- 
 
THE. FORTY DAYS 151 
 
 veal Himself as our Wonderful Coun- 
 sellor and our Mighty God, 
 
 Perhaps, like them, we have gone 
 back a httle to our own way and our 
 old life ; and the business has not 
 prospered, the enterprise has not been 
 successful, the painful struggle has 
 been followed only by disappoint- 
 ment and the most trying extremi- 
 ties, and even disasters. God may 
 let the sinful world succeed in their 
 forbidden schemes, but, blessed be 
 His Name, He does not allow His 
 chosen ones to prosper in the path 
 which leads theai out of His holy 
 will. He has a storm to send after 
 every Jonah and an empty net for 
 every unbelieving and inconstant 
 Simon. 
 
152 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 But in their failure He does not 
 fail. When they reach ^Hheir wits' 
 end/' and are ready to ^^reel and 
 stagger like a drunken man," then 
 'Hhey cry unto the Lord and He 
 heareth them and delivereth them 
 out of their distresses." How cheer- 
 ing it is to hear Paul telling the dis- 
 couraged crew that their troubles are 
 all come upon them because they 
 would not hear his counsel, but then 
 adding the promise of the mercy and 
 deliverance of God. Is there any one 
 reading these lines who has been 
 passing through such a night of 
 baffled struggles ? Stop and 'think, 
 dear friend, if, perhaps, you have not 
 got out of the will of your Father. 
 Can you not recall some command 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 153 
 
 which has summoned you to His work 
 in some other pathway of obedience, 
 and you followed your own inclina- 
 tion and wisdom, and have been al- 
 lowed to fail to bring you back like 
 a lost sheep to His way. Only ac- 
 knowledge your error and be willing 
 to return, and lo! already He is stand- 
 ing at the shore to bring you out of 
 your extremity, and place your feet 
 upon the rock and establish your 
 goings. Listen to the call of His 
 providence and answerback, '^Iwill 
 hear what God the Lord will speak, 
 for He will speak peace unto His 
 people and to His saints, but let 
 them not turn again to folly.'' 
 
 Sometimes, however, without any 
 conscious disobedience or willful de- 
 
154 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 parting from His paths, we all have 
 such nights of strugghng and dis- 
 appointment. Everything seems to 
 fail us. We acted with our best 
 judgment and yet it came to naught. 
 We patiently waited, but there was 
 no change for the better; and the 
 heart at last grows sick with sus- 
 pense and stagnation and God seems 
 to have forgotten to be gracious. 
 Perhaps, we are in extreme circum- 
 stances, out of employment, it may 
 be; without means, pressed on every 
 side by difficulties and embarass- 
 ments, and seeing no way of escape, 
 so that we can truly say, " Oh Lord, 
 we have no might against this com- 
 pany, neither know we what to do, 
 but our eyes are on thee." 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 155 
 
 God allows His children to come 
 into these straits oftentimes that He 
 may work for them His greatest de- 
 liverances. And often He lets the 
 trial linger to the very last degree of 
 pressure and extremity. But He has 
 not forgotten. All the night He has 
 been watching and walking on that 
 wave-beaten shore. Every sigh that 
 the wind has borne across the sea has 
 troubled His heart. Every pang of 
 perplexity and suffering has found a 
 sympathetic chord in His breast. He 
 is only waiting until the night has 
 run its course and the lesson has been 
 fully learned, and the deliverance is 
 ripe. Even now, perplexed one, He is 
 standing on the shore of thy troubled 
 sea. His form may be a very simple 
 
156 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 one, and you may not recognize your 
 Lord in the ordinary-looking man be- 
 fore you or the common-place circum- 
 stances coming to you, but " It is the 
 Lord ! " He has come to show thee 
 what to do and to say. " Cast thy net 
 upon the right sideband thou shalt 
 fmd." ''He is the Wonderful Coun- 
 sellor." He knows all the lines of in- 
 fluence, all the causes and effects in 
 the realm of providence, and just 
 where to bid you step and how to 
 have you act so as to bring the result 
 you require. '' There is no searching 
 of His understanding." ''Counsel is 
 His and sound judgment. He leads 
 in right paths, and causes them that 
 love Him to inherit substance and will 
 fill their ti'easures." Happy the busi- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 157 
 
 ness man who follows His wise coun- 
 sels ! Happy the young man who 
 makes Him the guide of his youth ! 
 Happy the soul who trusts Him with 
 all the heart and leans not to his own 
 understanding ! Let us trust His wis- 
 dom, and wait His bidding, and follow 
 His direction, no matter how all our 
 experience may have contradicted it, 
 and we shall find that it will bring us 
 to the desired end. 
 
 But He is also the mighty God, 
 Not only does He know on which side 
 of the ship to cast the net, but He can 
 command the fishes of the sea, and 
 fill tliat net with shoals in a moment. 
 Every creature in the earth and sea 
 are subject to His bidding, and every 
 human heart is in His hand. He can 
 
158 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 change the counsels of men at His 
 pleasure. He gave jL^aniel favor with 
 the king of Babylon and Joseph honor 
 in Pharaoh's house. He can make 
 men to be at peace with us and become 
 the instruments of His will concern- 
 ing us. He can send a little spider to 
 weave its web over the mouth of the 
 cave where the old Covenanter is hid- 
 den from his pursuers, and lead them 
 to reason, when they come on his 
 track, ''He has not entered there be- 
 cause that spider's web is unbroken 
 and undisturbed. " He can send a hen 
 to lay a single egg every morning 
 where Alexander Peden is hiding, and 
 furnish the saint with his breakfast 
 without a suspicion from his foes. 
 He can bid the ravens feed Elijah, and 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 159 
 
 the bees wait on John the Baptist, and 
 the quails come to the table of Israel's 
 hosts, and the scorpion refuse to sting 
 or harm the faithful missionary. He 
 can prosper the honorable and conse- 
 crated merchant, and regulate the 
 markets of the world, and consecrate 
 the gain of men to Himself at His 
 own mighty will 
 
 "lie everywhere hath sway, 
 And all things serve His might." 
 
 "Leave to His Sovereign will 
 To choose and to command : 
 With wonder filled thou then shalt see 
 How wise, how strong His hand." 
 
 2 Our temporal deliverances are 
 intended to lead us to higher spiritual 
 blessing and service. 
 
 This wonderful miracle was an oc- 
 
160 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 casion for something far more than 
 the mere help it brought them in a 
 time of perplexity and distress. It 
 was a type, in f^ct,of the new life and 
 work into which He was just leading 
 them. It was the second draught of 
 fishes which He had miraculously 
 given them. The first, three years 
 before, had called them to the first 
 stage of their apostolic ministry, but 
 this had been a comparative failure, — - 
 something like the first draught of 
 fishes, for then, it will be remembered, 
 their nets brake and the miracle ended 
 in confusion. And so ended the first 
 three years of their service, in the 
 wretched failure of the crucifijcion 
 days well nigh the entire abando u ment 
 of their new hopes and confidences. 
 
THE FOKT^ DAYS, 161 
 
 But this draught of fishesj was, en-. 
 tirely dilf erent from the fiyst. These, 
 were all great fishes and they were all 
 brought safe to land. Such was, to be. 
 their future ministry as, fishers, of' 
 men, The souls they y^ere tQ bring^^ 
 to Christ were to be such souls/ and 
 their fruit was to remain and tq grow 
 an , hundred-fold until it filled the, 
 world and the heaven above.. Hence-, 
 forth they were to/fish, 'vy^ith the Mas,-, 
 ter on the shore, and casting their net, 
 always on the right side of the ship, 
 at His constant bidding, His wisdom^ 
 and power vy^ere, to, attend their labors, 
 and make the miracle of that Qalilean 
 shore perpetual in the years and_ ceii% 
 turies that were to follow. 
 
162 THE OHKlbl^ OF 
 
 And so. when He comes to us in His 
 mighty piQvidences, dehyering us out 
 gf our distresses and maiiifesting His 
 infinite wisdom and power, it means 
 much mo4§ than the temporal dehv- 
 §ranee, grod intends it as a type of 
 ©UP future and a pledge of His wisdom 
 and power for all our coming needs, 
 and He is almost always calling us to 
 learn sonie deeper spiritual lesson, to 
 reach out tq some higher experience, 
 and to go forth to some larger service 
 for Him. Back of our temporal trials 
 and providential blessings there al- 
 ways niay be traced a spiritual mean^ 
 ing, and Qut of them oft come our 
 l".ichest blessings. God loves to take 
 the most Qpmmonplace thing and 
 transforni it by giving it a heavenly 
 
THE FOKTY DAYS 163. 
 
 meaning. So He took Jacob*s trial 
 that night at Peniel and turiied it in- 
 to the crisis of his life^ sending him 
 forth that morning with th^ nQW 
 name of Israel, to b^ the head of the 
 future tribes that bear that name. 
 So Saul, when searching for his, lost 
 abscs, found not only the^ asses but a 
 kingdom, too, and vyeiit home from 
 the prophet's house aiiQther man and 
 to enter a higher sphere and service.. 
 So David's rescue of hi§ lambs, from 
 the lion and the bear becaniQ the: 
 token and pledge of hi^ being en-- 
 trusted as the Shepherd of Gfod's, 
 flock and the Captain of God^s host.. 
 And, therefore, beloved^ if as, you 
 read these lines you recognize in yoiu:- 
 life the interposition of your Father''s, 
 
164: The cHkist o^ 
 
 hand and your Master's love and 
 power, remember that your blessing 
 is lost if it teiininates upon itself, 
 and that God is calling you through 
 it to a higher service and nobler 
 place than you have ever known. 
 Arise and meet Him. Understand 
 the meaning of His visitation, and do 
 not miss tliQ blessing of His coming 
 into your life, but go forth from this 
 hour to recognize your higher calling 
 and to understand Lhe presence which 
 has given you the pledge of His own 
 aU-suflficient might for everything 
 that Hi^ higher service can hence- 
 forth require at your hands, Has 
 He healed ygur body ? It is that the 
 life restored may be glorious for Him. 
 Has H§ cL^llyered you out of pecu-. 
 
THE JjORTY days 165 
 
 niary difficulties ? Remember that 
 your business is henceforth. His and 
 a sacred trust for Him. Has He mar- 
 velously answered prayer ? Remem- 
 ber that He has given you the key to 
 the Mercy Seat and called you to a 
 ministry of prayer henceforfch for 
 others and for Him. God help you 
 to reaUze your blessing as a trust, and 
 consecrate it to His hi. best wiH and 
 the glory of His name ! 
 
 3, He still comes to us cos to them,, 
 not only to deliver us from qw trials 
 and call us to higher service,^ hut to 
 feed our souls with heaveidyj bread 
 and supply all our spiritual need, 
 
 ^' Come and dine" is His word to 
 us as well as unto them. Mere an- 
 swered prayer is not sufficient for the 
 
IW THE CHRIST OF 
 
 souVs hunger, nor even Christian 
 work, in its most successful forms. 
 Amid outward prosperity and abound- 
 ing activity, the soal may be starv- 
 mg,— of ten is, —and men and women 
 break down in the Loi^d's work be- 
 cause they give out more than they 
 replenish. They have not learned the 
 secret of this simple call, '■'■ Come and 
 dine.'' ** I believe the secret of my 
 frequent attacks of nervousness and 
 physical suffering, '^ said a friend, the 
 other day, ^4s that I am doing too 
 much work for the Lord and taking 
 too little time for gammunion with 
 Him,'' Probably this fiiend was 
 right, God often has to knock a 
 little rudely at the door of our sensi- 
 tive nerves to call us to the hour of 
 
THE FORTY DAY3 Wt 
 
 comrnunion and to the dining-room 
 where He renews our spiritual 
 strength. The meal was prepared 
 by His own hands, and the bread and 
 fish were brought by Him first. And 
 so Christ Himself must feed us with 
 His living bread, — ^by that ^iritual 
 process which only He caa make 
 plain and real. 
 
 But they, too, had sometbii^g to 
 do. *' Bring of the fish which ye 
 have caught." Why was this ? Oh^^ 
 the Lord wants us to minister to 
 Him as well as receive from Him,, 
 and our service finds its true end 
 when it becomes food for our dear 
 Lord. He was pleased to feed on 
 their fish while they were feeding on 
 His. It was the double banquet of 
 
168 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 which He speaks in the tender mes- 
 sage of Revelation, " I will sup with 
 Him and He with me." Beloved, are 
 we feeding upon our Lord, and are 
 we ministering to our Lord ? Then, 
 indeed, is the ancient peace-offering 
 truly fulfilled in our blessed fellow- 
 ship with Jesus, and our service truly 
 consecrated when it ministers to His 
 joy and glory. 
 
 4. The Christ of the Forty Days 
 comes also to us still, to restore us 
 from our failures, and turn them to 
 blessed account by calling us to nobler 
 services just because of them. 
 
 The exquisite scene with Simon 
 Peter need not now be analyzed in 
 detail further than to say that those 
 three questions, ^' Lovest thou me T* 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 169 
 
 were not all the same. There was a 
 shade of difference In each, and a 
 cumulative force in all, which brought 
 back most distinctly to his conscience 
 the memory of those three denials, 
 and the cause of those denials in his 
 own self-confidence and his own vain- 
 glorious strength. And thus still the 
 Master comes to us to recall the 
 memory of our faults and failures so 
 keenly that we shall not miss the 
 lesson, but so delicately that we shall 
 not be wounded by the recollection ; 
 and then so completely does He for- 
 give and forget that we know that 
 all the fault has been undone forever 
 and all the failure more than restoi'cd 
 by His grace and love. There is al- 
 ways something for us to learn out of 
 
170 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 situations like theirs. The trial 
 through which we have been passing 
 has been intended, beloved, to show 
 something imperfect in you and me, 
 something in our life which the Mas- 
 ter wants different, and yet, without 
 depressing or discouraging. He wishes 
 simply to hint at the defect and then 
 to have us rise above it and forget it 
 in a grander victory than we have 
 ever dreamed of before. 
 
 No failure has been fatal and no 
 fault need be finally injurious if your 
 heart has been left undivided and 
 your love is still loyal to your Lord, 
 and you can answer back from the 
 depths of your being, '^Lord, thou 
 knowest that I love thee ! " It is not 
 the vibration of the trembling needle 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 171 
 
 that He watches, but its trend stead 
 fastly towards the pole, and the fact 
 that it can only rest when it points 
 without wavering in that direction. 
 For such He has a precious service, 
 and the three commissions given to 
 the great Apostle are also left for us 
 in the largest measure in which our 
 love will take them up and faith- 
 fully fulfill them. * ^ Feed my lambs. " 
 is His call to the ministry of salva- 
 tion, the finding of His lost ones and 
 the nurturing of His little ones. 
 ^'Shepherd my feeble sheep" is His 
 call to the yet tenderer ministry of 
 sympathy, instruction, sanctification 
 and healing to which He sends us 
 forth, for the multitudes in His church 
 who are w^eak and broken in their 
 
172 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 Christian lives, and longing sim^erely 
 for a more satisfactory Christian ex- 
 perience. 'Teed my sheep" is His call 
 to labor for the most advanced 
 Christians whom our own experience 
 of the truth and the Lord may qualify 
 us to help. But for all these, the 
 chief qualification is a heart of love 
 for the person of Christ, and without 
 it all our words and works are 
 '^ sounding brass and a tinkling cym- 
 bal." 
 
 5. And finally, there is one lesson 
 moi^ey a very humbling but a very 
 necessary one, "If I will, what is 
 that to thee ? Follow thou me." 
 
 It is a lesson that silences our self- 
 sufficiency, takes our eyes off all 
 others, and leaves each of us alone 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 173 
 
 with that Blessed One who passes 
 from our view not only as the gentle 
 loving Christ but as the mighty and 
 eternal Sovereign of our life ; with a 
 supreme right to command our every 
 choice and with a claim over each of 
 us to the answering cry of Mary at 
 the open tomb, the cry of absolute 
 surrender, self-renunciation and en- 
 tire consecration ; — Oh ! let each of 
 us send it back as our answer to this 
 solemn message this moment, ^^Rab- 
 boni, my Master, I will follow thee 
 whithersoever thou leadest." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GREAT COMMISSION. 
 
 ** And Jesus carae and spake unto them, 
 saying, All power is given unto nie in heaven 
 and in earth. G-o ye therefore, and teach 
 all nations, baptizing them in the name of 
 the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things 
 whatsoever I have commanded you ; and, 
 lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end 
 of the world.'*— St. Mark xxviii: 18-20. 
 
 ^^HE manifestation of the Lord 
 f Jesus here recorded, was, in some 
 respects, the most remarkable of aJl 
 His appearings during the forty 
 days. It was the only one by special 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 1^5 
 
 appointment, the others being merely 
 incidental and mostly, unexpected. 
 This He had arranged for even before 
 His crucifixion, saying to His dis- 
 ciples, " After that I am risen, I will 
 go before you into Galilee ; " and this 
 had been the message of the angel 
 to the women on the morning of His 
 resurrection: ''Go quickly, and tell 
 His disciples that He is risen from 
 the dead ; and goeth bafore you into 
 Galilee ; there shall ye see Him : lo, 
 I have told you." This also was the 
 direct message of Christ Himself as 
 He first met the women returning 
 from the sepulchre: ''Go tell my 
 brethren that they go into Galilee, 
 and there shall they see me." This, 
 then, had been the special appointment 
 
176 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 for His great meeting with all His 
 disciples, and it seems a little strange, 
 in view of the urgency and emphasis 
 with which the message had been 
 given that they were so slow in obey- 
 ing it, and in meeting their appoint- 
 ment with Him. They tarried in the 
 neighborhood of Jerusalem at least 
 eight days after the resurrection, for 
 there were certainly two Sabbaths in 
 immediate succession in which He ap- 
 peared to them there. Were they 
 waiting for Thomas to join their 
 number, or were they needlessly tardy 
 in beginning their journey ? Perhaps 
 the cause of the delay was in order 
 that all the disciples might receive 
 the message and have time to attend 
 the solemn convocation. The place 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 117 
 
 appointed we are not told ; it was a 
 mountain in Galilee. It would scarcely 
 be Mount Hermon, the Mount of 
 Transfiguration, for that would be 
 more remote and difficult of access 
 than was necessary. It may have 
 been the same mountain where the 
 sermon of Matt, v: 8, was delivered, 
 the famous Horns of Hattin, where 
 He had first proclaimed the principles 
 of His kingdom to the world. It is 
 probable that the five hundred breth- 
 ren, of whom Paul speaks in the 15th 
 chapter of First Corinthians as hav- 
 ing all seen Him at once, were the 
 persons present at this gathering. 
 They formed the surviving few who 
 still remained faithful after all the 
 tragedy of the crucifixion. 
 
178 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 At length they have come together 
 and are waiting for His appearing. 
 It was the first great missionary con- 
 vention that the world ever held, and 
 it is most remarkable that the only 
 appointment that Jesus made with 
 His disciples after the resurrection 
 was a missionary one. What a sol- 
 emn emphasis it gives to the great 
 commission and the glorious work of 
 evangelizing the world, to fully real- 
 ize the dignity with which Christ 
 has invested this great occasion ! At 
 length they were assembled, and the 
 Lord appeared in their midst. His 
 coming to them seems to have dif. 
 f ered in the form of its manifestation 
 from any of His previous appearings. 
 The Greek word, translated '^came 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 179 
 
 to them," has a special shade of 
 moaning, implying the gradual ap- 
 proach — ''He came toward them," 
 becoming visible at first at some dis- 
 tance and majestically coming nearer, 
 until at length He stood before them, 
 coming down, perhaps, from the lofty 
 mountain top which rose above their 
 heads. His appearance was impres- 
 sive enough to throw most of them 
 upon their faces in adoring reverence; 
 yet there were some, even here, who 
 doubted His identity. 
 
 Then He addressed to them His 
 great and important message, con- 
 taining, first, the claim of His kingly 
 power and prerogatives ; secondly. 
 His great commission to them to go 
 forth and establish His kingdom 
 
180 THE jCHRIST OF 
 
 among all nations ; and thirdly, the 
 promise of His presence through all 
 the days until the end of the age. 
 Let us realize, as we dwell upon 
 these three great themes, that this 
 was not a message to the eleven but 
 to all the disciples of Jesus Christ; 
 to all the days until the end of the 
 age; for the company He had in His 
 mind's eye must have included all 
 that gathered around Him and would 
 take up His commands even unto 
 the end of the age of which He spoke. 
 It included us, if we will meet the 
 conditions of His promise and the 
 responsibilities of His great com- 
 mand. 
 
 1. The Iloyal Proclamation^ "All 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 181 
 
 power is given unto me in heaven 
 and in earth.''^ 
 
 This is really the manifesto of our 
 King, in assuming His mediatorial 
 throne. In declaring that all power 
 is given unto Him in heaven and in 
 earth, He does not refer to His prim- 
 eval deity and His Divine rights, but 
 to that special kingdom and author- 
 ity given to Him in the eternal cove- 
 nant of redemption on account of 
 His finished work. It is something 
 that has now been given to Him ; it 
 is the throne of the Mediator which 
 He assumes at the Father's right 
 hand, for the purpose of accomplish- 
 ing His great work of redemption, 
 for which He has already suffered 
 and died. It is that of which He de- 
 
182 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 clared, ^'The Father hath committed 
 all judgment unto the Son.'' *'The 
 Father loveth the Son and hath given 
 all things into His hand." ''He 
 must reign until He hath put all 
 things under His feet ; then shall He 
 Himself be subject unto the Father 
 to whom He shall deliver up the 
 kingdom, and God shall be all in all." 
 The word ''power" here more ex- 
 actly means "dominion, authority," 
 and has reference to the sceptre and 
 sovereignty of a king. The Lord 
 Jesus means that He has been ap- 
 pointed to administer the govern- 
 ment, both of heaven and earth, until 
 the consummation of redemption. It 
 is, indeed, a glorious and transcendent 
 claim. 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 183 
 
 1. He has all power to settle^ the 
 standing and destmy of e\ ery sinner, 
 and to control all our future prospects 
 and our relations to God. He Him- 
 self could say, '' Thou hast given Him 
 power over all flesh, that He should 
 give eternal life to as many as Thou 
 hast given Him." Through His 
 Name and the acceptance of His 
 words all sins are forgiven, and the 
 guilty soul in a moment translated 
 out of the kingdom of Satan and 
 from the curse of sin and hell to the 
 giorions liberty of the children of 
 God and heirship of His everlasting 
 kingdom. He has power, in a mo- 
 ment, to arrest the sentence of judg- 
 ment and condemnation,, and to pro- 
 claim the guilty* acquitted, justified, 
 
184 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 and joint-heirs with Himself of all 
 the hopes of the Gospel. 
 
 The power of salvation is in His 
 hands. Once, when visiting the 
 Castle of Toulon, in France, the 
 Emperor gave to a friendly king the 
 right to set a single prisoner free, 
 and he accepted it as a royal compli- 
 ment ; but the Son of God has re- 
 ceived from the Father the right to 
 emancipate every criminal under the 
 sun from every curse of the law of 
 God, if he will accept His mighty 
 clemency. Well may we rejoice in 
 the power of Jesus, - His power to 
 save. Well may the prophet cry m 
 wonder and admiration, ''Who is 
 this that cometh from Edom, with 
 dyed garments from Bozrah ? I that 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 185 
 
 Bpeak in righteousness, mighty to 
 save." 
 
 2. He has all power to control the 
 power of the Holy Ghost. The 
 mighty spirit of Pentecost is His 
 gift. The power that convicts of sin, 
 of righteousness and of judgment is 
 from Him. The power that clothed 
 the Apostles with such resistless 
 might and Divine efficiency is the 
 power of our risen Christ, for Peter 
 said of Him, '^Having received of the 
 Father honor and glory He hath shed 
 forth this which ye now see and 
 hear ; therefore, let all the house of 
 Israel know assuredly that God hath 
 made this same Jesus, whom ye 
 have crucified, both Lord and 
 Christ." '^God giveth not the Spirit 
 
186 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 by measure unto Him." He has 
 power still to awaken the most in- 
 sensible soul and break tlie most 
 hardened heart. It was He w^ho 
 struck down Saul of Tarsus and broke 
 his heart by a glance and word. It 
 was He who convicted the rude jailer 
 in the midnight hour. It was He 
 who opened the heart of Lydia as 
 the sun opens the blossoms of spring; 
 and He still has power to draw the 
 sinner, to melt the stony heart, to 
 conquer the stubborn will, to sanctify 
 the sinful soul, to consecrate the 
 whole being to Himself. 
 
 Is there anything that we need in 
 our own spiritual life or in our work 
 for souls ? Our glorious King has all 
 power in heaven and in earth to ac- 
 complish it. 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 18^ 
 
 3. He has all power to give efficacy 
 to our prayers. He is our Great 
 High Priest as well as King. " Him 
 the Father heareth always.'' His 
 hands receive our imperfect supplica- 
 tions, and cleanse them from their 
 defects, and add to them His own 
 intercessions and the incense of His 
 perfect offering, and then He claims 
 them as the right of His redemption, 
 and fulfills them by the might of His 
 omnipotence. Therefore, there is 
 nothing too hard for Him to grant to 
 our supplications, or too difficult for 
 us to ask of His Almighty faithful- 
 ness, when we remember that we are 
 presenting our requests in the very 
 name and character of Him who has 
 ''all power in heaven and in earth." 
 
188 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 /'Seeing then that we have a Great 
 High Priest, that is passed into the 
 heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let 
 us come boldly to the Throne of 
 Grace." As we go forth in our work 
 for God and in fulfillment, especially, 
 of the great commission of this pas- 
 sage, our weapon is chiefly prayer; 
 and in the light of this mighty mani- 
 festo, what may we not dare to claim 
 for our own efficiency and the evan- 
 gelization of the world ? 
 
 4c, He has all power in the realm 
 of providence. The mighty and burn- 
 ing wheels of Ezekiel's vision all 
 move at the touch of His hand ; the 
 chariots of the vision that Zachariah 
 saw riding through the earth and 
 putting all its 'conflicts at rest, go 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 189 
 
 forth at His bidding. The thrones 
 of earth rise and fall at His com- 
 mand. The events of history are 
 the out-working of His plans. The 
 book with the seven seals is held by 
 His hand and opened by Him alone. 
 It is not true, of course, that He is re- 
 sponsible for the wickedness and will- 
 fulness of man, but His hand is over 
 all man's ways and His providence 
 overrules all events. We see this 
 constantly in His earthly ministry, 
 and in His government of the church 
 in the Acts of the Apostles. How 
 easily He could send Peter to the sea 
 for the single fish which had the 
 golden coin in its mouth, sufficient 
 to meet His needs ! How exactly He 
 brought about the assembled multi- 
 
190 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 tudes at Pentecost, at the right time, 
 to receive the Holy Spirit, and then 
 scattered them all over the world ! 
 How wondrously He brought together 
 Philip and the eunuch in the desert 
 at the right moment, and then sent 
 the converted prince to evangelize a 
 kingdom and a continent ! How 
 easily He could lay His hand on the 
 life of the impious Herod, and pro- 
 tect the trusting Peter from His vio- 
 lence ! How marvelously He guarded 
 the life of Paul through perils of per- 
 secuting foes, through perils of 
 waters and perils of every enemy, 
 until his work for Him was accom- 
 plished ! How marvelously the Old 
 Testament illustrates His providen- 
 ces ! He could send the child of a 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 191 
 
 Hebrew slave, doomed to death, into 
 the house of Pharaoh, to become the 
 child of Egypt's king, and the de- 
 liverer of Israel from the man who 
 had sought his own life in infancy. 
 He could lead an army of three mil- 
 lions for forty years through the 
 barren wilderness, and sustain them 
 without hunger or lack. He could 
 send a Hebrew maiden into the house 
 of Persia's monarch and make fair 
 Esther the deliverer of her people. 
 He could use a Cyrus, without his 
 understanding it, to be the restorer 
 of Israel's scattered tribes when the 
 seventy years were literally fulfilled, 
 and make Daniel's captivity the oc- 
 casion of his life and testimony in 
 Babylon and the subjugation of 
 
192 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar and Darius at the 
 feet of Israel's God. He could give 
 Jeremiah courage to be fearless and 
 faithful for forty years, amid the 
 perils of Jerusalem's last days, and 
 then He could protect and guard his 
 life, alone, of all others, in the hour 
 of her fall and amid the massacre of 
 her inhabitants. And He who did 
 all this is Jesus, our Lord and Christ, 
 with power undiminished, and only 
 waiting for faith to claim its yet 
 mightier victories in these last days. 
 What God wants to-day in His 
 Church, and in His work, is not so 
 much that the world shall see the 
 power of the Church, as the power 
 of her Lord and the presence of Him 
 who goes forth with His weakest 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 193 
 
 servants and becomes their might 
 and their mighty Victor. Oh, as we 
 go forth to evangeUze the nations 
 and to represent our God amid the 
 mighty forces of the world's last 
 and, intellectually, highest days, let 
 it be our supreme mission to realize 
 and show forth the might of our 
 Anointed King, and so to stand for 
 Him that the world can see once 
 more that He has ^^all power in 
 heaven and in earth." 
 
 5. He has all power over natural 
 laws and forces. While this mate- 
 rial world is His creation, and He does 
 not usually mar nor interrupt the uni- 
 form movement of the forces and 
 laws that He has framed, yet He can 
 suspend them at will and substitute 
 
194: THE CHRIST OF 
 
 higher forces if He pleases^ just as 
 the engineer can stop the engine or 
 reverse it at his will. And so the 
 Lord Jesus holds in His control the 
 elements of nature, and still can quell 
 the storm or bid it come; can coun- 
 teract the poisonous malaria or ren- 
 der it harmless ; can vitalize these 
 exhausted physical frames with His 
 Divine life until ^'out of weakness 
 they are made strong," and can carry 
 and sustain us through all the diffi- 
 culties and apparent impossibilities 
 that may surround our work for 
 Him. Let us go forth, especially in 
 the work of missions, realizing this, 
 that nature is subordinate to redemp- 
 tion, and the natural subordinate to 
 the spiritual, and the kingdom of 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 195 
 
 matter is under the control of the 
 King of Saints: 
 
 6. Again, He has all power over 
 the minds and passions of men. He 
 can hold back the murderer of sav- 
 age heathen from their design or ren- 
 der them helpless in their furious at- 
 tack. Dr. Paton tells us how often 
 the savages of Tanna assembled to 
 take his life, and some chief was led 
 to stand up in a critical moment, and 
 by an unlooked for suggestion to turn 
 them aside from their plan, and they 
 dispersed without hurting a hair of 
 his head ; and then, again, more mar- 
 velously still, how he had gone scores 
 of times through armed and furious 
 crowds of naked savages, determined 
 to murder him, and escaped theij- 
 
196 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 hamis ; turning sometimes to them 
 and commanding them, in the Name 
 of the God of heaven to disperse and 
 desist ; and sometimes, seeing their 
 muskets pointed and their spears 
 poised, and yet in a few moments fall 
 unused to the ground, and his life 
 miraculously spared. Our blessed 
 Christ has still this power in every 
 place where His servants need His 
 protecting presence, for He has " all 
 power on earth." King's hearts are 
 in His hand, and He can still say to all 
 our foes, '^ Touch not mine anointed 
 and do my prophets no harm." He 
 can still induce men to receive us, to 
 accept our testimony, to help us by 
 their influence, their means and their 
 co-operation. It was He who gave 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 197 
 
 Daniol favor with his masters in Baby- 
 lon, and Joseph the confidence of his 
 king, and Mordecai his place of power 
 in Persia, and Paul the confidence of 
 the Roman captain and Caesar's 
 household ; and in every age He has 
 shown how He can put His hand on 
 men when He needs them, and call 
 them in a moment to the place He 
 means them to fill. 
 
 Oh, that we might know better and 
 trust more fully our Almighty King ! 
 Then would we trust less in man and 
 care less, either for his frowns or his 
 favor, but moving on in the might of 
 a Divine dependence, would know 
 that God would bring to us all men 
 that we need for His work, and hel]) 
 us, by many or by few, as He sees best. 
 
198 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 Y. Christ has all power over the 
 lower orders of creation. " Behold I 
 give you power," He says, 'Ho tread 
 on serpents and scorpions and nothing 
 shall by any means hurt you." He 
 that went with Daniel into the lion's 
 den has gone many times since then 
 with men like Arnot into the jungles 
 of Africa, and paralyzed the fury of 
 the savage beasts and made them 
 slink away abashed before the keen 
 and fearless eye of His trusting child. 
 
 8. Christ has all power over Satan 
 and all our spiritual foes. We are so 
 glad of this. We meet our adversary 
 with the assurance that he is a con- 
 quered foe in the presence of our 
 Lord. We may well fear him in our 
 own behalf, but as we claim the abid- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 199 
 
 ing presence of our Christ, he is but a 
 toothless hon, a disarmed and humih- 
 ated foe and an empty shadow and 
 sham. Let us not dread his power nor 
 try to evade his fury, for he will do 
 his worst against us ; but with our 
 Master in our midst we need not be 
 afraid ; his assaults will only end in 
 greater victories, and in all these 
 things '^ we are more than conquer- 
 ors through Him that Ipved us. " Are 
 we not afraid sometimes, and shrink 
 from positions yvhere we know we 
 shall meet the adversary's wrath ? 
 Let us no longer dishonor our Lord, 
 but know that the places of most 
 peril are the places of the most abso- 
 lute safety. 
 9. Christ has all power over angelic 
 
200 THE CHKIST OF 
 
 beings. These mighty creatures who 
 form the executive officers of the gov- 
 ernment of God, and throng the uni- 
 verse with their ceaseless ministries, 
 all go forth under the orders of our 
 Anointed King. Myriads of them 
 crowd this earth and wait upon the 
 saints of God, but they are all sub- 
 ject to our Master's order. Occa- 
 sionally the curtain parts enough for 
 us to see the s]jining form of one or 
 two as they are engaged upon their 
 ceaseless services, but when we see 
 them not, they are doubtless ever 
 near. The Old Testament is full of 
 their interpositions in human affairs, 
 and the New has many examples of it. 
 It was an angel that opened the Re- 
 deemer's tomb ; an angel that told 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 201 
 
 Mary of the Resurrection ; an angel 
 opened Peter's prison and smote his 
 persecutor ; an angel stood on the 
 tossing ship by the side of Paul and 
 promised him deliverance. And, sure- 
 ly, their ministry did not end when 
 the great apostles passed home. Un- 
 seen by mortal eyes they have still 
 fulfilled their loving tasks through 
 every generation ; and when each of 
 us shall close our eyes on the last hu- 
 man face, we shall find some shining 
 companion by our side gazing upon 
 us with a look of quiet recognition 
 and tender affection, smihijg at our 
 look of wonder, and saying to us, per» 
 haps, '^I have known .you for half a 
 century, better than your mother, 
 your wife or dearest friend. I nursed 
 
202 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 your infancy, guarded your child- 
 hood, protected your manhood, hov- 
 ered over your dying bed and now am 
 waiting to guide your spirit home." 
 
 Who of us cannot remember some 
 moment when we had just escaped 
 a sudden peril, stood within a hair- 
 breadth of death ; and as our palpita- 
 ting heart recovered its pulsation, a 
 strange heavenly hush breathed over 
 our spirit and a voice almost seemed 
 to whisper, ^^He shall give His angels 
 charge concerning thee to guard thee 
 in all thy ways. " Samuel Rutherford 
 tells us, h^w when a child, he fell into 
 a deep well. For a long time he 
 struggled to Ijold on to the slippery 
 sides and called in vain for help, and 
 at last began to sink. Just as he 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 203 
 
 was perishing, he says, a beautiful 
 man slipped quietly down into the 
 well, lifted him out without a word, 
 and l^ft him safely on the ground 
 above and immediately disappeared. 
 The glorious old saint did not doubt 
 that it was, liteially, an angel of the 
 Lord. 
 
 How often they have interposed 
 for the visible deliverance of God's 
 servants we cannot tell. Who knows 
 but they come in human guise some- 
 times, when all other help has failed. 
 Enough to know that when we need 
 them they are at hand in the most 
 lonely place, and they are all under 
 the command of the Son of God ; for 
 it is said, ^'Let all the angels of God 
 worship Him," and in the Book of 
 
204 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 Eevelation we see them going forth 
 at His bidding to fulfill His mighty 
 purposes in these last days. 
 
 10. Finally, our Eisen Christ is yet 
 to have all the power of earth's king- 
 doms under His Sceptre and to be the 
 King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 
 God will overturn and overturn and 
 overturn, until He come, whose right 
 it is, for the kingdoms of this world 
 must become the kingdom of our 
 Lord and of His Christ. This is 
 Christ's covenant right and reward, 
 and the Father's heart will never be 
 satisfied for His Son until His will be 
 done on earth as it is in heaven. We 
 shall yet see our blessed King wear- 
 ing the crown of all the world, and 
 we shall see every knee bowing to 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 205 
 
 Hira, and every tongue confessing 
 that He is Lord. 
 
 " He shall reign, from pole to pole, 
 With illimitable sway ; 
 He shall reign, when like a scroll 
 Earth and heaven shall pass away." 
 
 Oh, let US reahze the vision and 
 haste its fulfillment in His glorious 
 
 coming ! 
 
 IL The Great Commission: ''Go ye^ 
 therefore, and disciple all nations,^^ 
 
 Because of His power, and because 
 of His right, He bids His disciples go 
 forth to establish His kingdom among 
 all nations. 
 
 1. We must be struck, first of all, 
 with the boldness and majesty of this 
 command. He did not send them 
 now simply to individuals, but to na- 
 
206 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 tions. He looked upon the mighty 
 communities of earth as not too great 
 for the conquest of His'kingdom, and 
 the mission of His followers to win. 
 He sends us forth as ambassadors to 
 earth's great powers and as His sol- 
 diers against the mighty hosts of hu- 
 manity. The work of foreign mis- 
 sions ought to deal very directly not 
 only with individuals but with na- 
 tions. God has a purpose in the 
 tongues of earth. He wants them all 
 represented in the great triumphant 
 song which is to echo around the 
 throne, and we ought not to be satis- 
 fied while a nation or tongue is not 
 evangelized. Indeed, His coming is 
 directly connected with the evangel- 
 ization of all nations, not necessarily 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 207 
 
 all individuals. The Church of to-day 
 ought to lift up her eyes upon the 
 fields and see how far and how faith- 
 fully she has fulfilled this commission 
 with respect to neglected nations and 
 unevangelized races and peoples. It 
 would seem to be the special call of 
 Christ to-day to each of us to see, so 
 far as in us lies, that every commun- 
 ity that has not yet received the Gos- 
 pel is specially visited with the mes- 
 sage of our King. There are still 
 many tribes of earth who have not 
 received the message. There are 
 scores in Africa and several in Asia, 
 who have yet no part in the Chorus 
 of Redemption, and were the Lord to 
 come to-morrow, their tongue would 
 not be heard in the great millennial 
 
208 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 Psalm, which shall arise at His com- 
 ing, when 
 
 " All people that on earth do dwell, 
 Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice." 
 
 2. The universality of the commis- 
 sion is sublime. It sweeps the cir- 
 cumference of the world. It spreads 
 its royal sceptre over an empire more 
 magnificent than Nebuchadnezzar 
 claimed or Caesar saw. It reaches 
 far beyond the narrow limits of Jew- 
 ish patriotism or imperial ambition. 
 Never Empire so grand and universal 
 as that which, bye-and-bye, shall join 
 in the chorus of Coronation, 
 
 •* While every kindred, every tribe 
 On this terrestrial ball, 
 Shall join the everlasting song, 
 And crown Him Lord of all/ 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 209 
 
 Oh, as we have already said, let 
 each missionary burn to make the 
 victories of the Gospel as universal 
 as the commission which He has 
 given, and may each of us have the 
 holy aspiration to add one other 
 tongue or one other tribe that none 
 have reached before, to the glorious 
 song which is soon to burst forth 
 when the ransomed hosts from every 
 land shall, with songs, surround the 
 throne, and it shall, indeed, be true, 
 
 *'Teii thousand thousand are their tongues, 
 But all their hearts are one." 
 
 3. The Commission given is an ag- 
 gressive and progressive one: ''Go 
 ye." It does not imply, by any 
 means, the idea of settling down in 
 comfortable repose and consolidating 
 
210 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 great ecclesiastical institutions; but 
 ft is a ministry of itinerance, and 
 we very much doubt whether any 
 church or servant of the Lord should 
 cease to go in this sense of aggres- 
 sive and progressive work. The mis- 
 sionary is to go until all regions 
 are visited and all tribes evangelized; 
 the Church is to go until all who are 
 at liberty have become the messen- 
 gers of the Gospel. In the early 
 church we find not only Paul and 
 Barnabas going, but Aquila and Pris- 
 cilla, working people, Gains and 
 Aristarchus, and many of Paul's 
 companions constantly moving with 
 him from place to place, evidently 
 men and women from the ordinary 
 ^alks of life, who counted it theii 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 211 
 
 (X)nimission to share in the toils and 
 tasks of the Gospel. The time has 
 come when the heathen world needs 
 more than stereotyped miilisters to 
 meet its awful needs, and Christ is 
 calling a whole army of plain and 
 practical men and women to cover 
 its needy fields. Good Bishop Taylor 
 has suggested the true method to a 
 great extent. Good Pastor Hearns 
 long before suggested perhaps even 
 a better; one namely, the missionary 
 colony, and to-day in Africa and In- 
 dia thousands cd happy native Chris- 
 tians are the fruit of a humble mis- 
 sionary movement, in which a whole 
 parish almost moved bodily to the 
 heathen world and settled down 
 a.mong them, to teach them how to 
 
212 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 live as well as how to know the 
 Lord. God grant that the next ten 
 years may put such a go in the hearts 
 of thousands of the consecrated chil- 
 dren of God that they cannot longer 
 stay at home, and a great army of 
 thousands of picked men and wo- 
 men, who fear no hardship and seek 
 no rest short of the Master's coming, 
 shall spread over all the neglected 
 fields of the heathen world ! 
 
 *4. The first process in this great 
 work is denoted by the term ''dis- 
 ciple all nations. " This is not ' ' teach, " 
 which is an incorrect translation, 
 ' but rather evangelize, and bring to 
 the knowledge of Christ and the fold 
 of Christ. It is, in a word, the work 
 of evangelization, the quick ^nd 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 213 
 
 world-wide proclamation of the Gos- 
 pel in every land, with a view to the 
 gathering out of all who are wiUing 
 to confess the truth and follow the 
 Saviour. This is the first work of 
 missions, and until this is done the 
 work of costly organization ^nd edu- 
 cation should 1)0 held in sub-ordina- 
 tion. Too little has this been the 
 object of Missionary Societies and too 
 much the building up of elaborate 
 estabhshments. Some of the more 
 recent Societies have struck the true 
 keynote and are sweeping over the 
 world with a success unparalleled in 
 modern missions. Little wonder that 
 the Master blesses a method so in 
 keeping with His own command. 
 This was the Apostolic method. In 
 
214 "THE CHRIST OF 
 
 his great missionary journeys Paul 
 swept over vast fields. In a few 
 months he had itinerated over Cy- 
 prus, Iconium, and Central Asia 
 Minor, and then was ready to go over 
 these fields again and establish them 
 more formally. On his later journeys 
 he swept with similar celerity over 
 Syria, Cilicia, Galatia, Macedonia 
 and Achaia in, perhaps, two or three 
 years, preaching the Gospel in many 
 countries and gathering multitudes 
 to Christ. This is the world's great 
 need to-day. In a single generation 
 its entire population will have passed 
 away, and what has to be done must 
 be done at once. It has been shown 
 already that one thousand men and 
 two and a half million dollars would 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 815 
 
 evangelize the whole of China in five 
 years ; the same nnmber of men, and 
 the same amount of money would 
 accomplish the same for Africa, pro- 
 vided that all sections of the country 
 could be safely penetrated, and doubt- 
 less God would open the way as fast 
 as the Church is ready to enter. And 
 the same number of men and amount 
 of money would cover aU other neg- 
 lected fields. A small army of 
 picked men, with the trifling expen- 
 diture of seven and a half million 
 dollars, less than the fortune of a 
 single Christian man, would evan- 
 gelize the entire world long before 
 the century is finished, and yet such 
 a campaign would be sublimer, even 
 if looked at only from a human stand- 
 
216 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 point, than any that the world hr.s 
 ever seen. 
 
 The other night, in Albert Hall in 
 London, the royal family of England 
 and the most distinguished men and 
 women of the nation assembled and 
 stood up upon their feet to receive 
 and honor Henry Stanley because he 
 had successfully penetrated Afrix^a 
 and rescued a brave man from isola- 
 tion and peril. Oh, what honor will 
 heaven pay to the men and women 
 who will penetrate these dark regions 
 for a nobler purpose and rescue their 
 millions from the tyranny of Satan 
 and the curse of despair ! Surely all 
 heaven will stand up some day to re- 
 ceive them and the Son of God Him- 
 self will make them sit down and will 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 217 
 
 serve them with His own Royaj 
 hands. God help us to understand 
 the meaning of our times and mag- 
 nificence of our opportunity ! 
 
 5. The work of evangehzation is 
 to be followed by the work of organ- 
 ization. '^Baptizing them in the 
 name of the Father and of the Son 
 and of the Holy Ghost." This is the 
 ecclesiastical part, but there is a 
 notable absence of all ecclesiasticism. 
 We find no name of modern church 
 is this organization. The ©nly name 
 into which they are baptized is that 
 of God. Thank God the best mis- 
 sionary w^ork of to-day is undenomi- 
 national ! Thank God the churches 
 of the mission field are growing 
 weary of denominational names, and 
 
218 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 finding the necessity of presenting to 
 the colossal wall of heathenism the 
 mighty front of the united Church 
 of Christ. And so we find the 
 *' United Church of Japan," and the 
 struggle for the same united form in 
 India and other mission fields. There 
 must of course b organization : the 
 public confession of Christ in bap- 
 tism; the uniting of the little flock 
 in the name of Christ, and the proper 
 discipline and government of the 
 Church, but this should be as simple 
 and as Hke the primitive Church as 
 possible, and adapted in each case as 
 to its form to the leadings of the 
 missionary himself and the exigen- 
 cies of the case. 
 6. The last direction respecting this 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 219 
 
 great work has reference to wliat 
 we might call the edification of the 
 Church. It includes the building up 
 of the Church of Christ in truth and 
 holiness; ''teaching them to ob- 
 serve all things whatsoever I have 
 commanded you." This, of course, 
 includes the deeper instruction and 
 the higher training of the Church of 
 Christ, and this is proper and scrip- 
 tural both in the Church at home 
 and abroad, and should be carefully 
 provided for, that the flock may be 
 fed, not only with milk but with 
 meat, and prepared for the highest 
 Christian living and the most effec- 
 tive work for the Master. But it is 
 not in the traditions of men that it 
 is to be taught, but in the command- 
 
220 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 ments of Christ ; and not even sc 
 much in the theological lore of the 
 academies and school-', as in the 
 practical observances of His will and 
 the duties and experiences of holy 
 living, the one simple rule of life 
 being His word and His command- 
 ments. 
 
 Such, then, is the Master's Great 
 Commission; the one message which 
 He gave on this great occasion, this 
 most important meeting with His 
 flock after His resurrection. 
 
 Beloved, what hast thou done with 
 this message ? What art thou going 
 to do, reader ? What does this mean 
 for thee? Thou shalt soon meet Him 
 in His Kingly glory. What wilt 
 thou then say about this last word 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 221 
 
 which He has left for thee ? Art 
 thou sure thou hast an excuse that 
 will meet His smile in that glorious 
 day, and that He will say, " Thou 
 hast done thy best to glorify mo and 
 to accomplish my will for a lost 
 world." But unless we are sure we 
 can meet Him thus, let us be very 
 slow to take the comfort of this last 
 promise, ''Lo, I am with you alway, 
 even unto the end of the age," for 
 it is very certain that it is linked 
 with the commission and our obedi- 
 ence to it, as the Son is linked witli 
 the Father, and as obedience is ever 
 Hnked with blessing. Unless I am 
 sure I am doing more at home to send 
 the Gospel abroad than I can do 
 abroad, I am bound to go, and if He 
 
222 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 wants me I am ready to go whenever 
 He calls and makes it plain. This and 
 this alone is the attitude of fidelity on 
 the part of each of us to this sacred 
 word of our departing Lord. And 
 with the most awful solemnity would 
 we lay it upon the heart of every 
 reader of these lines, and we feel sure 
 that the Holy Ghost will carry it home 
 to the consciences of men with irre- 
 sistible authority, as the mandate of 
 the'Master Himself to many who have 
 not thought of it before. 
 
 Ill, The Abiding Presence, " Lo! I 
 am with you all the days even unto 
 the end of the age.^^ 
 
 There is something very emphatic 
 in the note of exclamation, Lo ! It 
 implies that they would be likely to 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 223 
 
 forget it. It is intended to call per- 
 petual attention to it. No matter 
 how improbable it may appear, and 
 how many other presences may seem 
 to crowd it out, yet lo ! I am with 
 you. Look more closely and you will 
 see Him. 
 
 There is, also, special emphasis in 
 the present tense, ''I am with you.'^ 
 Had He said, " I will be with you," it 
 might have implied a presence differ- 
 ent from that which they now en- 
 joyed — that there was to be a break 
 in His abiding with them, and then 
 a subsequent appearing. But He 
 says, ^'I am with you." 1 shall not 
 cease for a moment to be with you. 
 I shall be as truly with you the mo- 
 ment after my ascension as I am 
 
224r THE CHRIST OP 
 
 now while I am speaking these words 
 to you. 
 
 It would seem as if this word I am 
 had hidden in it an allusion to the 
 Old Testament name which God used 
 in speaking to Moses and sending 
 him forth to lead Israel from bondage 
 to freedom. ' ' Thou shalt say to them, 
 Jam hath sent me unto you." Our 
 Lord means to have us understand 
 that He is the same Almighty One 
 who sent forth Moses to inaugurate 
 the history of Israel — who is now 
 sending them forth to inaugurate the 
 history of Christianity. What a 
 blessed fullness that name suggests! 
 It is just an infinite blank, which 
 each of us may fill up with all we 
 need Him for. " I am," He says, and 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 225 
 
 we may finish the sentence. Is it 
 health, ^'I am the Lord thy God that 
 healeth thee." Is it spiritual life, 
 '^I am the Living Bread." Is it 
 guidance, ^'I am the Light of the 
 world. He that foUoweth me shall 
 not walk in darkness but shall have 
 the light of life." 
 
 And then He tells us He is with 
 us all the days, not ^'always" merely, 
 but '^all the days," day by day, for 
 each day's needs and duties as it 
 comes, suiting His help and blessing 
 to every changing day. 
 
 There is one more thought which 
 lingers in the Master's last words 
 with the light of a glorious hope. It 
 is ^Hhe end of the age." It points us 
 forward to the Second Coming of our 
 
226 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 blessed Lord. It is very beautiful to 
 see the blending of His departing and 
 His coming in these words. Like 
 the Northern twilight, which almost 
 meets the opening of the dawn, so 
 His departing and the hope of His re- 
 turning blend in these blessed words. 
 Oh, how blessed to believe that the 
 dawn is near and that already the day 
 star has arisen in our hearts, and the 
 Presence that is with us now unseen 
 is soon to burst upon us in the glory 
 of His appearing I 
 
CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 **Ye shall receive power after tliat the 
 Holy Grhost is come upon you ; and ye shall 
 be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, 
 and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto 
 the uttermost part of the earth." — Acts 
 1:8. 
 
 ^HE scene of the last two inter- 
 t views with the Risen Lord was 
 in Gahlee. We find Him now again 
 at Jerusalem. There the last of the 
 Forty Days w^ere passed, and they 
 were marked^ it is probable, by many 
 interviews, as He taught them of 
 [he things concerning the Kingdom 
 
228 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 of God with a fullness of which John 
 says, '^If they should be every one 
 written, I suppose that even the 
 world itself could not contain the 
 books that should be written." Some 
 day we shall know those unwritten 
 words ; meanwhile we may be sure 
 that they were sufficient to authorize 
 all that the Apostles afterwards 
 themselves did and said, and that 
 while we may not have an actual 
 word of Christ for all that we are 
 expected to observe, yet we know, if 
 we have their example for it, that 
 they had a sufficient word from His 
 own lips. Thus, for example, the ob- 
 servance of the first day of the week, 
 and many other things for which we 
 \ have apostolic practice and example 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 229 
 
 without explicit teaching, were, no 
 doubt, fully explained and authorized 
 in the Master's patient' and ample 
 teachings. 
 
 At length they meet for the la^t 
 time and the interview is one of great 
 importance, and the message more 
 distinct and far-reaching than any 
 that had preceded it. 
 
 I. THEIR ERRONEOUS QUESTION. 
 
 All through these days they seem 
 to have been expecting Him con- 
 stantly to manifest Himself in the 
 restoration of the old theocratic 
 kingdom, and as, again and again, He 
 met them and vanished without ful- 
 filling their expectations, they talked 
 together and wondered why He did 
 
^30 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 not publicly manifest Himself as the 
 promised and kingly Messiah. Now 
 at length they ventured to ask Him, 
 ''Lord, wilt thou at this time restore 
 again the kingdom of Israel ? " His 
 answer is a very faithful and yet 
 tender one. He does not rebuke 
 them or even intimate that their de- 
 sire is wholly without foundation in 
 the purpose of God. He does not 
 deny that He will restore the king- 
 dom to Israel, but He simply tiirns 
 them away from this expectation to 
 their proper and present work, and 
 gently reminds them with a shade of 
 reproof ''that the times and seasons 
 are not for them at all, but reserved 
 by the Father in His own power." 
 Very solemnly does He hint to us 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 231 
 
 that there are a great many questions 
 with which we have nothing to do, 
 and which are really keeping us back 
 from our highest service for Him. 
 
 H. THE COMMAND TO TARRY IN 
 JERUSALEM. 
 
 Although He had for them a prac- 
 tical and urgent woi'k to do, yet even 
 this they were not to rush into un- 
 prepared, but to tarry for Divine 
 power to fit them for their great 
 calling. He meant them to thorough- 
 ly understand that they were utterly 
 unfit in themselves for the work to 
 which they were called; that they 
 must not attempt to do anything 
 until they received the Holy Ghost 
 or they would surely do it amiss. 
 
THE CHRIST OF 
 
 And so, when they began to weary 
 of the ten days' waiting, and, at 
 Peter's suggestion, undertook to set 
 in motion the machinery of the Chris- 
 tian Church by electing a new apostle 
 by lot, their premature work simply 
 came to naught, and the Lord quietly 
 ignored their chosen apostle, and in 
 His own time and way called Saul of 
 Tarsus to take the vacant place. 
 
 This is a lesson that none of us can 
 learn too well. We are utterly un- 
 fitted for the work of Christ by mere 
 natural qualifications and prepara- 
 tion. All that we do before we re- 
 ceive the Holy Ghost counts for little 
 or nothing. All our intellectual gifts, 
 all our stores of accumulated learn- 
 ing, all our experience and practice 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 233 
 
 in Christian work will prove but c^old, 
 dead wood on the altar of God until 
 kindled by the heavenly flame of 
 Pentecost. There is, in the structure 
 of the human mind, a reason for 
 this tarrying. It prepares the heart 
 for receiving the fullness of God. The 
 spirit of waiting is a discipline of 
 self- crucifixion and stillness, which 
 is necessary to the deep and full re- 
 ception of the Divine influence. And 
 it is also true that at each successive 
 stage of our life and work, and at 
 each new departure, there must be a 
 tarrying for poAver. God's first word 
 to His people, as to Israel of old, 
 always is, ''Stand still and see the 
 salvation of God," and then " Go for- 
 ward," 
 
234: THE CHRIST OF 
 
 How long are we to tarry ? Uiiti'' 
 we receive the power from on high. 
 And when we do we shall not be able 
 to tarry longer, but the fire in our 
 bones, like Jeremiah's^ will weary 
 with forbearing, and burst allbarriers 
 in testimony and service. 
 
 HI. THE PROMISE OF POWER, THROUGH 
 THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 He had akeady spoken of His power 
 in heaven and in earth ; now He tells 
 them of the power in which they 
 are to go forward and do His work. 
 This is a different power from that 
 to which He had already referred in 
 connection with His own person and 
 presence, for this is to be in them 
 and upon them as a pers'^^nal endue- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 235 
 
 ment. And yet it was not to be their 
 power, bat the power of a personal 
 presence that was to be in them ; the 
 true translation being, ^'ye shall re- 
 ceive the power of the Holy Ghost 
 coming upon you." There is a great 
 difference between our receiving 
 power from the Holy Ghost and our 
 receiving the Holy Ghost as our 
 power. In the latter case we are as 
 insignificant and insufficient as ever, 
 and it is the person who dwells 
 within us who possesses and exer- 
 cises all the gifts and powers of our 
 ministry, and only as we abide in Him 
 and He works in us are we able to 
 exercise th's power. 
 
 The Lord thus introduces to tliem 
 and to us that glorious Person who 
 
236 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 ever since has been the substitute and 
 successor of Jesus Christ in the per- 
 sonal life and work of every believer. 
 There is no doubt whatever about 
 His meaning and the importance 
 attached to it. It is of a Divine and 
 living person He is speaking, a Pres- 
 ence as mighty as the Father and the 
 Son, as actual to us as the presence 
 of Jesus with the disciples of old. The 
 Holy Ghost has been given to the 
 Church as the present God of the 
 Christian dispensation, nearer even 
 than the Saviour could be to His 
 earthly companions, because He 
 dwells within our inmost being and 
 communicates directly with our inner- 
 most consciousness. He is the power 
 for all true Christian work, and only 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 237 
 
 as we are possessed and anointed by 
 Him, are we able to accomplish spirit- 
 ual results that can be acceptable to 
 Him or lasting in their results. 
 
 The book of Acts would be the 
 best answer to this question. We 
 need only look at Peter as he had 
 been a month before, and Peter as he 
 was at the day of Pentecost, to under- 
 stand the promise and its import, 
 ance. It was a power that imparted 
 such heroic courage and boldness that 
 the man who fled from the servant 
 girl could defy the whole Hebrew 
 Sanhedrim and rejoice that he was 
 counted worthy to suffer shame for 
 his Lord. It was a power that illum- 
 inated their minds and enabled them 
 to understand with marvelous clear- 
 
2:38 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 n ess, and expound with overwhelm- 
 ing conviction, the Scriptures and the 
 Gospel. Possessed with this power 
 Stephen could face the whole syna- 
 gogue of the Cilicians, and they were 
 not ahle to resist the wisdom and 
 might with which he spoke. And all 
 the sermons recorded in the Acts of 
 the Apostles are marked by the most 
 marv^elous depth and fullness of scrip- 
 tural teaching and spiritual truth. 
 
 It was a power that inspired them 
 with overcoming faith to claim the 
 promises of God in all their omnipo- 
 tence, and trust Him amid all situa- 
 tions of need and danger, for His super- 
 natural working. It was power to 
 understand the will of God and know 
 His guidance and follow His plan in 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 239 
 
 founding the Church of Christ on 
 earth and fulfilhng their various min- 
 istries. It was the power of love that 
 made all their hearts one. It was the 
 power of patient suffering which en- 
 abled Stephen and others to face their 
 persecutors with a spirit that turned 
 oven their blood into a mightier wit- 
 ness for God than all their words or 
 deeds. It was the power to produce 
 conviction and conversion in the 
 hearts of men, the power that made 
 men feel their sins and realize their 
 need of a Saviour and accept Him. 
 It was the power of supernatural and 
 miraculous working that could rise 
 above the laws of nature and the 
 powers of disease and demoniacal 
 possession, and work in the name of 
 
240 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 Jesus as Jesus Himself had worked. 
 And it was the power that brought 
 the providence of God to work upon 
 their side, controUing the elements of 
 nature, and the great movements of 
 human life, so as to advance the King- 
 dom of their Eisen Lord. 
 
 That blessed Holy Spirit is still the 
 same unchanging power, and willing, 
 in all our hearts, to work with His 
 ancient might if He can find a vessel 
 empty, cleansed and yielded, which 
 will be fully responsive to His touch 
 and will. Oh, let us tarry until we 
 be endued with His power ; and then 
 at each new step let us tarry until we 
 go forth in Him and in His perfect 
 will and power 1 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 241 
 IV. THE PURPOSE OF THIS ENDUEMENT. 
 
 " Ye shall be witnesses unto me." 
 This word happily describes the work 
 to which Christ calls His disciples. It 
 is not to be the founders of sects and 
 systems of theology, not to be wit- 
 nesses of great principles and truths, 
 but to be witnesses unto Him, to make 
 Christ real to the consciences of men. 
 Of course, He must be real to us first, 
 for the witness can only tell what he 
 himself knows. This was ever the 
 great theme of apostolic testimony, 
 and as we go back to it in these last 
 days more fully, we shall see the 
 spirit of primitive piety revived. The 
 church has too often been a great the- 
 ological seminary rather than a place 
 of simple testimony and the revela- 
 
242 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 tion and lifting up of Jesus Christ. 
 Notice, how in all their addresses 
 which are recorded, they invariably 
 tell the whole story of Jesus ! The 
 words may be brief and few, but the 
 story is all told : His incarnation, His 
 earthly ministry, His works of love, 
 His Mediatorial reign. His coming 
 again, His readiness to receive and 
 save sinful men. 
 
 Some one has humorously said that 
 the word ' ' exegesis " might be slightly 
 transposed to read '' Exit Jesus ; " and 
 certainly a good deal of preaching is 
 this sort of exegesis ; but no messen- 
 ger who, with a loving heart, goes 
 forth to tell about Jesus and make 
 Him real to sinful men will ever re- 
 turn with empty hands. This is the 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 243 
 
 testimony God will bless. He wants 
 it from our lips and He wants it from 
 our lives ; He wants us so to speak 
 and so to live that men shall be con- 
 scious, not of ourselves or of our 
 words, but of some One behind us 
 whom they recognize by our testi- 
 mony as the source of all our life, and 
 the One who is just as willing to im- 
 part the same blessing to them. 
 
 Beloved, are we so witnessing to 
 Him as we move among men or min- 
 ister to othersj Are we " a savor of 
 Christ to them that believe and even 
 unto them that perish ? " 
 
 V. THE SCOPE OF THEIR. MINISTRY. 
 
 Their field was to be the world. 
 Their plan of campaign was dis- 
 
244: THE CHRIST OF 
 
 tinctly outlined. They were to begin 
 at Jerusalem ; to extend their work 
 among the scattered Jews through 
 all Judea; to reach out, next, to Sa- 
 maria, an intermediate race, kindred 
 but not one with them ; and then 
 they were to embrace the entire Gen- 
 tile world and carry the Gospel to the 
 uttermost parts of the earth. Their 
 commission, therefore, includes the 
 whole work of Home and Foreign 
 Missions, and most faithfully did 
 they fulfill it. The Book of Acts is 
 the best commentary on this verse, 
 as it records the planting of the 
 church at Jerusalem, through Peter, 
 James, John and Stephen ; the min- 
 istry of Peter and others to the 
 scattered Jews ; the work of Philip 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 245 
 
 and others in Samaria ; and then 
 closes with the splendid sketch of the 
 planting of Christianity and the in- 
 augurating of the great work of for- 
 eign missions through the lips of 
 Philip, Peter, and especially Paul and 
 Barnabas. The larger part of the 
 book is occupied with this last sec- 
 tion, the Gospel among the Gentiles, 
 and over every section and .every 
 stage of this four-fold campaign, the 
 Master's promise seems to hover as a 
 cloud of glory, ^'Ye shall receive 
 power and ye shall be witnesses unto 
 me." 
 
 So it was in Jerusalem, so it was 
 in Judea, so it was in Samaria, and 
 so it was in the uttermost part of the 
 earth. At every stage of their 
 
246 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 wondrous work it was manifest that 
 the work was supernatural and Di- 
 vine. The power of God was con- 
 stantly manifested in it, and His 
 wonderful direction, protection, in- 
 terposition and blessing marked every 
 page of the Book of Acts and every 
 step of their glorious work. 
 
 1. Glance for a moment at their 
 work in Jerusalem. How marvel- 
 ously the power of the Holy Ghost 
 came upon them ! How simply and 
 faithfully they witnessed unto Him 
 before the multitudes at Pentecost, 
 before the Sanhedrim on trial, before 
 the cripple at the temple gate and the 
 crowds that gazed upon his healing ! 
 How wonderfully God crowned their 
 work with His power ; the power 
 
THE t^ORTY DAYS 24t 
 
 that came in the tongues at Pente- 
 cost ; the power that carried Peter's 
 sermon home to the hearts of three 
 thousand men and the multitudes 
 that followed in the same work of 
 faith ; the power that smote the false 
 Ananias and Sapphira ; the power 
 that rendered their persecutors power- 
 less to gainsay their words; the power 
 that gathered the multitudes by thou- 
 sands into the infant church ; the 
 greater power that fused their hearts 
 into a holy oneness and melted down 
 all selfishness and worldliness in a 
 heavenly flame of love and consecra- 
 tion ; the power that enabled 
 Stephen to speak to the learned and 
 practised sophists of the synagogue 
 of Cilicia with a might which 
 
248 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 they could not gainsay ; and then 
 the power that enabled him to 
 meet their murderous hate with a 
 face like an angel and a fortitude and 
 love so sublime that the victory of 
 his death was mightier than all the 
 triumphs of his life, and the very 
 man who had been chief witness 
 against him was turned to God by 
 his martyrdom and his dying prayer. 
 And so the whole story of the 
 planting of the church in Jerusalem 
 was the story of the power of the , 
 Holy Ghost, and the testimony of 
 Jesus through the lips of weak and 
 humble instruments. The same 
 power is still ready to crown our 
 labors with success and establish 
 Christ's kingdom in our midst. 
 
THE FORTY BAYS 249 
 
 2. The same supernatural presence 
 and power may be traced in the next 
 stage of their work, — the witnessing 
 for Jesus through all Judea. The 
 record of this work is chiefly con- 
 nected witli Peter. The story. of his 
 labors at Lydda and Joppa is but a 
 specimen page from the unpublished 
 book of God's remembrance. The 
 healing ef Eneas and the raising of 
 Dorcas from the dead were not only 
 mighty and majestic, — the mightiest 
 in the apostolic story — but were fol- 
 lowed by still mightier results in the 
 conversion of multitudes of whom 
 we are told that ^'all that dwelt at 
 Lydda and Saron saw him and turned 
 to the Lord ; '' and of Dorcas' restora- 
 tion it is said, '' it was known through 
 
250 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 all Joppa, and many believed in fhe 
 Lord." We do not know from the 
 sacred narrative of all Peter's labors, 
 but doubtless he carried the Gospel, 
 along with others, through all parts 
 of Pakstine, and it seems certain that 
 he afterwards visited Babylon and 
 other places outside of Palestine 
 where great numbers of his country- 
 men resided. 'We also know that 
 Paul always presented Christ to tlie 
 Jews wherever he went, and the little 
 synagogue in every place became the 
 nucleus and starting point for the en- 
 tire community. God often worked 
 wondrously among His own chosen 
 people before their brethren so re- 
 jected the truth that the apostles had 
 to turn to the Gentiles. 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 251 
 
 8. The Gospel in Samaiia was 
 planted and established through the 
 mighty power of God and the wit- 
 nessing of Jesns. The simple story 
 is given in Acts viii : 5, 6: '' Philip 
 went down to the city of Samaria 
 and preached Christ unto them, and 
 the people with one accord gave heed 
 to the things which Phihp spoke, 
 hearing and seeing the miracles which 
 he did." The whole community 
 seemed moved with one accord, and 
 even Simon Magus, the wicked leader 
 of a Satanic ring of sorcerers and 
 magicians, himself had to yield to 
 the transcendent power of Jesus' 
 name. We cannot withhold our at- 
 tention from the fact that in all this 
 new aggressive moment of Christian- 
 
*J5!;i THE CHRIST OP 
 
 ity tlie Lord Jesus sealed His word 
 with signs and wonders ; and wo cer- 
 tainly have a right to expect such 
 manifestations in every new stage of 
 Christian work to-day, as well as such 
 other times as His glory and truth 
 require the special manifestation of 
 His almighty presence. 
 
 But it was not the miracles that 
 established Christ ianity ; they simply . 
 awakened the attention and secured 
 the confidence of the people ; and 
 then it was the power of the Holy 
 Ghost upon the simple preaching of 
 Jesus which brought the spiritual 
 results in every case. It is most 
 marked that after the acceptance of 
 the testimony of Jesus there was a 
 personal baptism of the Holy Ghost 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 253 
 
 upon the converts, bringing to them 
 the actual and conscious experience 
 of the Lord's presence and the salva- 
 tion which they had claimed, and 
 being to them an evidence which all 
 the reasonings of man could never 
 gainsay and from wliich all the in- 
 timidations of persecution could not 
 move them. 
 
 4. But the great work of the apostles 
 was to be the planting of Christianity 
 among the Gentiles and the witness- 
 ing of Jesus to the uttermost part 
 of the earth. At a very early period 
 in the Book of Acts we find the 
 Holy Spirit leading out into the great 
 work of missions. First, we have 
 the call of Philip from his work in 
 Samaria to meet the Ethiopian eunuch 
 
264 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 in the desert of Gaza. And this is as 
 supernatural and marvelous as any 
 of the steps that we have already 
 traced^ for over every step the mes- 
 sage seems to re-echo, " Ye shall re- 
 ceive power after that the Holy 
 .Ghost is come upon you and ye shall 
 be witnesses unto me." It is the 
 Spirit's call that sends him. It was 
 a strange message. He was busy at 
 Pamaria and the work never seemed 
 so promising. But the call was im- 
 perative to leave this fruitful field 
 and go down into a desert. It seemed 
 the most unlikely place in the world 
 to find work for Christ, or results 
 that could repay such a sacrifice of 
 time and labor, but he simply obeyed 
 and went. 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 255 
 
 Let us remember, beloved, that 
 this was the founding of Christian 
 missions, the first page in the wonder- 
 ful chapter of the world's evangeliza- 
 tion, and the pattern, therefore, for 
 our missionary call. And, therefore, 
 if we have received the power of the 
 Holy Ghost and are called to the 
 world's evangelization, the summons 
 will most likely come when we are 
 otherwise occupied with work which 
 it seems we must not leave. The 
 call may summon us to what may 
 seem a spiritual wilderness, and the 
 wasting of our energies upon a bar- 
 ren desert, as would seem to be the 
 prospect for many a missionary who 
 is plunging to-day into the heart of 
 Africa or the remote regions of China. 
 
256 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 But lo, as he obeys, the desert be- 
 comes ahve with the presence of 
 God and the working of His mighty 
 Providence. The prince of Ethiopia 
 with all his train, at this very mo- 
 ment, is returning to his land, hun- 
 gry, sad and disappointed because he 
 has not found the answer to his 
 heart's deep questions, or the hght he 
 is seeking upon the strange book he 
 holds in his hands without being able 
 to break the seal. The Spirit's work 
 is not left half done. The message 
 ''Go, join thyself to his chariot," is 
 quickly obeyed ; and lo, a soul is 
 saved, a new voice consecrated, and 
 no doubt a mighty work of evangel- 
 ization begun for the great continent 
 to which the prince was just return- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 25Y 
 
 [ng. And then, lest man should have 
 too much to do with it, Philip is 
 instantly caught away and the eunuch 
 goes on his way rejoicing, satisfied 
 with His Master's presence and filled 
 with the same Holy Spirit which had 
 led Philip to him. 
 
 So the first Gentile convert was an 
 African, and the first missionary to 
 Africa was a native, and the power 
 which brought it all about was the 
 simple power of the Holy Ghost and 
 the ascended Christ, working in 
 methods and through instrumentali- 
 ties which seemed weakness in them- 
 selves but which became mighty 
 through God to the pulling down of 
 strongholds. So still we may expect 
 His power to direct and confirm our 
 
258 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 efforts in His name to evangelize a 
 lost world, as we dare to obey every 
 call of the Spii-^fc in humble obedience 
 and simple faith. 
 
 The next chapter in Gentile Chris- 
 tianity is no less marked by the 
 power of the Holy Ghost. It is the 
 story of Peter and Cornelius. First, 
 we see the Holy Spirit leading Peter 
 aside for prayer, and then giving him 
 a vision which prepared him to break 
 through the old ceremonial barriers 
 of Judaism and go among the Gen- 
 tiles with the gospel. Next, we see 
 the same Spirit working at that very 
 moment in the heart of Cornelius 
 and bidding him to send for Peter ; 
 and then we see the Spirit and the 
 providence of God operating to- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 259 
 
 gether, as the messenger calls at 
 Simon's house at the very moment 
 that the Spirit has prepared him for 
 the message. And then, as he obeys, 
 like Philip, and simply goes with the 
 men to Joppa, we cannot fail to trace 
 the wonderful w^orking of God which 
 had prepared the mind of this in- 
 fluential Roman for the gospel, by 
 all his previous history. So God is 
 preparing the hearts of heathen men 
 to-day and giving them a hunger, 
 which they do not understand, but 
 which will make the gospel welcome 
 to them when, at last, the messenger 
 of Jesus reaches their land. 
 
 The message of Peter is true to the 
 apostohc commission. He simply 
 witnesses of Jesus. It is a wonder- 
 
2G0 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 ful message, and tells the whole story 
 of the gospel in as few words as 
 were ever compressed into so short a 
 space. It is the story of His life, of 
 His death, of His Eesurrection, of 
 His Second Coming and of His gra- 
 cious message of forgiveness and 
 salvation to all who believe on His 
 name. And as the witness was sim- 
 ply given, the Holy Spirit finished 
 the work and fell upon the people in 
 Pentecostal power. And so this 
 might be called the second Pentecost 
 and the inauguration of Gentile 
 Christianity, in correspondence with 
 the planting of the church in Jeru- 
 salem. Here we have again a pattern 
 chapter from the story of the early 
 church, and why may not we expect 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 261 
 
 the same mighty power to direct and 
 confirm our work for the evangehza- 
 tion of the world, as we depend upon 
 .the same Holy Ghost ? 
 
 The next great step in witnessing 
 for Jesus to the uttermost part of 
 the earth was the establishment of 
 the work in Antioch. It was neces- 
 sary that there should be a new 
 centre for Gentile missions. The 
 church at Jerusalem was too cod- 
 servaj}ive and too much bound by the 
 traditions of the past to be adjust- 
 able in the hands of God for so bold 
 and world-wide a work, and there- 
 fore the Holy Spirit called together, 
 in the most simple and spontaneous 
 manner, a company of simple-hearted 
 cosmopolitan believers, free from all 
 
262 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 narrow bigotries and exclusive views, 
 many of them laymen, most of them 
 provincial Jews or Gentiles, and rep- 
 resenting all social stations, from 
 Simeon, the African, to Manaen, a 
 courtier in Herod's family, Barnabas, 
 the princely and generous man of 
 wealth, and Saul of Tarsus, the cul- 
 tivated and profound philosopher and 
 scholar. They had just the elements 
 to form a church of the largest sym- 
 pathies and the most world-wide 
 adaptations. And so, without apos- 
 tolic hands or ecclesiastical agency, 
 they just grew into a mother church, 
 until the apostles' hearing of it, sent 
 the right man to dev^elop without 
 dwarfing them — the noble-hearted 
 Barnabas — and ere long a new Jeru- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 263 
 
 salem has grown up in Syria, which 
 God is henceforth to use as the 
 mother of Gentile missions, and the 
 spring from which the waters of hf e 
 shall flow forth to the uttermost part 
 of the earth. 
 
 And so to-day, it does seem 
 that God is preparing new centres 
 for foieign mission work. Tenderly, 
 but boldly, we are constrained to say 
 that the ecclesiastical lines of our day 
 have grown so rigid and the machin- 
 ery of Christian work so elaborate and 
 conservative that they have ceased to 
 be fully adjustable to the world's great 
 needs. Missionaries sent forth from 
 such atmospheres carry with them to 
 the foreign field the cornplexion of 
 the home church, and reproduce 
 
264 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 abroad the features which, in the 
 church at home, neutrahze her high- 
 est usefulness. And therefore God, 
 in these last days, is gathering a great 
 number of His consecrated children 
 in all the churches into closer fellow- 
 ship in Him, and from their midst is 
 sending forth new missionary move- 
 ments, undenominational, independ- 
 ent, simple and spiritual, which will 
 carry to the heathen world the spirit 
 of separation from the world, holiness 
 of heart and life, entire consecration, 
 self-sacrifice and simplicity in Chris- 
 tian living, and a full belief in the 
 supernatural power of God and in the 
 speedy coming of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, all of which must bring about 
 a new phase of missionary life and 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 265 
 
 work, and a corresponding seal of the 
 Holy Ghost upon the work and the 
 workers. 
 
 Such, indeed, has been the case, and 
 to-day scores and even hundreds of 
 such workers, sent forth by no ecclesi- 
 astical body but by warm-hearted cir- 
 cles of consecrated men and women 
 at home, are laboring, in the power 
 of God, in many of the fields of Afri- 
 ca and China. Indeed, most of the 
 effective missionary work of our time 
 has sprung from such centres. The 
 time has gone by for elaborate eccle- 
 siastical missionary movements. We 
 are in the day of spontaneous and sim- 
 ple Christian effort under the direct 
 superintendence of the Holy Ghost, 
 and through men and women who 
 
266 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 are wholly baptized with His power. 
 We believe most solemnly that the 
 great movement to-day, which is call- 
 ing together the consecrated children 
 of God in every land in a closer fellow- 
 ship of holiness and deeper spiritual 
 life, is just the prej)aration of new 
 missionary centres which are to cover 
 the world before the close of the de- 
 cade with an army of simple self-deny- 
 ing messengers through whom the 
 whole world will be evangelized and 
 the coming of our Master hastened 
 
 The last great agency in the evan- 
 gelization of the world was the calling 
 of Saul of Tarsus and his wonderful 
 missionary life and work. Surely, 
 above all else in the book of Acts this 
 is an expression of the power of the 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 267 
 
 Holy Ghost. It was His power that 
 called him on his way to Damascus, 
 in a moment, to his Master's feet. It 
 was His power that sent him forth as 
 a minister and a witness, and clothed 
 his hps and illuminated his mind 
 with such marvelous messages and 
 conceptions of the gospel. It was 
 this power which trained him for his 
 work alone in the deserts of Arabia 
 and taught his inmost spirit the se- 
 cret of the Lord. It was the Holy 
 Ghost who called him to his great 
 missionary work, and who went forth 
 with him into it at every stage as the 
 directing presence and enduing might 
 of his own ministry. Mightily He 
 stood by him in Cyprus as he con- 
 fronted Elymas the sorcerer and 
 
268 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 claimed the soul of the governor foi 
 God. Mightily He vindicated His 
 servant in the heathen mob of Derbe 
 and Lystra as He healed the cripple 
 and then raised up the apostle him- 
 self from the heap of stones, healed 
 him of his bruises, and sent him forth 
 to finish his work. Mightily he 
 opened the hearts of the tribes in 
 Asia Minor to receive the gospel, and 
 enabled him to plant the churches of 
 Asia which afterward became such 
 centres of life and power. With un- 
 erring wisdom and a strong Hand, 
 that Holy Presence guided him in all 
 his plans, held him back irresistibly 
 from Bithynia and Ephesus, and sent 
 him over into Macedonia to commence 
 his great crusade in the new continent 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 209 
 
 which was afterwards to become the 
 chief theatre of Gentile Christianity. 
 How supernaturally and trium- 
 phantly the Lord carried his servant 
 through the perils of the Philippian 
 mob, opened the soul of Lydia and 
 broke the heart of the jailer ! How 
 gloriously He defended him at Cor- 
 inth from the fierce and teacherous 
 foes who sought to destroy him, and 
 gave free course to the gospel in that 
 great metropolis of business and of 
 sin ! How divinely He led him at the 
 right moment to the Oriental capital, 
 Ephesus, and gave him his splendid 
 triumphs there over the might of Sa- 
 tanic power, and established the great 
 church which was afterwards to be 
 the home of Timothy and John! 
 
270 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 How gloriously He led him forth to 
 Jerusalem and Eome,and carried him 
 through all the perils of waters and 
 of treacherous foes, until at last He 
 enabled him, from a prisoner's chain 
 in the Roman barracks, to so preach 
 the Gospel that the mighty Roman 
 empire was shaken to its foundations, 
 and before two hundred and fifty 
 years had passed, was wholly turned 
 to Christianity. 
 
 The great truth that we feel im- 
 pressed to reiterate and emphasize, 
 and which seems to shine out from 
 our Master's message to His disciples, 
 is that the work of the Apostolic 
 Church was to be supernatural and 
 divine ; and at every stage, the Mas- 
 ter kept His promise literally and 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 271 
 
 gloriously a^s they met His simple con- 
 ditions, ' ' Ye ^hall receive power after 
 that the Holy Ghost is come upon you 
 and ye shall be witnesses for me." 
 The men themselves were as weak as 
 we; the difficulties of their work far 
 greater than our own. All the ad- 
 vantages of modern civihzation and 
 the means of transit to every portion 
 of the world were wanting in their 
 case; and yet, notwithstanding all, as 
 they went forth in their weakness 
 and simple fidelity to the Master's 
 work, the cloud of His Presence was 
 as manifest as in the days of Moses 
 or the campaignti^i of Joshua. 
 
 Why should it ^jver have ceased to 
 be? Why should it not be restored 
 again? Hais thui living energy de- 
 
272 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 parted from the promise ? Has the 
 Son of God grown old? Has His 
 power or His wisdom decayed ? Is 
 the Holy Ghost exhausted with the 
 centuries that have drained the ocean 
 of His love and power ? Or is He not 
 waiting for the opportunity to mani- 
 fest His presence and His might, and 
 longing only for instruments and ves- 
 sels through whom He can work with 
 such simplicity that Christ can have 
 all the glory, and that men shall see, 
 not the workers, but the power that 
 worketh in them ? Oh, that w^e may 
 tarry long enough to get right with 
 Him, and then go forth until He 
 come in His glorious exaltation, 
 and in His mighty Name and power, 
 and, perhaps, before our tarrying is 
 
THE FORTY DAY^ ' 273 
 
 over, some of us will find that we 
 have been working without our ar- 
 mor and that we do not yet even 
 know the Holy Ghost. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE ASCENSION. 
 
 And when He had spoken these things, 
 while they beheld, He was taken up ; and 
 a cloud received Him out of their sight. 
 Acts i : 9. 
 
 fHE last hour has at length come. 
 The forty days are ending. He who 
 has lingered so tenderly on the thres- 
 hold of earth is i eady to depart upon 
 that- journey from which, some day, 
 we shall see Him return. Tenderly 
 has He chosen the sacred spot on 
 which He shall last look — the little 
 liome of Bethany. Tenderly perhaps 
 has He said farewell to its little home 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 2Y5 
 
 circle; or, it may be, they are in the 
 company of His disciples this hour. 
 He has just finished His last message. 
 The sounds are lingering upon their 
 ear, ''to the uttermost part of the 
 earth," whenlo! His form begins to 
 rise. Not as before does He vanish in- 
 to the impalpable air, but visibly, dis- 
 tinctly, does He ascend before their 
 eyes, gently borne upward without 
 an effort. As He rises His hands are 
 still extended in the benediction 
 which He has just pronounced upon 
 their heads. His face is lighted up 
 with tenderest love, and His gaze is 
 fixed no doubt upon each in turn, 
 with one personal and penetrating 
 look of recognition and farewell 
 which they never shall forget- 
 
276 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 Higher and higher He ascends, while 
 they gaze as though they would go 
 with Him if they could, until the 
 strain is broken by a soft cloud, w^hich 
 floats between and hides Him from 
 their view. But still the cloud as- 
 cends and still they gaze upon it, 
 until a voice awakens them from 
 their absorbing view, and two angels, 
 by their side, gently recall them to 
 earth as they leave His last message, 
 ^' Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye 
 / gazing up into heaven ? This same\ 
 / Jesus, which is taken up from you \ 
 I into heaven, shall so come in like j 
 ( manner as ye have seen him go into / 
 '. heaven." • ^ 
 
 \^ It is past ! The cloud has gone, 
 the angels have departed, and slowly 
 
THE FORTY DAYS ^11 
 
 and solemnly they return to Jerusa- 
 lem and wait for the next great chap- 
 ter of Christianity— the descent of the 
 Holy Ghost; 
 
 The scene which they had been be- 
 holding is the theme of many an in- 
 spired picture. Two other allusions 
 are made to it in the Gospels. Luke 
 himself refers to it in the closing 
 verses of his Gospel with some fur- 
 ther details: ^'He led them out as 
 far as Bethany, and He lifted up His 
 hands and blessed them. /And it came 
 to pass while He blessed them, He was 
 parted from them, and carried up into 
 heaven. And they worshipped Him, 
 and returned to Jerusalem with great 
 jjoy." Mark tells us that '^ He was 
 received up into heaven, and sat on 
 
278 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 the right hand of God. And they 
 went forth and preached everywhere, 
 the Lord working with them and con- 
 firming the word with signs follow- 
 ing." Some of the Messianic Psalms 
 have shed a glorious light on the facts 
 of His Ascension. The twenty-fourth 
 Psalm sounds like a responsive chorus 
 especially prepared for the angelic 
 choirs that accompanied His Ascen- 
 sion ; the processional choir demand- 
 ing as they approach the celestial 
 portals, '^Lift up your heads, ye 
 gates ; and be ye lifted up, ye ever- 
 lasting doors ; and the King of glory 
 shall come in," while the chorus 
 standing at the heavenly gates re- 
 spond, ''Who is this King of glory ? " 
 and the ans werijig shout breaks forth^ 
 
'HIE FORTY DAYS 279 
 
 (" The Lord strong and mighty, The 
 Lord mighty in battle.^ Lift up your 
 heads, O ye gates; even hft toem up, 
 ye everlasting doors^aud the King of 
 glory shall come in/' The sixty - 
 eighth Psalm tells us of the chariots 
 of God and the twenty thousand 
 angels that accompanied His Ascen- 
 sion, and then it gives us the picture 
 of the long procession of rescued cap- 
 tives from the prisons of Sheol, who 
 followed His triumphal march and 
 entered as the first company of ran- 
 ; somed from the ranks of the Old 
 : Testment believers, into the open 
 heavens. Other conquerors marched 
 in triumph with their captives 
 dragged behind, but the only cap- 
 tives that graced His gloi-ious ascent 
 
280 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 were those that He Himself had set 
 at hberty. 
 
 And then the Psalm tells its 
 of His Ascension on high and His 
 receiving gifts for men that the Lord 
 Jehovah might dwell among them, 
 which was fulfilled in the mighty 
 gift of the Holy Ghost and the abid- 
 ing presence of God with His peo- 
 ple in the Christian dispensation, 
 through Christ's ascension. The 
 New Testament is full of this theme. 
 Peter tells the multiudes at Pente- 
 cost that "Christ -hath received of 
 the Father honor and gloiy, and being- 
 exalted to His right hand hath shed 
 forth the Holy Spirit." And again 
 he speaks of His ascension, " Whom 
 the heavens must receive until the 
 
THE FORTY DAYS v 281 
 
 times of the restitution of a.11 things." 
 Paul, again and again, refers to it in 
 his epistles. In Romans viii he says, 
 >^ It is Christ that died ; yea, rather j 
 / that has risen again, who is even at/ 
 the right hand of God, who also mak-/ 
 eth intercession for us." In 1 Cor/ 
 xv: '' He must reign until all His ene- 
 mies are made His footstool." In 
 Ephesians, chapter i. He prays that 
 the disciples may know the exceeding 
 greatness of His power who raised 
 Christ from the dead and set Him at 
 His own right hand in the heavenly 
 places, far above all principality, and 
 power, and might, and dominion, and 
 every name that is named, not only 
 in this world, but also that which is 
 to come J and hath |>ut all things un- 
 
282 THE CHRIST 07' 
 
 der His feet, and gave Him to be the 
 Head over all things to the church, 
 which is His body, the tuVLiik-SH of 
 Him that filleth all in all. 
 
 He tells the Colossians that they 
 are '^ risen with Christ, and they are 
 to seek those things that are above, 
 where Christ sitteth on the right hand 
 of God." In Phil., ii, after describing 
 the self-sacrifice and humiliation of 
 Jesus, he adds, '^ Therefore God also 
 hath highly exalted Him and given 
 Him a name that is above every name: 
 that at the name of Jesus every knee 
 should bow and every tongue confess 
 that Jesus Christ is Lord to the gloiy 
 of God the Father." 
 
 The epistle to the Hebrews is full of 
 this subject. '' Who being the briglit- 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 283 
 
 ness of His glory and the express 
 image of His person, and upholding 
 all things by the word of His power, 
 when He had by Himself purged 
 our sins, sat down on the right hand 
 of the majesty on high." And again, 
 *'For He hath put all things under 
 His feet. For in that He hath put 
 all things under His feet he left noth- 
 ing that is not put under Him. " ' ' See- 
 ing, therefore,' he adds, 'Hhat we 
 have a great High Priest that has 
 passed into the heavens, Jesus the 
 Son of God, let us hold fast our pro- 
 fession. For we have not a High 
 Priest that cannot be touched with 
 the feeling of our infirmitie-*, but was 
 in all points tempted like as we are, 
 yet without sin. Let us, therefore, 
 
284 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 come boldly unto the throne of grace, 
 that we may obtain mercy, and find 
 grace to help in time of need." Still 
 later he speaks of Him as the One 
 who ''hath entered into heaven itself, . 
 now to appear in the presence of God 
 for us," and declares that " He is able 
 to save them to the uttermost that 
 come unto God by Him, seeing He 
 ever liveth to make intercession for 
 them." " For such a High Priest be- 
 came us, w^ho is holy, harmless, unde- 
 filed, separate from sinners, and made 
 higher than the heavens." 
 
 Peter speaks of Him as having gone 
 into heaven, ''angels, authorities and 
 powers beingmade subject unto Him.'' 
 John declares that we have an Advo- 
 cate with the Father, Jesus Christ the 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 285 
 
 righteous. And finally, in the Apoca- 
 lyptic vision, we behold Him, again 
 and again, in His enthronement, 
 grace and glory. In the first chap- 
 ter we have a vision of Him as our 
 Priest. ^^And in the midst of the 
 seven candlesticks one like unto the 
 Son of Man, clothed with a garment 
 down to the foot, and girt about the 
 paps with a golden girdle. His head 
 and His hairs were white like wool, 
 as white as snow ; and His eyes were 
 as a flame of fire ; and His feet like 
 unto fine brass as if they burned in 
 a furnace ; and His voice as the sound 
 of many waters. And He had in 
 His right hand seven stars ; and out 
 of His mouth went a sharp two-edged 
 sword J and His countenance was as 
 
286 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 the sun shining in his strength. And 
 when I saw Him I fell at His feet as 
 dead. And He laid His right hand 
 upon me, saying unto me, Fear not ; 
 I am the first and the last : I am Ho 
 that liveth and was dead ; and behold, 
 I am alive for evermore. Amen ; and 
 have the keys of hell and of death." 
 Jnthe fifth chapter we behold Him 
 as the Priest-King, the Lion and the 
 Lamb together, combining almighti- 
 ness and mercy, as He takes the book 
 to open the seals, and administer 
 the mediatorial kingdom. And in tho 
 nineteenth chapter we behold Him in 
 His royal majesty about to }eave tho 
 heavenly throne and assume His 
 millennial kingdom on earth. 
 Such are some of the scattered raj^s 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 28^ 
 
 of light which shine from the ex- 
 cellent glory, upon the exalted per- 
 son of the ascended Christ. Let us 
 gather up into a simple and practical 
 focus some of their lessons. What 
 was the purpose and value of Christ's 
 ascension ? 
 
 /"l. It was the reward of His suffer- 
 ings and obediem^.e. ■ What an eclipse 
 those thirty-three and a half years 
 had been ! What an awful descent 
 for the Son of God ! What a depth 
 of humiliation, what a strange bap- 
 tism of agony and shame ! What 
 an awful shadow of sin and the curse 
 of a Holy God and of a broken law ! 
 Oh, how sweet heaven and home 
 must have been to His heart ! What 
 a joy Divine and Infinite to return to 
 
288 THE CHRIST OP 
 
 the bosom of His Father and His 
 own Primeval place of dignity and 
 glory ! Well might He say to them, 
 " If ye loved me ye would rejoice be- 
 cause I go unto my Father." Well 
 may we join in the welcome home of 
 our suffering Eedeemer and cry, 
 
 *' Jesas hail ! enthroned in glory, 
 There forever to abide ; 
 All the heavenly hosts adore Thee, 
 Seated at Thy Father's side." 
 
 2. It was the seal of God upon the 
 finished work of redemption and the 
 final token of His" f uU acceptance of 
 Christ's gr^at sacrifice. He had gone 
 forth from heaven on a mission well 
 understood, to assume the guilt of a 
 fallen world and undertake the task 
 of its reconciliation to God. He had 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 289 
 
 stood on earth, under the eyes of 
 God and of angels, and solemnly as- ^ 
 sumed in His baptism the sins of 
 man. He had hung on the cross of 
 Calvary, under the astonished gaze 
 of the heavenly world, in the name 
 and on behalf of sinful men, as the 
 embodiment of sin and the represen- 
 tative of lost humanity. Had He 
 failed in His mighty task. He never 
 could have entered heaven again as a 
 Victor. But now we see Him return- 
 ing in majestic triumph, all angels 
 waiting upon Him in loving homage, 
 and the Father setting Him at His 
 own right hand in the place of the 
 highest honor and kingly power ; and 
 we know that His work must have 
 been accepted and His great under- 
 
290 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 taking gloriously accomplished. For 
 He still occupies this place in our 
 name and nature, and takes His posi- 
 tion, not alone, but in our behalf. 
 Therefore His glory is the seal of our 
 salvation, and all His triumph pro- 
 claims our triumph sure. 
 
 3. Christ's ascension was the ex- 
 altation of man to the right hand of 
 God. It was as Man He entered 
 heaven and sat upon His throne. ( It 
 is as the Son of Man, with a human 
 face and form, that He is sitting 
 there to-day. N It is in our behalf 
 that He has gone up to God./ He 
 claims our place there, and keeps it 
 till we come. '^What an honor to the 
 once lost human race was the ascen- 
 sion of Christ 1 It was the entrance 
 
THE FORTY DAY^ 291 
 
 of a Man to the highest place in the 
 heavenly world, with the first-fruits 
 of this new race following in His 
 train and taking a place with Him 
 that angels could not claim. Lord, 
 what is man that Thou hast set Thine 
 heart upon him and so strangely re- 
 deemed and lifted him up for ever ? 
 Oh, let us rejoice and shout for joy 
 as we see the Son of G od ascend and 
 write our names upon the seats of 
 glory, as our great Forerunner ! God 
 has recognized man's right to enter 
 heaven, to enter it as a King, to enter 
 its highest place of dignity and bles- 
 sing through the ascension of the 
 Son of Man. 
 
 4. The ascension of Jesus brought 
 the expulsion of Satan and the set- 
 
293 THE CHRIST Oie* 
 
 tling forevermore of every question 
 affecting our standing in the presence 
 of God. In the twelfth chapter of 
 Revelation there is a fine picture of 
 the Man Child, born of the symbol- 
 ical woman^ and caught up to the 
 throne of God from the devouring 
 fury of the Dragon. There is no 
 doubt that this Man Child represents 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, and the 
 picture referred to His Ascension. 
 This is followed in the chapter quoted, 
 by a description of the conflict which 
 followed in heaven, and the casting- 
 out of Satan and his angels, who 
 had hitherto enjoyed access to the 
 presence of God to accuse the saints, 
 as we find him doing in the Old Tes- 
 tament in the case of Job and Joshua. 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 293 
 
 But now the Advocate of the saints 
 appears with the evidences of the 
 settlement of all claims against them. 
 He lays His own precious blood at 
 the foot of the throne, and, by His 
 finished work claims the settling 
 and silencing forever of every charge 
 against them, and immediately the 
 case is settled. The sentence of the 
 Court is publicly declared, and the 
 accusing counsel is dismissed forever. 
 The case is over, and never again 
 may a word of accusation be heard 
 against them. The police of heaven 
 are commanded to drive the accusers 
 from the judgment seat, and Satan 
 is hurled from the Holy Presence, 
 while heaven shouts for joy, ^^Ee- 
 joice, ye heavens, for the accuser of 
 
294 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 our brethren is cast down who ac- 
 cused them day and night before 
 God." Henceforth no charge against 
 us can come to His ears, and all we 
 need to keep us in victory is to apply 
 the blessed verse that follows, " They 
 overcame him by the blood of the 
 Lamb and by the word of their tes- 
 timony.'* If we are in Christ we 
 may truly '^read our title clear to 
 mansions in the skies," and shout 
 with the great apostle of faith , ' ' Who 
 shall lay anything to the charge of 
 God's elect ? It is God that justifieth. 
 Who is he that condemneth ? It is 
 Christ that died, yea, rather is risen 
 again and is even at the right hand 
 of God, who also maketh intercession 
 for us." 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 295 
 
 5. Christ's ascension was the begin- 
 ning of His work of intercession 
 as our great High Priest. 
 
 This glorious ministry had been set 
 forth by its most perfect type, the 
 Hebrew high priest, as he entered 
 into the holy place through the parted 
 curtains of the mystic vail and repre- 
 sented the people in the immediate 
 presence of Jehovah and beneath the 
 Shekinah glory which symbolized the 
 Father's presence. On this great 
 ministry our beloved Lord was now 
 to enter. It is of this the Apostle 
 says, that, '^Christ hath not entered 
 into the holy places made with hands, 
 but into heaven itself, now to appear 
 in the presence of God for us." " See- 
 ing we have a Great High Priest who 
 
296 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 is passed into the heavens, Jesus the 
 Son of God, let us hold fast our pro- 
 fession." ''It is Christ who died, 
 yea, rather is risen again who is even 
 at the right hand of God, who also 
 maketh intercession for us." 
 
 The full significance of this work 
 leads us into one of the most com- 
 forting and inspiring themes of Holy 
 Scripture. As our High Priest, His 
 business is to represent us constantly 
 to the Father, to guard our interests, 
 to keep us ever in the Divine favor 
 and fellowhip, to cover all our sins 
 with His precious blood, to rendej; 
 our persons accepted in His person 
 and name, to present His merits and 
 righteousness in our behalf, to oiTer 
 our petitions at the throne of grace 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 297 
 
 and claim our requests on His own 
 account, and then to transmit to us 
 the assurance of the answer by the 
 Holy Spirit, and to ask for us Him- 
 self, ten thousand things that we 
 know not enougli to ask for our- 
 selves, and constantly to guard our 
 every interest with watchful and un- 
 sk^eping love and care. As our great 
 High Priest, it is His to deal with 
 the whole question of our sins and 
 failures, and settle every matter 
 respecting our salvation and our 
 spiritual interests. It is His to be 
 ^'touched with the feeling of our in- 
 firmities," to sympathize with our 
 sorrows and to send us comfort and 
 relief in time of need. This inter- 
 cession is most tender, unceasing and 
 
298 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 personal. Like Aaron, who bore the 
 tribes of Israel engraven upon his 
 shoulders and upon his breast, so 
 Jesus bears us individually upon His 
 heart and upon His hands, and holds 
 us up as part of Himself to His 
 Father's love and blessing evermore. 
 
 Where high the heavenly temple stands, 
 The House of God, not made with haods, 
 
 Til is Great High Priest our nature wears, 
 The Guardian of mankind appears. 
 
 He, who with men their surety stood, 
 An i poured on eartli His precious blood, 
 
 Pursues in heaven Hi's mighty i)lan, 
 The Saviour and the Friend of man. 
 
 Though now ascended up on high, 
 He bends to earth a Brother's eye. 
 
 Partaker of the human name, 
 
 He knows the frailty of our frame. 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 299 
 
 In every pang that rends the heart, 
 The Man of Sorrows has a part ; 
 
 He sympathizes with our grief, 
 And to the sufferer sends relief. 
 
 Oh, may we not well rejoice in that 
 blessed Ascension that has given us 
 such a Friend at our Father's side ! It 
 it not so much that the Father did not 
 love us, or that we needed Him to 
 propitiate an angry King ; but we 
 need this human channel of commun- 
 ion with the Sovereign Deity and 
 glorious Father, whom, apart from 
 Jesus, we could never have known 
 and never have dared thus boldly to 
 approach. But in Ilis name, who 
 touches both God and man in His 
 double nature, we are brought into 
 union and fellowship with the Deity 
 
300 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 Himself, and ^'we, who sometime 
 were afar off, are made nigh," and 
 ''have access through Him to the 
 Father." ; 
 
 6, The ascension of Christ was 
 necessary in order to His assumption 
 of His kingly place on the media- 
 torial throne. For, hke Melchizedeck 
 of old. He is both Priest and King. 
 His Ascension has exalted Him to a 
 literal throne of absolute sovereignty 
 over " all power in heaven and in 
 earth." The Son of God to-day has 
 supreme sway over all this mighty 
 universe. He has ascended up ''far 
 above all principality and power and 
 might and dominion and every name 
 that is named," and has become 
 "Head overall things for His church." 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 301 
 
 There is no natural law but is now 
 perfectly subject to His control. 
 There is no physical force but He 
 can use or restrain at His Sovereign 
 pleasure. There is no created in- 
 telhgence but He can move at His 
 will or destroy at His command. His 
 ascension has forever challenged the 
 absolute despotism of natural law 
 and physical force^ and placed at the 
 command of faith the highest force, 
 which wiU be employed whenever 
 His kingdom requires it, in defiance 
 of every natural and ordinary prin- 
 ciple. True, He does not ordinarily 
 need to act in a manner contrary to 
 existing laws and principles, any 
 more than the entry of the young 
 king of Germany upon the adminis- 
 
302 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 tration of the empire requires him 
 to change the machinery of the gov- 
 ernment. *He usually works in a 
 line with it, but is always supreme 
 above it. So the Son of God, sitting 
 upon the throne of providence and 
 grace, does not constantly assert His 
 power by coming into collision with 
 the existing machinery of the natural 
 world, but works in harmony with 
 it and uses it for His own higher 
 purpose. 
 
 But He is perfectly at liberty to 
 suspend it and contradict it when He 
 so pleases. The ascension of Christ, 
 therefore, has given us the right to 
 expect His interposition, even to the 
 utmost extent of the miraculous and 
 supernatural, when the interests of 
 
THE FORTY DAYS o08 
 
 His kingdom truly requires it ; and 
 yet His power may be no less mighty 
 when it is working along lines of 
 perfect simplicity and naturalness. 
 
 Christ is King of nations. Strange 
 as it may seem, yet He has been con- 
 trolling for eighteen centuries the 
 dynasties and kingdoms of earth in 
 accordance with Daniels prophecy, 
 and along the lines which are to de- 
 velop to His ow^n Second Coming. 
 He is King and Head of His Chm'ch. 
 Christ is King of nature and provi- 
 dence. His hand makes all things 
 work together for good to them that 
 love God. His power appears in 
 every chapter of the story of the 
 Apostolic Church. We see Him 
 working in the miractes of Pente- 
 
.304 THE CHRIST Oii^ 
 
 cost, ill Samaria, Joi)pa, Lystra and 
 Malta. We see Him opening Peter's 
 prison and subduing Paul with one 
 kingly glance of love and power. Wo 
 see Him. carrying the great Apostle^ 
 as with a charmed life, through the 
 perils of Asia Minor, the prison of 
 Philippi, the mobs of Corinth and 
 Athens, the murderous Jews of 
 Jerusalem, the conspiracies that sur- 
 lounded him at Caesarea, the wild 
 Euroclydon of the Adriatic and even 
 the terrors of the Coliseum ; until at 
 last the Apostle could say, as he re- 
 called that glorious Presence that had 
 covered him with its shelter in all 
 his marvelous life, ** The Lord will 
 deliver me from every evil work and 
 preserve me unto His heavenly 
 kingdom." 
 
THE FORTY DAYS S05 
 
 Is He our King? Have we en- 
 tlironed Him above every difficulty, 
 ^ adversary and circumstances, and 
 placed on His head many crowns ? It 
 w^as for this that He ascended. He 
 holds the reins of universal power 
 for our sake and on our account. He 
 is Head over all things for the church 
 which is His body. Not for Himself 
 but for you and me does He sit above 
 the circle of the stars and hold the 
 reins of universal government. Oh, 
 let Him be our *^ Wonderful Coun- 
 sellor, our Mighty God," and " of the 
 increase of His government and of 
 His peace there shall be no end ! " -^ 
 
 ('^ 7. Christ ascended to the right A 
 hand of God that He might lift us / 
 up into an ascension life, ^ 
 
306 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 His ascension is the type of our 
 highest spiritual hfe. Not only would 
 He have us risen with Him from the 
 death of the past, but also ascended 
 with Him over this present evil 
 world and the power of the natural 
 and temporal. For we are seated 
 with Him in heavenly places, and we 
 are to recognize ourselves as actually 
 there, just as much as if the judg- 
 ment was past, and we were already 
 seated, in the ages to come, upon our 
 kingly thrones. 
 
 ( This is a very important matter 
 and the true key to victory in our 
 Christian life. Everything depends 
 upon the standpoint from which we 
 look at things. Contemplating our 
 troubles from our present apparent 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 30; 
 
 condition, they seem to be above us, 
 (out if we look at them as Christ sees 
 them, and as we shall see them in a 
 little while, they will cease to alarm 
 or distress us. jOur faith will -raise 
 us above them, and enable us to see 
 them as more than conquered; and 
 simply as occasions for greater good 
 and grander victoryr^ 
 
 Climbing a cloud - encompassed 
 mountain, a party of travelers be- 
 came discouraged and begged their 
 guide to take them down. They 
 could not see a step before them 
 through the mist that surrounded 
 them with its damp and dreary folds, 
 and they feared that they should 
 lose their way and be involved in 
 ruin. But the guide only answered, 
 
308 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 *'Nay, friends, let us not go down, 
 but let us go up a little higher and 
 we shall be above the clouds." And, 
 sure enough, a few bold strides in 
 his footsteps up the steep declivity, 
 and k) ! the full sunlight of heaven 
 burst upon them, and below them 
 lay the billowy landscape of beauti- 
 ful and many-tinted cloudland, a 
 spectacle of glory. 
 
 And so the true victory over trial 
 is to rise above it. A little higher, 
 beloved, and you shall dwell, like 
 Joshua, in Timnath-Serah, in the 
 City of the Sun, and ''thy sun shall 
 no more go down, but the Lord shall 
 be thy everlasting light." 
 
 It is possible to look at everything 
 as Christ is looking at it, and see it 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 309 
 
 as you shall see it when all is ended. 
 It is possible to pray as Christ prays 
 from heaven, and to be conscious 
 that our glorious Great High Priest 
 is commanding and executing it 
 from on high, and that all things 
 must give way before His power and 
 will. It is possible to recognize our- 
 selves in the light of a few years 
 hence, when we shall be sitting with 
 Him in the seats where our names 
 are already written and our place 
 prepared, and where God. ever re- 
 gards us as already seated. Oh, what 
 dignity and triumph this will give 
 to the humblest career, and we shall 
 walk through earth as the children 
 of a King; the heirs of God and joint- 
 heirs with Jesus Christ. For He who 
 
810 THE CHRIST OF 
 
 sitteth there is but the other part of 
 our personal Hfe, and as we enter 
 into closer union with His person, 
 we shall rise into the constant reali- 
 zation of His glorious power, and 
 learn to shout with the most tried 
 and yet the most triumphant of 
 mortals, ''Who shall separate us 
 from the love of Christ ? Shall trib- 
 ulation, or distress, or persecution, 
 or famine, or nakedness, or peril oi 
 sword ? Nay, in all these things we 
 are more than conquerors through 
 Him that loved us." 
 
 And now, beloved, the forty days 
 are past. What have they been to 
 us? How much more have they 
 brought us of His living reality and 
 ceaseless presence ? And shall they 
 
THE FORTY DAYS 811 
 
 now lift us up with Him into a yet 
 higher place of fellowship, exaltatk n 
 and victory ? Let us arise' ! Let us 
 ascend ! Let us dwell on high ! The 
 veil is rent. The Holiest is open. 
 The Holy Ghost is come. The heavens 
 are opened, and the angels of God 
 are ascending and descending upon 
 the Son of Man. Come ye, house 
 of Jacob, and walk in the light of the 
 Lord. 
 
 Go up, go up my heart, 
 Dwell with thy God above, 
 
 For here thou can'st not rest, 
 Nor here give out thy love. 
 
 Go up, go up my heart, 
 
 Be not a trifler here ; 
 Ascend above these clouds,-^ 
 
 Dwell in a higher sphero. 
 
 Go up, reluctant heart, 
 
 Take up thy rest above ; 
 Arise, earth-clingingthoughts,— ^ 
 
 Atcend, my lingering love. 
 
UNIYEESITY 
 
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