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06 - Jesus of History by Terrot R. Glover · Jesus of History

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Speaker 1: Chapter five of The Jesus of History by T. R. Glover.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter five,
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Speaker 1: The Teaching of Jesus upon God. It is worth taking
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Speaker 1: some trouble to realize how profoundly Jesus has changed the
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Speaker 1: thinking of mankind about God. Since Jesus lived, doctor Fairburn wrote,
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Speaker 1: God has been another and nearer being to man. Jesus,
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Speaker 1: writes doctor Fosdick, had the most joyous idea of God
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Speaker 1: that ever was thought of. That joyous sense of God
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Speaker 1: he has given to his followers, and it stands in
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Speaker 1: vivid contrast with the feelings men have towards God in
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Speaker 1: other religions. Christianity is the religion of joy. The New
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Speaker 1: Testament is full of it. We know the general character
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Speaker 1: of Jesus attitude God, his feeling for God, his sense
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Speaker 1: of God's nearness, How immediate his knowledge of God is,
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Speaker 1: how intimate, of course, here as everywhere, his teaching has
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Speaker 1: such an occasional character, or else the records of it
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Speaker 1: are so fragmentary that we must not press the absence
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Speaker 1: of system in it. And yet I think it would
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Speaker 1: be right to say that Jesus put before us no
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Speaker 1: system of God, but rather suggests a great exploration, an
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Speaker 1: intimacy with a slow and sure knowledge that intimacy gives.
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Speaker 1: He has no definition of God, but he assumes God
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Speaker 1: lives on the basis of God, interprets God, and God
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Speaker 1: is discovered in his acts and his relations. He said
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Speaker 1: to Peter, in effect, for the familiar phrase comes to
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Speaker 1: this in modern English. You think like a man, You
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Speaker 1: don't think like God. Elsewhere, He contrasts God's thoughts with man's.
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Speaker 1: Their outlooks are so different that which is highly esteemed
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Speaker 1: among men is abomination in the sight of God. In
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Speaker 1: other words, he would have men see all things as
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Speaker 1: God sees them. That we do not so see them
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Speaker 1: remains the weak spot in our thinking. What Luther said
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Speaker 1: to Erasmus is true of most of us. Your thoughts
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Speaker 1: concerning God are too human. Blessed are the pure in heart,
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Speaker 1: for they shall see God, said Jesus, and throughout he
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Speaker 1: emphasizes that the vision of God depends on likeness to God.
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Speaker 1: It is love and a glowing purity that give that faculty,
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Speaker 1: rather than any power of intellect. Apart from them, Jesus
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Speaker 1: brings men back to the ultimate fact. Our views are
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Speaker 1: too short and too narrow. He would have us face God,
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Speaker 1: see him, and realize him. Think in the terms of God,
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Speaker 1: look at things from God's point of view, live in
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Speaker 1: God and with God. In modern phrase, he breaks up
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Speaker 1: our dogmatism and puts us at a universal point of
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Speaker 1: view to see things over again in a new and
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Speaker 1: true perspective. How and where did he begin himself? Whence
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Speaker 1: came his consciousness of God, his gift for recognizing God.
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Speaker 1: We do not know the story of his growth. His
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Speaker 1: inward growth is almost unrevealed to us. We are told
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Speaker 1: that he learnt by the things which he suffered, and
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Speaker 1: that he increased in wisdom and stature and in favor
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Speaker 1: with God and man. Where does any one begin? Who
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Speaker 1: takes at any great distance, It is very hard to know.
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Speaker 1: Where did our own thoughts of God begin? What made them?
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Speaker 1: How did they come? There is an inherited element in them?
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Speaker 1: But how much else? Whence came the inherited element? How
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Speaker 1: is it that to another man with the same upbringing
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Speaker 1: us ours, everything is different? Everything means more. Remark at
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Speaker 1: any rate in the teaching of Jesus that there is
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Speaker 1: no mysticism of the type so much studied to day.
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Speaker 1: There is nothing in the least psychopathic about him. Nothing abnormal,
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Speaker 1: no mystical vision of God, no mystical absorption in God,
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Speaker 1: no mystical union with God, no abstraction, nothing that is
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Speaker 1: the mark of the professed mystic. Yet he speaks freely
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Speaker 1: of seeing God. He lives in a life of the
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Speaker 1: closest union with God. And God is in all his
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Speaker 1: thoughts a phrase like that of Clement of Alexandria, deifying
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Speaker 1: into apathy, we become monadic. Is sees away from anything
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Speaker 1: we find in the speech of Jesus. That is not
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Speaker 1: the way he preaches God. He is far more natural,
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Speaker 1: and that is follow was accepted this naturalness and drew
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Speaker 1: him so and gave his teaching as he gave. It
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Speaker 1: is a fresh pledge of the truthfulness of the Gospels. Again,
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Speaker 1: his knowledge of God is not a matter of quotation,
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Speaker 1: as ours so very often tends to be. He is
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Speaker 1: conscious always of the real nearness of God. He seems
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Speaker 1: to wonder how it is that man can forget God.
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Speaker 1: We do forget God. Augustine in his confessions as to
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Speaker 1: tell us that God did not make the world, and
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Speaker 1: then go away. The practical working religion of a great
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Speaker 1: many of us rests on a feeling that God is
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Speaker 1: a very long way off our practical steps, betray that
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Speaker 1: we half think God did go away when he made
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Speaker 1: the world. Prayer to us is not a real thing.
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Speaker 1: It is not intercourse face to face. Far too often
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Speaker 1: it is like conversation over a telephone wire of infinite length,
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Speaker 1: which gets out of order. Even if words travel along
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Speaker 1: that wire, there is so much buzzing that they are
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Speaker 1: hardly recognizable. No, says Jesus, God is near. God is here,
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Speaker 1: so near that Jesus never feels that men have any
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Speaker 1: need of a priesthood to come between or to help
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Speaker 1: them to God. God does all that. There is no
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Speaker 1: common concern, no matter of food or clothing, no mere
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Speaker 1: detail of the ordinary round of common duty and common life,
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Speaker 1: father and mother, son, wife, friend, Nothing of all that.
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Speaker 1: But God is there. God knows about it. God is
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Speaker 1: interested in it. God has taken care of it. God
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Speaker 1: is enjoying it. How is it that men can reject
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Speaker 1: the counsel of God, refuse God's plans and ideas. How
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Speaker 1: is it that they forget God altogether? Jesus is surprised
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Speaker 1: at the dulness of men's minds. It is a mystery
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Speaker 1: to him, the rich fool, as we call him, though
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Speaker 1: it is hard to see why we should call him
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Speaker 1: a fool when he is so like ourselves. Had forgotten
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Speaker 1: God somehow and was startled when God spoke and spoke
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Speaker 1: to him. That story seen so often among men, the
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Speaker 1: story of the thorns choking the seed, make Jesus remark
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Speaker 1: on the difficulty which a rich man finds in entering
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Speaker 1: the kingdom of God. God knows, that is what Jesus repeats.
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Speaker 1: God cares, and God can do things. His hands are
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Speaker 1: not tied by impotence. The knowledge of God is emphasized
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Speaker 1: by Jesus. Even the very hairs on your head are
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Speaker 1: all numbered. Your Father knoweth, seeth in secret, knoweth your hearts,
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Speaker 1: knows your struggles, knows your worries, knows your worth. God
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Speaker 1: knows all about you. And all things are possible. With God.
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Speaker 1: There is nothing he cannot do, Nothing he will not
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Speaker 1: do for his children. Will a father refuse his child bread?
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Speaker 1: Will God not give what is good? Is it too
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Speaker 1: big a thing for the giver of life to give food?
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Speaker 1: Which is the more difficult thing to give? Look at God,
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Speaker 1: as Jesus draws him interested in flowers. God takes care
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Speaker 1: of them and thinks about their colors, so that even Solomon,
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Speaker 1: in all his glory, is not equal to them. God
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Speaker 1: knows the birds in the nest, knows there is one
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Speaker 1: fewer today than there was yesterday. God cares for them.
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Speaker 1: How much more will he care for you? Ye are
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Speaker 1: of more value than many sparrows? And God thinks out
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Speaker 1: man's life in all its relations, and provides for it.
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Speaker 1: Society moves on lines He laid down for it. His
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Speaker 1: plans under lie all. Thus, when Jesus is challenged on
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Speaker 1: the question of marriage and divorce, with that clear thought
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Speaker 1: and eye of his he goes right back to God's intent,
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Speaker 1: not to man's usage, not to the common law and
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Speaker 1: practice of nations, but to God's intent and God's meaning.
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Speaker 1: God ordained marriage, He thought it out. Marriages will be
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Speaker 1: better if we think of them in this way. God
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Speaker 1: gave men their food does still and all things that
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Speaker 1: he gives are clean. We cannot have taboos at our
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Speaker 1: father's table. Over all is God's throne. That idea, it
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Speaker 1: seems to me, laps is somehow from our minds. To day,
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Speaker 1: when Luther had to face the hostility of the Kaiser,
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Speaker 1: the emperor Charles the fifth. He wrote to one of
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Speaker 1: his friends, Christ comes and sits at the right hand,
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Speaker 1: not of the Kaiser, for in that case we would
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Speaker 1: have perished long ago. But at the right hand of God.
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Speaker 1: This is a great and incredible thing. But I enjoy it,
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Speaker 1: incredible as it is. Some day I mean to die
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Speaker 1: in it. Why should I not live in it? So
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Speaker 1: Luther wrote in not quite our modern vein, we hardly
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Speaker 1: calculate on God as a factor. We omit him. Jesus
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Speaker 1: did not. God's rule is over all and in all
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Speaker 1: our perplexity, doubt and fear. Jesus reminds us that the
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Speaker 1: first thing to faith is God. The fact is that
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Speaker 1: Thine is the kingdom, means peace. It is a joyous reminder,
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Speaker 1: for if he speaks of the Kingdom of God, the
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Speaker 1: king is more than the kingdom. It is the kingdom.
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Speaker 1: The rule of the God whom Jesus teaches us to
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Speaker 1: trust and to love. The Father is supreme. But that
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Speaker 1: has more aspects than one. If our Father is supreme
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Speaker 1: for us, he is so preme over us. Jesus emphasizes
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Speaker 1: the will of God, God's commandment against man's tradition, God's
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Speaker 1: will against man's notions. What a source of rest and
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Speaker 1: peace to him is the thought of God's will. When
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Speaker 1: Dante writes, and his will is our peace, it is
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Speaker 1: the thought of Jesus. And at the same time God's
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Speaker 1: judgments are as real to Jesus's mind. I will tell you,
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Speaker 1: he says, whom to fear God, Yes, fear him. He
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Speaker 1: feels the tenderness and the awfulness of God at once.
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Speaker 1: In speaking of God. It is noticeable that Jesus chiefly
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Speaker 1: emphasizes God's interest in the individual, has given the real
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Speaker 1: clue to God's nature on the whole. There is very little,
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Speaker 1: even implied, still less explicit in the Gospels about God
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Speaker 1: as the great architect of nature. Hardly anything on them
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Speaker 1: the lines familiar to us in the Psalms and in Isaiah,
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Speaker 1: the sea is his, and he made it, and his
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Speaker 1: hands formed the dry land. He taketh up the aisles
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Speaker 1: as a very little thing. There is very little of
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Speaker 1: this in the Gospels, yet it is implied in the
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Speaker 1: affair of the storm, the disciples, in their anxiety, wake him.
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Speaker 1: He does not understand their fear. Whose see is it?
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Speaker 1: Whose wind is it? Whose children are you? Cannot you
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Speaker 1: trust your father to control his wind and his sea.
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Speaker 1: Of course, it is possible that he said more about
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Speaker 1: God as the author of nature than our fragmentary reports
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Speaker 1: give us. But it may be that that is because
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Speaker 1: the emphasis on God's care and love for the individual
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Speaker 1: is hardest to believe, and at the same time best
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Speaker 1: gives the real value of God that Jesus uses it
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Speaker 1: so much. Perhaps the great Artificia is too far away
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Speaker 1: for our minds. He is too busy, we think. And yet,
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Speaker 1: after all, if God is so great, why should he
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Speaker 1: be so busy? If he is a real father, why
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Speaker 1: should he not be at leisure for his children? He is,
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Speaker 1: says Jesus. A friend has leisure for his friends, and
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Speaker 1: a father for his children, and God, Jesus suggests, always
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Speaker 1: has leisure for you. The great emphasis with Jesus falls
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Speaker 1: on the love of God. Thus he tells the story
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Speaker 1: of the impossible creditor with two debtors. One owed him
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Speaker 1: ten pounds and the other a hundred. When they had
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Speaker 1: nothing to pay, they both came to him and told
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Speaker 1: him so. The ordinary creditor at the very best would say, well,
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Speaker 1: I suppose I must put it down as a bad debt.
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Speaker 1: Jesus says that this creditor took up quite another attitude.
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Speaker 1: He smiled and said to his two troubled friends, is
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Speaker 1: that all, don't let anything like that worry you? What
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Speaker 1: is that between you and me? He forgave them the
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Speaker 1: debt with such a charm. Jesus says that they both
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Speaker 1: loved him. One feels that the end of the story
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Speaker 1: must be that they both paid him and loved him
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Speaker 1: all the more for taking the money. What a delightful
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Speaker 1: story of charm and friendship and forgiveness, and it is
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Speaker 1: a true picture of God. Jesus would have us believe
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Speaker 1: of God's forgiveness and the response it wakes in men.
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Speaker 1: If we do not definitely set our minds to assimilate
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Speaker 1: the ideas of Jesus, we shall make too little of
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Speaker 1: the heart of God. With Jesus, this is the central
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Speaker 1: and crucial reality. He emphasizes the generosity of God. God
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Speaker 1: makes his son rise on the good and on the bad.
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Speaker 1: He sends rein on the just and the unjust. God's
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Speaker 1: flowers are just as beautiful in the bad man's garden.
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Speaker 1: God knows what his child needs and gives it. Whether
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Speaker 1: it is a very good child or a very bad one,
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Speaker 1: the Father is the same great, wise friend. In either case.
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Speaker 1: The peacemakers are recognized as the children of God because
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Speaker 1: of their family likeness to God. They come among people
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Speaker 1: and find them in discord with one another, and their
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Speaker 1: presence stills that. Or they come into a man's life
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Speaker 1: when it is all in disorder and pain, and they
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Speaker 1: bring peace there. They may not quite know it, but
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Speaker 1: they do these things almost without meaning to do them.
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Speaker 1: And Jesus says that this is a family likeness by
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Speaker 1: which men know that they are God's children. But it
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Speaker 1: is not every teacher, Pagan or Christian who lays such
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Speaker 1: stress on God's gift of peace, or is so sure
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Speaker 1: of it. He uses Hussia's great saying about God, I
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Speaker 1: will have mercy and not sacrifice as giving the truth
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Speaker 1: about God. Matthew represents him as quoting it twice, and
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Speaker 1: we can well believe that he found in it the
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Speaker 1: real spirit of God, and often referred to it. His
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Speaker 1: own heart has taken him to the tenderest of the
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Speaker 1: utterances of the Old Testament spoken by the most suffering
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Speaker 1: of the prophets, Love your enemies. He says yes, for
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Speaker 1: then you will be the real children of God. Or
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Speaker 1: he speaks of the great patience of God. How God
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Speaker 1: gives every man all the time and all the chance
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Speaker 1: that he needs. Sometimes he half suggests even a little more.
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Speaker 1: Look at the parable of the fig tree, how the
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Speaker 1: gardener pleads for the tree, begs and obtains another chance
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Speaker 1: for it. That is like God, says Jesus. It is
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Speaker 1: easy enough to talk in a vague way about the
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Speaker 1: love of God, but the love of God implies surely
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Speaker 1: the individe love has little context. Indeed, if its object
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Speaker 1: is merely a collective noun and abstract a concept. But
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Speaker 1: that God loves individual men is very difficult for us
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Speaker 1: to believe in earnest. The real crux comes when the
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Speaker 1: question rises in a man's own heart. Does God love me?
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Speaker 1: Jesus says that he does, But it is very hard
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Speaker 1: to believe except in the company of Jesus, and under
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Speaker 1: his influence. Jesus throughout asserts and reasserts the value of
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Speaker 1: the individual to God. Look for example, at the picture
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Speaker 1: he draws when he tells of the recovery of the
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Speaker 1: lost sheep, and brings out the analogy at the end
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Speaker 1: of the Book of Job. The poet carries his reader
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Speaker 1: back to the first sight of a world new maid
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Speaker 1: and tells how God, like the real artist and creator.
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Speaker 1: We might not have thought of all this, but the
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Speaker 1: poet did loves his work so much that he must
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Speaker 1: have his friends sharing it with him. He calls them,
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Speaker 1: he shows them the world he has made, the beauty
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Speaker 1: and the wonder and the power. As Browning says, the
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Speaker 1: poet tells us that what followed was that the morning
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Speaker 1: stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted
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Speaker 1: for joy. The sight was so good that song and
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Speaker 1: shout came instinctively, almost involuntarily. Is it not the same
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Speaker 1: picture which Jesus draws of joy in heaven in the
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Speaker 1: presence of the angels of God over one synath that repenteth.
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Speaker 1: We can believe in such joy when God made the world.
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Speaker 1: But can we believe that there was the same joy
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Speaker 1: in the presence of God yesterday when a couli gave
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Speaker 1: his heart to God. Jesus does. That is the central
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Speaker 1: thing it seems to me in his teaching about God,
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Speaker 1: that God cares for the individual to an extent far
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Speaker 1: beyond anything we could think possible. If we can wrestle
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Speaker 1: with that central thought and assimilate it, or, as the
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Speaker 1: old divine said, appropriate it, make it our own. The
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Speaker 1: rest of the Gospel is easy, but one can never
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Speaker 1: manage it except with the help and in the company
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Speaker 1: of Jesus. Jesus goes a step further and believes in
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Speaker 1: the possibility of a man loving God and God enjoying
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Speaker 1: that too. If he speaks of prayer, must we not
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Speaker 1: think that he means God wants it as much as
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Speaker 1: the child can want it. How much is involved in
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Speaker 1: the name Father, of which Jesus so uniformly gives God,
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Speaker 1: something less than the word carries in the case of
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Speaker 1: a human father? Or more? What is the attitude of
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Speaker 1: a father to his child? Jesus, as we have seen,
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Speaker 1: uses this illustration to bring out God's care for the
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Speaker 1: actual needs of his children. But is that all? What
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Speaker 1: is the innermost thing in a father's relation to his children?
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Speaker 1: Surely something more than the bird's instinct to feed her
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Speaker 1: young or to gather them under her wings. Is not
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Speaker 1: one of the most real features of parenthood enjoyment of
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Speaker 1: the child. Do not men and women frankly enjoy the
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Speaker 1: grappling of the little mind with big things? Is there
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Speaker 1: not a charm, as says one of the early Christian fathers,
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Speaker 1: about the half words that a child uses as he
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Speaker 1: learned to talk and wrestles with a grown up vocabalry,
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Speaker 1: about the extraordinary pictures that he will draw of ships
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Speaker 1: or cows, the quaint stories he will invent, the odd
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Speaker 1: ways in which his gratitude and his affection express themselves.
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Speaker 1: Is it a real fatherhood where such things do not appeal?
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Speaker 1: Jesus language about God, his whole attitude to God, implies
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Speaker 1: throughout that God is as real a father as anybody.
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Speaker 1: And it suggests that God loves his children the more
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Speaker 1: because they are real, because they are not very clever,
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Speaker 1: because they do make such queer and imperfect prayers, because
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Speaker 1: in short, they need Him, and because they fill a
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Speaker 1: place in his heart. We have to remark how firmly
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Speaker 1: Jesus believes in his Gospel of God and man needing
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Speaker 1: each other and finding each other is good news, as
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Speaker 1: he calls it. He bases all on his faith on
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Speaker 1: what has been called man's incurable religious instinct, that instinct
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Speaker 1: in the human heart that must have God and in
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Speaker 1: God responds to that instinct which he himself implanted, and
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Speaker 1: which is no accident found here in missing there but
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Speaker 1: a genuine God given characteristic of every man, whatever his
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Speaker 1: temperament or his rage and emotions, may be, his swiftness
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Speaker 1: or slowness of mind. The repeated parables of seed and leaven,
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Speaker 1: the parables of vitality, again and again suggest his faith
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Speaker 1: in his message, his conviction that God must have man
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Speaker 1: and man must have God, that, as Saint Augustine puts it,
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Speaker 1: thou hast made est for thyself, and our heart knows
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Speaker 1: no rest till it rests in thee that is the
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Speaker 1: essence of the Gospel. How this union of the soul
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Speaker 1: with God comes about, Jesus does not directly say, but
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Speaker 1: there are many hints in his teaching that bear upon it.
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Speaker 1: The Kingdom of Heaven cometh not with observation, he said.
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Speaker 1: Religious truth is not preached by quick turns of self
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Speaker 1: applauding intellect, nor by demonstrations. It comes another way, the
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Speaker 1: quiet familiarity with the deep true things of life, till
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Speaker 1: on a sudden they are transfigured in the light of God.
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Speaker 1: And truth is a new and glowing thing, independent of
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Speaker 1: arguments and the strange evidence of thorbaturgy. This is the
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Speaker 1: normal way, and Jesus holds by it. The great people,
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Speaker 1: men of law and learning, want more. They want something
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Speaker 1: to substantiate God's messages from without. If Jesus comes to
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Speaker 1: them with a word from God, can he not prove
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Speaker 1: its authenticity, preferably with a sign from the sky. For
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Speaker 1: the signs he gives and the evidence he suggests are unsatisfactory.
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Speaker 1: And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, why
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Speaker 1: doth this generation seek after a sign? Verily, I say
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Speaker 1: unto you, there shall no sign be given unto this generation.
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Speaker 1: So he left them and went up into the ship
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Speaker 1: again and went away. That scene is drawn from life.
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Speaker 1: But why no sign? In the parallel passage we read
23:53
Speaker 1: the wicked generation and adulteress seeketh a sign, But there
23:57
Speaker 1: shall be no sign given it but the sign of
23:59
Speaker 1: the prophet Joe. So he left them and departed. The
24:04
Speaker 1: real explanation of this reference to Jonah is given by
24:07
Speaker 1: Luke and missed or misdeveloped in Matthew Nineveh recognized instinctively
24:13
Speaker 1: the inherent truth of Jonah's message and repented truth is
24:18
Speaker 1: its own evidence, Like levin in the meal, like seed
24:22
Speaker 1: in the field. It does its work and its life
24:26
Speaker 1: reveals it. God is known that way. When the chief
24:31
Speaker 1: priest demand of Jesus to be told plainly what is
24:35
Speaker 1: his authority, he carries the matter of stage further. Was
24:39
Speaker 1: the baptism of John? He asks from heaven I e
24:43
Speaker 1: of God? Or was it of men? Does God make
24:46
Speaker 1: his message clear? Does he properly authenticate himself? And the
24:51
Speaker 1: uneasy weighing of alternatives summarized by the evangelist leads to
24:56
Speaker 1: the answer that they could not tell whence it was,
25:00
Speaker 1: And Jesus rejoined that he has nothing to say to
25:02
Speaker 1: them about his authority. He had taken what we might
25:06
Speaker 1: call an easy case, where it was evident that God
25:09
Speaker 1: had spoken, and this was all they made of it.
25:12
Speaker 1: They could not tell. It was plain then, either that
25:18
Speaker 1: these men did not recognize the obvious message of God
25:21
Speaker 1: the word of God came upon John, or that if
25:24
Speaker 1: they did recognize it, they thought it did not matter.
25:28
Speaker 1: For the insincere and the trivial. There is no message
25:31
Speaker 1: from God, no truth of God. How could there be?
25:37
Speaker 1: If we pursue this line of thought, we can see how,
25:40
Speaker 1: in Jesus's opinion, a man may be sure of God
25:43
Speaker 1: and of God's word for him. If a man be
25:46
Speaker 1: candid with himself, if he faced the common facts of
25:49
Speaker 1: life with seriousness, and in the doing of duty, perplexities vanish,
25:56
Speaker 1: such a man is prepared for the great fact by
25:58
Speaker 1: faithfulness to the little facts, and then God dawns on
26:02
Speaker 1: him in them. This is put directly in the Fourth Gospel,
26:07
Speaker 1: and imparable in the Snoptists. The leaven works till the
26:11
Speaker 1: whole is leavened, the uneasy process is over and the
26:15
Speaker 1: result achieved, or it comes more quietly still the seed
26:20
Speaker 1: grows while the farmer sleeps and rises night and day.
26:25
Speaker 1: The blade springs up, and the ear forms on the blade.
26:28
Speaker 1: The seed grows in the ear, and the end is reached,
26:32
Speaker 1: and God's kingdom is a reality. Or the knowledge of
26:37
Speaker 1: God comes like a lightning flash, sudden, illuminative, decisive, the
26:42
Speaker 1: sun reveals God to the simple. Jesus said, the son
26:46
Speaker 1: of Man may be a disputable figure. Whosoever speaketh the
26:49
Speaker 1: word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him.
26:52
Speaker 1: But there is no forgiveness in this world or in
26:55
Speaker 1: any possible real world where God counts at all, for
26:58
Speaker 1: the refusal of the spirit of truth. So he taught
27:03
Speaker 1: and all history shows that he was right. The refusal
27:07
Speaker 1: of truth is fatal, Jesus, wrote Matthew Arnold, never touches theory,
27:12
Speaker 1: but bases himself invariably upon experience. It is too experienced
27:18
Speaker 1: that Jesus goes to authenticate his message. The real facts
27:23
Speaker 1: of life lead you to God, as the red sky
27:26
Speaker 1: and the south wind teach you to foretell the weather.
27:31
Speaker 1: Eyes and ears, said the Greek thinker Heraclitus. Long before
27:35
Speaker 1: are bad witnesses, for such as have barbarian souls. The
27:40
Speaker 1: Pharisees discredited Jesus. He cast out devils by Beelzebub, did
27:46
Speaker 1: he he asked? Or was it by the finger of God?
27:50
Speaker 1: Is there no evidence of God in restored sanity? But
27:54
Speaker 1: the strength of his position lies in the good news
27:56
Speaker 1: for the poor, for those who labor and are heavy laden,
28:00
Speaker 1: news of rest and refreshment, as if the intuition of God,
28:04
Speaker 1: with the peace it brings, were its own proof. Truth
28:09
Speaker 1: is reached less by ingenuity than by intensity. To the
28:13
Speaker 1: simple mind, to the true heart, to the pure soul,
28:17
Speaker 1: to those whose gift is peace, Truth comes flooding in
28:22
Speaker 1: new light on old fact, and new light from old fact.
28:26
Speaker 1: And God is evident, so Jesus judged. And here again,
28:32
Speaker 1: before we decide for or against his view, we have
28:35
Speaker 1: to make sure that we know his meaning and realize
28:38
Speaker 1: the experience by which he reached his thought. And then
28:41
Speaker 1: perhaps God will be more evident to us in our turn.
28:46
Speaker 1: The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation. It is within,
28:50
Speaker 1: so quietly it comes that we may not guess how
28:54
Speaker 1: in any particular instance the realization of God came to
28:57
Speaker 1: us soul. But if we are candid and truth loving,
29:01
Speaker 1: we can know it when it is come to ourselves,
29:04
Speaker 1: and we can recognize it when it comes to another.
29:07
Speaker 1: We can recognize it in its power and peace. We
29:10
Speaker 1: can see the greatness of the new knowledge and the
29:12
Speaker 1: new man it makes in the new life, the man
29:15
Speaker 1: of the great Spirit, of the great action, the man
29:19
Speaker 1: of the great quiet, the man who has the peace
29:24
Speaker 1: of God. What does the discovery of God mean? Jesus
29:30
Speaker 1: himself speaks of a man turning right about, being converted,
29:35
Speaker 1: of the revision of all ideas, of all standards, of
29:38
Speaker 1: all values. He gives us two beautiful pictures to illustrate
29:43
Speaker 1: what it means, and it repays us to linger over them. First,
29:49
Speaker 1: there is the treasure finder. He is in the country, digging,
29:53
Speaker 1: perhaps in another man's field, or idling in the open,
29:57
Speaker 1: and by accident he stumbles on a buried treasure. Palestine
30:01
Speaker 1: was like Belgium, a land with a long history of
30:04
Speaker 1: wars fought on its soil by foreigners Babylon or Assyria
30:08
Speaker 1: against Egypt, Ptolemies against Seleucids. It was the only available
30:13
Speaker 1: route for attack, either on Egypt by land, or on
30:16
Speaker 1: Syria or Mesopotamia or Babylon from the southern Mediterranean. In
30:22
Speaker 1: such a land, when the foreign army marched through, a
30:25
Speaker 1: man had best hide his treasure and hoped to find
30:28
Speaker 1: it again in better times, And again and again. The
30:33
Speaker 1: secret of the place of its burial died with him.
30:37
Speaker 1: The treasure finder had no lord of the manner to
30:40
Speaker 1: think of, no treasury department. He made a great discovery,
30:45
Speaker 1: and made it initially for himself and his own and
30:48
Speaker 1: for joy. Thereof he goeth and selleth all that he hath,
30:52
Speaker 1: and buyeth that field. We can see him full of
30:55
Speaker 1: his discovery, full of eagerness, and trying to hide his
30:59
Speaker 1: inner joy, as he realizes every penny he can manage,
31:03
Speaker 1: and achieves the great transaction which gives him the field
31:06
Speaker 1: and the treasure. The salient points are a sudden, great joy,
31:12
Speaker 1: an instant resolution, a complete sacrifice of everything, and a
31:17
Speaker 1: life unexpectedly and infinitely enriched. And so it is, says Jesus,
31:24
Speaker 1: with the Kingdom of God. The pearl merchant is a
31:29
Speaker 1: more interesting figure. Perhaps we may picture him middle aged,
31:34
Speaker 1: a trifle worn, somewhat silent, a man of keen eyes.
31:40
Speaker 1: He has been in his trade for years, and he
31:43
Speaker 1: is a master at it by now. He has a
31:47
Speaker 1: knowledge which years give to a man in earnest, a
31:50
Speaker 1: knowledge more like instinct than anything acquired. A glance at
31:55
Speaker 1: pearls on a table, this and this and this, he
31:58
Speaker 1: will take the other. Perhaps he would look at that one.
32:02
Speaker 1: The rest he shook his head and did not look
32:05
Speaker 1: at them. He saw without looking. One day he is
32:10
Speaker 1: told of a pearl, a good one. He is not surprised,
32:15
Speaker 1: for pearls are always good when they are offered for sale.
32:18
Speaker 1: But again, a glance is enough. The price, yes, it
32:24
Speaker 1: is high, but he will take the pearl. But he
32:27
Speaker 1: must be allowed till evening to get the money. He
32:31
Speaker 1: goes away and sells his stock. The little collection of
32:34
Speaker 1: pearls in his wallet, representing the experience of a lifetime,
32:38
Speaker 1: all of them good, as he very well knows, and
32:41
Speaker 1: he sells them for what he can get at a loss,
32:43
Speaker 1: if must be, yesterday's bargainer cuts down his price for
32:47
Speaker 1: this and that pearl, and he has taken up he
32:50
Speaker 1: never expected to do so well against the old dealer.
32:53
Speaker 1: And he laughs. But the merchant is content too. He
32:58
Speaker 1: has sold all his earls for what they would fetch,
33:02
Speaker 1: lost money on them, yes, and been laughed at behind
33:05
Speaker 1: his back. But he owns the one pearl of great price.
33:10
Speaker 1: It is his, and he is satisfied. There is no
33:15
Speaker 1: reference to draw here or exaltation. But there is the
33:19
Speaker 1: same instant recognition of the opportunity, the same resolve, the
33:24
Speaker 1: same sacrifice, and the same acquisition. Both parables begin with
33:30
Speaker 1: a reference to the kingdom of God, to that rule
33:33
Speaker 1: and kingship of God, the knowledge of which makes all
33:37
Speaker 1: the difference to a man, A small grammatical difference, points
33:42
Speaker 1: beyond my NUTII to the common experience of the two men.
33:46
Speaker 1: Each makes a great discovery and takes action in a
33:49
Speaker 1: great and urgent resolve, and they are both repaid. If
33:55
Speaker 1: we are to understand the two parables in the Scent
33:57
Speaker 1: intended by Jesus, the term God must become alive to
34:02
Speaker 1: us with all the life and power and love that
34:06
Speaker 1: the name implies for him. Then to grasp that this
34:10
Speaker 1: Father of Jesus is King, that the God of his thoughts,
34:14
Speaker 1: of his faith, with all the tenderness and power combined
34:19
Speaker 1: that Jesus teaches us to see in him, rules the universe,
34:23
Speaker 1: controls our destiny, and loves us. This is the experience
34:29
Speaker 1: that Jesus compares with that of the treasure Finder and
34:31
Speaker 1: the pearl merchant. Worth He suggests everything that a man has,
34:37
Speaker 1: and more than all. In passing. We may notice that
34:42
Speaker 1: these stories suggest that this experience may be reached in
34:45
Speaker 1: different ways. In the parables of the Seed and the Leaven,
34:49
Speaker 1: he indicates a natural quiet and unconscious growth, a story
34:54
Speaker 1: without crisis, though full of change. To the treasure Finder,
34:59
Speaker 1: the discovery is a surprise. How came Jesus so far
35:03
Speaker 1: into the minds of men as to know what a
35:05
Speaker 1: surprise God can be? And how joyful a surprise. The
35:09
Speaker 1: pearl Merchant, on the other hand, has lived in the
35:12
Speaker 1: region where he makes his discovery. He is the type
35:15
Speaker 1: that lives and moves in the atmosphere of high and
35:18
Speaker 1: true thought, that knows whatsoever things are pure and lovely
35:22
Speaker 1: and of good report, of help and uce he is
35:26
Speaker 1: no stranger to great and inspiring ideas. And one day,
35:30
Speaker 1: in no strange way, by no accident, but in the
35:34
Speaker 1: ordinary round of life, he comes on something that transcends
35:38
Speaker 1: all that he has been seeking, all that he has known,
35:41
Speaker 1: the one thing worth all. There is little surprise about it,
35:46
Speaker 1: no wild elation, but nothing is allowed to stand in
35:49
Speaker 1: the way of an instant entrance into the great experience
35:54
Speaker 1: and the great experiences Jesus says God. To see God,
36:02
Speaker 1: to know God, that is what Jesus means, to get
36:06
Speaker 1: away from all the fuss and trouble of life into
36:09
Speaker 1: the presence of God, to know he is ours, to
36:12
Speaker 1: see him smile, to realize that he wants us to
36:15
Speaker 1: stay there, That He is a real father with a
36:17
Speaker 1: father's heart, That his love is on the same wonderful
36:21
Speaker 1: scale as every one of his attributes, and in reality
36:24
Speaker 1: far more intelligible than any of them. That is the
36:28
Speaker 1: picture Jesus draws, the sheer, incredible love of God, the
36:33
Speaker 1: wonderful change it means for all life, that is his teaching,
36:38
Speaker 1: and he encourages us, in the words of the Shorter Catechism,
36:41
Speaker 1: to enjoy God forever, as Jesus himself does. Those who
36:46
Speaker 1: learn his secret enjoy God in reality. Wherever they see
36:51
Speaker 1: God with the eyes of Jesus, it is joy and peace,
36:56
Speaker 1: and they realize with deepening emotion that this is also
36:59
Speaker 1: God gift. As Jesus said, Jesus entirely recast mankind's common
37:07
Speaker 1: ideas of holiness. It is no longer asceticism, no longer
37:12
Speaker 1: the mystical trance, no longer the fussiness with which the
37:16
Speaker 1: early Christian reproached the jew which still haunts all the
37:20
Speaker 1: religions of taboo and merit, and even Christianity. In some forms,
37:26
Speaker 1: where men think of holiness as freedom from sin, the
37:30
Speaker 1: negative conception reacts on life. They begin at the wrong end.
37:35
Speaker 1: Solomon Schechter, the great Jewish scholar, once said of Oxford
37:39
Speaker 1: that they practice fastidiousness there and call it holiness. Unfortunately,
37:45
Speaker 1: Oxford has no monopoly of that type of holiness. But
37:48
Speaker 1: with Jesus, holiness is a much simpler and more natural thing,
37:53
Speaker 1: as natural as the happy, easy life of father and child,
37:57
Speaker 1: and it rests on mutual faith. It is theocentric positive,
38:03
Speaker 1: active rather than passive, not a state, but a relation
38:08
Speaker 1: and a force. Holiness with Him is a living relation
38:12
Speaker 1: with the living God. That is why the first feature
38:15
Speaker 1: in it that strikes us is courage, be of good, cheer,
38:19
Speaker 1: be not afraid. That note rings through the gospels, and
38:24
Speaker 1: how much it means and has meant in sweet temper
38:27
Speaker 1: and cheerfulness in the very checkered history of the Church.
38:32
Speaker 1: His is the great voice of hope in the world,
38:36
Speaker 1: the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our hope, Paul said,
38:41
Speaker 1: even on the cross. According to one text, Jesus said
38:44
Speaker 1: to the penitent thief, courage to day, thou shalt be
38:47
Speaker 1: with me in paradise. We may not know where or
38:52
Speaker 1: what paradise is, but the rest is intelligible and splendid.
38:57
Speaker 1: Courage to day, thou shalt be with me. Look at
39:01
Speaker 1: the brave heart that the Gospel has made in every age,
39:06
Speaker 1: how venturesome they are. And we find the same venturesomeness
39:09
Speaker 1: in Jesus. For instance, as a German scholar emphasizes, in
39:14
Speaker 1: that episode of the Daughter of Gyrus, the messenger comes
39:19
Speaker 1: and says she is dead. Anybody else would stop, but
39:23
Speaker 1: Jesus goes on. That is a great piece of interpretation.
39:29
Speaker 1: Look again at his venturesomeness in trusting the Gospel to
39:32
Speaker 1: the twelve and to us, and in facing the cross.
39:37
Speaker 1: It was his knowledge of God, says Professor Peabody, that
39:41
Speaker 1: gave him his tranquility of mind. Jesus, says doctor Cairns,
39:48
Speaker 1: said that no one ever trusted God enough, and that
39:51
Speaker 1: was the source of all the sin and tragedy. Look
39:54
Speaker 1: at his emphasis again and again on faith, and the
39:57
Speaker 1: language is not that of guesswork. They are the words
40:00
Speaker 1: of the great son of Fact, who based himself on experience.
40:05
Speaker 1: Have faith in God. Be not afraid, only believe. All
40:09
Speaker 1: things are possible to him that believeth. When he criticizes
40:13
Speaker 1: his disciples, it is on the score of their want
40:16
Speaker 1: of faith, Oh ye, of little faith. It has been
40:21
Speaker 1: taken as almost a nickname for them. In the hour
40:24
Speaker 1: of trial and danger, they may trust to the spirit
40:27
Speaker 1: of your Father. It is remarkable what value he attaches
40:32
Speaker 1: to faith, even of the slightest faith. As a grain
40:36
Speaker 1: of mustard seed, it is little, but it is of
40:40
Speaker 1: the seed order, a living thing of the most immense vitality,
40:44
Speaker 1: with the promise of growth and usefulness in it. This
40:49
Speaker 1: brings us to the question of prayer. Some of us,
40:52
Speaker 1: of course, do not believe very much in prayer for
40:55
Speaker 1: certain philosophical reasons, which perhaps as a matter of fact,
41:00
Speaker 1: are not quite as sound as we think, because our
41:02
Speaker 1: definition of prayer is a wrong one, resting on insufficient
41:06
Speaker 1: experience and insufficient reflection. What is prayer? We shall agree
41:13
Speaker 1: that it is the act by which man definitely tries
41:16
Speaker 1: to relate his soul and life to God. What Jesus
41:20
Speaker 1: then teaches on prayer will illuminate what he means by God,
41:24
Speaker 1: and conversely, his conception of God will throw new light
41:28
Speaker 1: upon the whole problem of prayer. It is plain history
41:34
Speaker 1: that Jesus, the Great Son of Fact, believed in prayer,
41:38
Speaker 1: told men to pray, and prayed himself. The Gospels and
41:43
Speaker 1: the Epistle to the Hebrews they emphasis on his practice.
41:48
Speaker 1: Early in the morning he withdrew to the desert. Late
41:52
Speaker 1: at night he remained on the hill side for prayer.
41:54
Speaker 1: Wearied by the crowd that thronged him, he kept apart
41:58
Speaker 1: and continued in prayer. He prays before he chooses the disciples,
42:03
Speaker 1: he gives thanks to God the return of the seventy
42:05
Speaker 1: from their missionary journey. Prayer is associated with the confession
42:10
Speaker 1: of Caesary of Philippi, with the amount of transfiguration with Deathsemone,
42:15
Speaker 1: the writer to the Hebrews, speaks of his strong crying
42:18
Speaker 1: and tears in prayer. The Gospels even mention what we
42:22
Speaker 1: should call his unanswered prayers. The prayer before the calling
42:27
Speaker 1: of the twelve does not exclude Jesus, and the cup
42:31
Speaker 1: does not pass in spite of the prayer. In Gathsemone,
42:35
Speaker 1: it is as if we had something to learn from
42:37
Speaker 1: the unanswered prayers of our master. Certainly the content of
42:42
Speaker 1: the Gospel for us would have been poorer if they
42:45
Speaker 1: had been answered in our sense of the word. And
42:48
Speaker 1: this fact, taken with his own teaching on prayer and
42:51
Speaker 1: his own submission to the Father's will, may help us
42:55
Speaker 1: over some of our difficulties. But Jesus had no doubt
43:00
Speaker 1: fear about prayer being answered. Ask and it shall be given. You,
43:06
Speaker 1: Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it should be
43:10
Speaker 1: opened unto you. Are not ambiguous statements in the least,
43:15
Speaker 1: and they come from one who based himself on experience.
43:19
Speaker 1: It is worth thinking out that the experience of Jesus
43:22
Speaker 1: lies behind his recommendation of prayer. All his clear eyed
43:27
Speaker 1: knowledge of God speaks in these plain sentences. As he
43:33
Speaker 1: was praying, they ask him teach us to pray, as
43:36
Speaker 1: John also taught his disciples. It looks as if at
43:41
Speaker 1: times the disciples caught him a prayer, or even overheard him,
43:45
Speaker 1: and felt that here was prayer that took them out
43:47
Speaker 1: beyond all they had ever known of prayer. There were
43:51
Speaker 1: men whom Jesus had taught to pray. Was it they
43:54
Speaker 1: who asked Jesus to teach them over again? There may
43:57
Speaker 1: have been some of them who had learnt the Pharise
44:00
Speaker 1: way in prayer, and some who stuck to the simpler
44:03
Speaker 1: way they had been taught in childhood. In each case
44:07
Speaker 1: the old ways were outgrown. We can put together what
44:12
Speaker 1: he taught them. In the first place, the thing must
44:15
Speaker 1: be real and individual, the first requirement always with Jesus.
44:21
Speaker 1: The public prayer of ostentation is out of the reckoning.
44:25
Speaker 1: It is nothing. Jesus chooses the quiet and solitary place
44:29
Speaker 1: for his intercourse with his father. The real prayer is
44:33
Speaker 1: to the Father in secret his affair, and it will
44:37
Speaker 1: be earnest beyond what most of us think we are
44:41
Speaker 1: so familiar with the Gospel and parable that we do
44:44
Speaker 1: not take in the strenuousness of Jesus's way in prayer.
44:48
Speaker 1: The importune widow and the Friend at midnight are his
44:51
Speaker 1: types of insistent and incessant earnestness. Do you he asks
44:57
Speaker 1: pray with anything like their determination to be heard? The
45:00
Speaker 1: knock at the door and the pleading voice continue till
45:04
Speaker 1: the request is granted, in each case by a reluctant giver.
45:09
Speaker 1: But God is not reluctant, Jesus says, though God too
45:12
Speaker 1: will choose his own time to answer. It does not
45:16
Speaker 1: mean the mechanical reiteration of the heathen, not at all.
45:20
Speaker 1: That is not the business of praying, but the steady,
45:23
Speaker 1: earnest concentration on the purpose, with the deeper and deeper
45:28
Speaker 1: clarification of the thought, as we press home into God's
45:32
Speaker 1: presence till we get there. It was so that He prayed.
45:38
Speaker 1: We may be sure. It is not idly that prayer
45:41
Speaker 1: has been called the greatest task of the Christian man.
45:45
Speaker 1: It will not be an easy thing, but a strenuous one.
45:51
Speaker 1: Part of the difficulty of prayer is recognized by Jesus
45:54
Speaker 1: over and over again. Men do not really quite believe
45:58
Speaker 1: that they will be answered. They are of little faith.
46:02
Speaker 1: But he tells them with emphasis in one form of
46:05
Speaker 1: words and another, driving it home into them that all
46:09
Speaker 1: things are possible with God. Have faith in God. One
46:13
Speaker 1: can imagine how he fixes them with the familiar steady gaze, pauses,
46:18
Speaker 1: and then with the full weight of his personality in
46:21
Speaker 1: his words, and meaning them to give to his words
46:24
Speaker 1: the full value he intends. Says, have faith in God
46:31
Speaker 1: to see him and to hear him, must have given
46:34
Speaker 1: that faith of itself. If the friend in the house,
46:38
Speaker 1: to your knowledge, has the loaves you will knock until
46:41
Speaker 1: you get them, and has God not the gifts for
46:44
Speaker 1: you that you need. Is he short of the power
46:47
Speaker 1: to help? Or is it the will to help that
46:50
Speaker 1: is wanting? In God? Once more, the vital thing is
46:56
Speaker 1: Jesus conception of God. Here has also where we sacrifice
47:01
Speaker 1: far more than we dream, by our lazy way of
47:05
Speaker 1: using His words without making the effort to give them
47:07
Speaker 1: his connotation. To turn again to passages already quoted, will
47:13
Speaker 1: a father give his son a serpent instead of the
47:15
Speaker 1: fish for which he asks a stone for bread? It
47:18
Speaker 1: is unthinkable God will God do less. It all goes
47:25
Speaker 1: back again to the relation of father and child, to
47:28
Speaker 1: the love of God. Only into the thought Jesus puts
47:32
Speaker 1: a significance which we have not character or love enough
47:35
Speaker 1: to grasp. Your Father knoweth that ye have need of
47:39
Speaker 1: these things. He says about matters that weigh heaviest with us.
47:44
Speaker 1: Even if we suppose Luke's reference to the Father giving
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Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit to those who ask to owe something,
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Speaker 1: to the editor's hand, it was an editor with some
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Speaker 1: Christian experience, It is clear that Jesus steadily implies that
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Speaker 1: the heavenly Father has better things than food and clothing
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Speaker 1: for his children. How much of a human father is
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Speaker 1: available for his children? Then, will not the heavenly Father,
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Speaker 1: Jesus suggests, give on a larger scale, and give himself,
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Speaker 1: in short, be available for the least significant of his
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Speaker 1: own children, in all his fullness and all his fatherhood.
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Speaker 1: And even if they do not ask, because they do
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Speaker 1: not know their need, will he not answer the prayers
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Speaker 1: that others who do know make for them. Jesus at
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Speaker 1: all events made a practice of intercession. I prayed for
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Speaker 1: thee he said to Peter and the writers of the
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Speaker 1: New Testament feel it is only natural for Jesus, risen,
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Speaker 1: ascended and glorified, to make intercession for us. Still, we
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Speaker 1: have again to think out what God's fatherhood implies and
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Speaker 1: carries with it. For Jesus, the recurrence of the sweet
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Speaker 1: and deep name Father unveils the secret of his being.
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Speaker 1: His heart is at rest in God. Rest in God
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Speaker 1: is the very note of all his being, of all
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Speaker 1: his teaching, the keynote of all prayer. In his thoughts,
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Speaker 1: Our Father, who art in Heaven, Our prayers are to begin,
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Speaker 1: and perhaps they are not to go on till we
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Speaker 1: realize what we are saying in that great form of speech.
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Speaker 1: It is certain, as these words grow for us into
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Speaker 1: the full stature of their meaning for Jesus, we shall
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Speaker 1: understand in a more intimate way what the whole Gospel
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Speaker 1: is in reality. The writer to the Hebrews has here
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Speaker 1: an interesting suggestion for us. Using the symbolism of the
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Speaker 1: Hebrew religion and its tabernacle, he compares Jesus to the
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Speaker 1: high priest. But Jesus, he says, does not enter into
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Speaker 1: the holiest alone, having therefore brethren boldest to enter into
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Speaker 1: the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new
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Speaker 1: and living way, which he hath consecrated for us. Let
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Speaker 1: us draw near with a true heart in full assurance
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Speaker 1: of faith. In the previous chapter, he discards the symbol
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Speaker 1: and speaks things. Christ is not entered into the holy
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Speaker 1: places made with hands, which are the figures of the True,
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Speaker 1: but into Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence
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Speaker 1: of God for us. There he touches what has been
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Speaker 1: the faith of the Church throughout, that in Christ we
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Speaker 1: reach the presence of God. Without saying so much in
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Speaker 1: many words, Jesus implies this in all his attitude to prayer.
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Speaker 1: God is there, and God loves you and loves to
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Speaker 1: have you speak with him. No one has ever believed
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Speaker 1: this very much outside the radius of Christ's person and influence.
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Speaker 1: It is when we give the words full weight, an
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Speaker 1: essentially Christian faith, and it depends on our relation to
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Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. Jesus was quite explicit with his friends in
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Speaker 1: telling them they did not know what to ask, but
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Speaker 1: he showed them himself what they should ask. Seek Ye first,
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Speaker 1: the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, he says, and
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Speaker 1: tells us to pray for the forgiveness of our sins
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Speaker 1: and for deliverance from evil. Pray to Thy Kingdom. Come
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Speaker 1: pray the Lord of the harvest, that he will send
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Speaker 1: forth laborers into his harvest. This is perhaps the only
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Speaker 1: place where He asked the disciples to pray for his
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Speaker 1: great work. Identification with God's purposes, Identification with the individual
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Speaker 1: needs of those we love and those we ought to love.
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Speaker 1: Identification with the world's sin and misery. These seemed to
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Speaker 1: be his canons of prayer for us as for himself,
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Speaker 1: for both in what he teaches others and in what
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Speaker 1: he does himself. He makes it a definite prerequisite of
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Speaker 1: all prayer that we say Thy will be done. Prayer
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Speaker 1: is essentially dedication, deeper and fuller as we use it
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Speaker 1: more and come more into the presence of God. Obedience
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Speaker 1: goes with it. We must cease to pray or cease
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Speaker 1: to disobey one or the other. If we are half surrendered.
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Speaker 1: We are not very bright about our prayers because we
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Speaker 1: do not quite believe that God will really look after
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Speaker 1: the things about which we are anxious. We must indeed
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Speaker 1: go back to what Jesus said about God. We had
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Speaker 1: better even leave off praying for a moment till we
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Speaker 1: see what he says, and then begin again with a
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Speaker 1: clearer mind. Ask and ye shall receive, says, And if
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Speaker 1: we have no obedience, or love, or faith, or any
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Speaker 1: of the great things that make prayer possible, he suggests
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Speaker 1: that we can ask for them and have them. The
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Speaker 1: Gospel gives us an illustration in the man who prayed, Lord,
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Speaker 1: I believe, help thou mine unbelief. But it is plain
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Speaker 1: we have to understand that we are asking for great things,
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Speaker 1: and it is to them, rather than to the obvious
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Speaker 1: little things, that Jesus directs our thoughts, not away from
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Speaker 1: the little things. For if God is a real father,
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Speaker 1: he will wish to have his children talk them over
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Speaker 1: with him. Little things please, little minds, yes, and great
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Speaker 1: minds when the little minds are dear to them, but
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Speaker 1: not little things all the time. There is a variant
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Speaker 1: to the saying about seeking first the kingdom of Heaven,
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Speaker 1: which Clement of Alexandria preserves. Perhaps it is a mere slip,
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Speaker 1: but God, it has been said, can use miss quoteations,
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Speaker 1: and Clement's quotation or misquotation certainly represents the thought of Jesus,
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Speaker 1: and it may give us a hint for our own practice,
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Speaker 1: ask saith, He the great things and the little things
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Speaker 1: will be added unto you. The object of Jesus was
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Speaker 1: to induce men to base all life on God. Short
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Speaker 1: range thinking like the rich fools may lead to our
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Speaker 1: forgetting God, but Jesus incessantly lays the emphasis on the
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Speaker 1: thought out life, and that in the long run means
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Speaker 1: a new reckoning with God. That is what Jesus urges,
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Speaker 1: that we should think life out, that we should come
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Speaker 1: face to face with God and see Him for what
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Speaker 1: he is and accept him. He means us to live
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Speaker 1: a life utterly and absolutely based on God, life on
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Speaker 1: God's lines of peacemaking and ministry, the denial of self,
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Speaker 1: a complete forgetfulness of self, in surrendered to God, obedient
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Speaker 1: to God, faith in God, and the acceptance of the
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Speaker 1: sunshine of God's fatherhood. He means us to go about
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Speaker 1: things in God's way, forgiving our enemies, cherishing kind thoughts
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Speaker 1: about those who hate us, or despise us, or use
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Speaker 1: us badly, praying for them. This takes us right back
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Speaker 1: into the common world, where we have to live in
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Speaker 1: any case, and it is there that he means us
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Speaker 1: to live with God, not in trance, but at work
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Speaker 1: in the family, in business, shop and street, doing all
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Speaker 1: the little things and all the great things that God
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Speaker 1: wants us to do, and glad to do them, just
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Speaker 1: because we are his children and He is our father
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Speaker 1: above all. He would have us think like God. And
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Speaker 1: to reach into this habit of thinking like God, we
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Speaker 1: have to live in the atmosphere of Jesus with him.
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Speaker 1: All this new life he made possible for us by
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Speaker 1: being what he was. Once again a challenge to re
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Speaker 1: explore Jesus, the way of faith in God and to
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Speaker 1: love for man, said doctor kens In mohonk Is as
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Speaker 1: of old, to come nearer to the living Jesus, end
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Speaker 1: of Chapter five