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THE CLOSING
PRAYER
"Now the God of peace, that brought again from the
dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep,
through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you
perfect in every good work to do his will, working in
you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through
Jesus Christ; to whom be glory forever and ever. HEBREWS
xiii. 20, 21.
THROUGHOUT
this Epistle, the inspired writer has been appealing to
man. Through successive paragraphs he has poured forth a
burning stream of argument, remonstrance, or appeal; now
opening the full peal of Sinai's thunders, and now the
wail of Calvary's broken heart, and finally summoning the
most honored names in Hebrew story to enforce his words.
All this is over now. He can say no
more. The plowing and sowing and harrowing are alike
complete. He must turn from earth to heaven, from man to
God; and leave his converts and his work with that
glorious Being whose cause he had striven so faithfully to
plead, and who alone could crown his labors with success.
There are many splendid outbursts of prayer beginning
these Epistles; but amongst them all, it is impossible to
find one more striking or beautiful than this.
THE BURDEN OF THE PRAYER is that these
Hebrew Christians may be made perfect to do God's will.
The word "perfect" means to set in joint, or
articulate. Naturally, we are out of joint, or, at the
best, work stiffly; but the ideal of Christian living is
to be so perfectly "set" that God's purposes may
be easily and completely realized in us.
There is no higher aim in life than to
do the will of God. It was the supreme object for which
our Saviour lived. This brought him from heaven. This
determined his every action. This fed his inner life with
hidden meat. This cleared and lit up his judgment. This
led him with unfaltering decision into the valley of
death. This was the stay and solace of his spirit as he
drank the bitter cup of agony. Throughout his mortal life
his one glad shout of assurance and victory was, "I
delight to do thy will, 0 my God; yea, thy law is within
my heart." And human lives climb up from the lowlands
to the upland heights just in proportion as they do the
will of God on earth as it is done in heaven. If every
reader of these lines would resolve from this moment to do
the will of God in the very smallest things-with
scrupulous care, counting nothing insignificant, shrinking
from no sacrifice, evading no command-life would assume
entirely a new aspect. There might be a momentary
experience of suffering and pain; but it would be
succeeded by the light of resurrection, and the new song
of heaven, stealing like morning through the chambers of
the soul.
God is love; to do his
will is to scatter love in handfuls of blessing on a weary
world. God is light; to do his will is to
tread a path that shines more and more unto the perfect
day. God is life; to do his will is to eat
of the Tree of Life, and live forever, and to drink deep
draughts of the more abundant life which Jesus gives. God
is the God of hope; to do his will is to be full
of all joy and peace, and to abound in hope. God is
the God of all comfort; to do his will is to be
comforted in all our tribulation by the tender love of a
mother. God is the God of peace; to
do his will is to learn the secret inner calm, which no
storm can reach, no tempest ruffle. God is the God
of truth; to do his will is to be on the winning
side, and to be assured of the time when he will bring out
our righteousness as the light, and our judgment as the
noonday.
Why will you not, my readers, who have
followed these chapters thus far to the last, resolve from
this moment that your will shall henceforth say "Yes"to
God's will, and that you will live out what be wills and
works within? Probably, at the very outset, you will be
tested by your attitude to some one thing. Do not try to
answer all the suggestions or inquiries that may be raised
tumultuously within, but deal immediately and decisively
with that single item. Dare to say, with respect to it,
"I will thy will, 0 my God." And immediately the
gate will open into the rapture of a new life. But
remember that his will must be done in every work
to which you put your hands; and then every
work will be good.
We cannot tell how the mysterious
promptings of our will are able to express themselves in
our limbs and members. We only know that what we will in
ourselves is instantly wrought out through the wonderful
machinery of nerve and muscle. And we are quick to
perceive when, through some injury or dislocation, the
mandate of the will fails to be instantly and completely
fulfilled. Nor do we rest content until the complete
communication is restored.
But in all this there is a deep
spiritual analogy. We are members, through grace, of the
body of Christ. The will lies with him; and if we were
living as we ought, we should be incessantly conscious of
its holy impulses, withdrawing us from this, or prompting
us to that. Our will would not be obliterated, but would
elect to work in perpetual obedience and subordination to
the will of its King. Alas! this is not our case. We are
too little sensible of those holy impulses. On rare
occasions we realize and yield to them. But how many of
them fail to reach or move us, because we are out of
joint! What prayer could better befit our lips than that
the God of peace, the true surgeon of souls, would put us
in joint, to do his will, with unerring accuracy,
promptitude, and completeness!
MARK THE GUARANTEES THAT THIS PRAYER
SHALL BE REALIZED. The appeal is made to the God of
peace. He whose nature is never swept by the
storms of desire or unrest; whose one aim is to introduce
peace into the heart and life; whose love to us will not
brook disappointment in achieving our highest blessedness,
he must undertake this office; he will do it most tenderly
and delicately; nor will he rest until the obstruction to
the inflow of his nature is removed, and there is perfect
harmony between the promptings of his will and our
immediate and joyous response.
He brought again from the dead
our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep. To
have given us a Shepherd was much; but to have given
us so great a Shepherd is marvelous. He is the great
Shepherd who died, just as he is the good Shepherd
who knows his flock, and the chief Shepherd
who is coming again. He is great, because of the intrinsic
dignity of his nature; because of his personal
qualifications to save and bless us; because of the
greatness of his unknown sufferings; and because of the
height of glory to which the Father hath exalted him. The
words "brought again" are very expressive. They
contain the idea of "brought up." More is meant
than the reanimation of the dead body of Christ. There is
included, also, his exaltation by the right hand of God,
to be a Prince and a Saviour. And, surely, if our God has
given us such a Shepherd, and raised him to such a glory,
that he may help us the more efficiently, there is every
reason why we should confidently count on his doing all
that may needed in us, as he has done all
that was needed for us.
He will certainly respect the
everlasting covenant, which has been sealed with blood.
God has entered into an eternal covenant
with us to be our God and Friend. That covenant, which
does not depend on anything in us, but rests on his own
unchanging nature, has been ratified by the precious blood
of his Son. As the first covenant was sealed by the
sprinkled blood of slain beasts, so the second was sealed
by the precious blood of Christ. "This is my blood of
the new testament, which is shed for many for the
remission of sins." Thus spoke our Saviour on the eve
of his death, with a weight of meaning which this Epistle
was needed to explain. And is it likely that he who has
entered into such a covenant with our souls-a covenant so
everlasting, so divine, so solemn-will ever go back from
it, or allow anything to remain undone which may be needed
to secure its perfect and efficient operation? It cannot
be! We may count, without the slightest hesitation, on the
God of peace doing all that is required to perfect us in
every good work to do his will.
THE DIVINE METHOD will be to work in
us. It is necessary first that we should be adjusted so
that there may be no waste or diversion of the divine
energy. When that is done, then it will begin to pass into
and through us in mighty tides of power. "God working
in you." It is a marvelous expression! We know how
steam works mightily within the cylinder, forcing up and
down the ponderous piston. We know how sap works mightily
within the branches, forcing itself out in bud and leaf
and blossom. We read of a time when men and women were so
possessed of devils that they spoke and acted as the
inward promptings led them. These are approximations to
the conception of the text, which towers infinitely
beyond.
Have we not all been conscious of some
of these workings? They do not work in us mightily as they
did in the Apostle Paul, because we have not yielded to
them as he did. Still, we have known them when the breath
of holy resolution has Swept through our natures; or we
have conceived some noble purpose; or have been impelled
to some deed of self-sacrifice for others. These are the
workings of God within the heart, not in the tornado only,
but in the zephyr; not in the thunder alone, but in the
still small voice. Every sigh for the better life, every
strong and earnest resolution, every determination to
leave the nets and fishing-boats to follow Jesus, every
appetite for fellowship, every aspiration heavenward-all
these are the result of God's in-working.
How careful we should be to gather up
every divine impulse, and translate it into action! We
must work out what he works in. We must labor according to
his working, which works in us mightily. We must be swift
to seize the fugitive and transient expression, embodying
it in the permanent act.
It does not seem so difficult to live
and work for God when it is realized that the eternal God
is energizing within. You cannot be sufficiently patient
to that querulous invalid, your patience is exhausted; but
God is working his patience within you: let it come out
through you. You cannot muster strength for that obvious
Christian duty; but God is working that fruit in your
innermost nature; be content to let it manifest itself by
you. You are incompetent to sustain that Christian work,
with its manifold demands; but stand aside, and let the
eternal God work in and through you, to do by his strength
what you in your weakness cannot do.
The Christian is the workshop of God.
In that mortal but renewed nature the divine Artisan is at
work, elaborating products of exquisite beauty and
marvelous skill. Would that we might be less eager to give
the world ourselves, and more determined that there should
be a manifestation through all the gateways of our being
of the wondrous in-working of the God of peace! Then we
might say, with some approach to the words of our Lord, to
such as demand evidences of his resurrection and life,
"How sayest thou, Prove to me the resurrection of
Jesus? the words which I speak, I speak not of myself; but
my Saviour, who dwelleth in me, he doeth the works."
THE RESULT will be that we shall be
well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ. Our good
works can never be the ground of our acceptance or
justification. The very best of them can only please God through
Jesus Christ. Our purest tears need washing again
in his blood. Our holiest actions need to be cleansed ere
they can be viewed by a holy God. Our best prayers and
gifts need to be laid on the altar which sanctifies all it
touches. We could not stand before God for a moment, save
by that one sufficient substitutionary sacrifice, once
offered by Jesus on the cross, and now pleaded by him
before the throne.
At the same time, our Father is pleased
with our obedient loyalty to his will. He gives us this
testimony, that we please him; as Enoch did, who walked
with him before the flood. And it should be the constant
ambition of our lives so to walk as to please him, and to
obtain from him a faint echo of those memorable words
which greeted our Saviour as he stepped upon the waters of
Baptism: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased."
To him be glory forever and ever!
Directly the soul is right with God, it becomes a vehicle
for God; and thus a revenue of glory begins to accrue to
God, which ceases not, but augments as the years roll by.
And the time will never come when the spirit shall not
still pour forth its glad rejoicings to the glory of him
to whom is due the praise of all.
If your life is not bringing glory to
God, see to it that at once you set to work to ascertain
the cause. Learning it, let it be dealt with forthwith.
Hand yourself over to God to make you and keep you right.
And thus begin a song of love and praise, which shall rise
through all coming ages, to the Father who chose you in
Christ, to the Saviour who bought you with his blood, and
to the Spirit who sanctifies the heart; one adorable
Trinity, to whom be the glory forever and ever, Amen.
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