Challenge Thy Mountain in the Lord

"Concerning the work of my hands command ye me" (Isa. 45:11).

Our Lord spoke in this tone when He said, "Father, I will." Joshua used it when, in the supreme moment of triumph, he lifted up his spear toward the setting sun, and cried, "Sun, stand thou still!"

Elijah used it when he shut the heavens for three years and six months, and again opened them.

Luther used it when, kneeling by the dying Melanchthon, he forbade death to take his prey.

It is a marvelous relationship into which God bids us enter. We are familiar with words like those which follow in this paragraph: "I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded." But that God should invite us to command Him, this is a change in relationship which is altogether startling!

What a difference there is between this attitude and the hesitating, halting, unbelieving prayers to which we are accustomed, and which by their perpetual repetition lose edge and point!

How often during His earthly life did Jesus put men into a position to command Him! When entering Jericho, He stood still, and said to the blind beggars:

"What will ye that I shall do unto you?" It was as though He said, "I am yours to command."

Can we ever forget how He yielded to the Syrophenician woman the key to His resources and told her to help herself even as she would?

What mortal mind can realize the full significance of the position to which our God lovingly raises His little children? He seems to say, "All my resources are at your command." "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do." --F. B. Meyer

JESUS CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED

"1 determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And my preaching was in demonstra¬tion of the Spirit and of power."¡X1 COR ii. 2, 4.

This text is very often understood of Paul's purpose in his preaching to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But it contains a far deeper thought. He speaks of his purpose, not only in the matter of his preaching, but in his whole spirit and life to prove how he in everything seeks to act in conformity to the crucified Christ. Thus he writes (2 Cor. xiii. 4, 5) : "Christ was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth through the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him through the power of God toward you." His whole ministry and conversation bore the mark of Christ's likeness¡Xcrucified through weakness, yet living by the power of God.

Just before the words of our text Paul had written (i. 17-24): "The word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness ; but unto us which are being saved it is the power of God." It was not only in his preaching, but in his whole disposition and deportment that he sought to act in harmony with that weakness in which Christ was crucified. He had so identified himself with the weakness of the cross, and its shame, that in his whole life and conduct he would prove that in everything he sought to show forth the likeness and the spirit of the crucified Jesus. Hence he says( ii. 3) : "I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling."

It is on this account that he spoke so strongly: (i. 17), "Christ sent me to preach the gospel, not in wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made void"; (ii. 4), "My preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demon¬stration of the Spirit and of power." Have we not here the great reason why the power of God is so little manifested in the preaching of the Gospel? Christ the crucified may be the subject of the preaching and yet there may be such confidence in human learning and eloquence, that there is nothing to be seen of that likeness of the crucified Jesus which alone gives preaching its supernatural, its divine power.

God help us to understand how the life of every minister and of every believer must bear the hall-mark, the stamp of the sanctuary¡XNothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

The LORD's

"And Amaziah said to the man of God, But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel? And the man of God answered, The LORD is able to give thee much more than this"(2 Chronicles 25:9).

If you have made a mistake, bear the loss of it; but do not act contrary to the will of the LORD. The LORD can give you much more than you are likely to lose; and if He does not, will you begin bargaining and chaffering with God. The king of Judah had hired an army from idolatrous Israel, and he was commanded to send home the fighting men because the LORD was not with them. He was willing to send away the host, only he grudged paying the hundred talents for nothing. Oh, for shame! If the LORD will give the victory without the hirelings, surely it was a good bargain to pay their wages and to be rid of them.

Be willing to lose money for conscience' sake, for peace's sake, for Christ's sake. Rest assured that losses for the LORD are not losses. Even in this life they are more than recompensed: in some cases the LORD prevents any loss from happening. As to our immortal life, what we lose for Jesus is invested in heaven. Fret not at apparent disaster but listen to the whisper, "The LORD is able to give thee much more than this."

Morning, June 24

¡§A certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.¡¨(Luke 11:27, 28)

It is fondly imagined by some that it must have involved very special privileges to have been the mother of our Lord, because they supposed that she had the benefit of looking into his very heart in a way in which we cannot hope to do. There may be an appearance of plausibility in the supposition, but not much. We do not know that Mary knew more than others; what she did know she did well to lay up in her heart; but she does not appear from anything we read in the Evangelists to have been a better-instructed believer than any other of Christ's disciples. All that she knew we also may discover. Do you wonder that we should say so? Here is a text to prove it: ¡§The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant.¡¨ Remember the Master's words¡X¡§Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.¡¨ So blessedly does this Divine Revealer of secrets tell us his heart, that he keepeth back nothing which is profitable to us; his own assurance is, ¡§If it were not so, I would have told you.¡¨ Doth he not this day manifest himself unto us as he doth not unto the world? It is even so; and therefore we will not ignorantly cry out, ¡§Blessed is the womb that bare thee,¡¨ but we will intelligently bless God that, having heard the Word and kept it, we have first of all as true a communion with the Saviour as the Virgin had, and in the second place as true an acquaintance with the secrets of his heart as she can be supposed to have obtained. Happy soul to be thus privileged!

Evening, June 24

¡§Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said ... Be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods.¡¨(Daniel 3:16, 18)

The narrative of the manly courage and marvellous deliverance of the three holy children, or rather champions, is well calculated to excite in the minds of believers firmness and steadfastness in upholding the truth in the teeth of tyranny and in the very jaws of death. Let young Christians especially learn from their example, both in matters of faith in religion, and matters of uprightness in business, never to sacrifice their consciences. Lose all rather than lose your integrity, and when all else is gone, still hold fast a clear conscience as the rarest jewel which can adorn the bosom of a mortal. Be not guided by the will-o¡¦-the-wisp of policy, but by the pole-star of divine authority. Follow the right at all hazards. When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honour to trust him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle. See whether he will be your debtor! See if he doth not even in this life prove his word that ¡§Godliness, with contentment, is great gain,¡¨ and that they who ¡§seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, shall have all these things added unto them.¡¨ Should it happen that, in the providence of God, you are a loser by conscience, you shall find that if the Lord pays you not back in the silver of earthly prosperity, he will discharge his promise in the gold of spiritual joy. Remember that a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of that which he possesseth. To wear a guileless spirit, to have a heart void of offence, to have the favour and smile of God, is greater riches than the mines of Ophir could yield, or the traffic of Tyre could win. ¡§Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and inward contention therewith.¡¨ An ounce of heart's-ease is worth a ton of gold.