Expositions of Holy Scripture: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and First Book of Samuel, Second Samuel, First Kings, and Second Kings chapters I to VIIMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and First Book of Samuel, Second Samuel, First Kings, and Second Kings chapters I to VII
Danger is an attraction to the generous mind. It is the coward and the
selfish man who are always looking for an easy place, where somebody
else will do the work. This man felt that this miraculously prolonged
life of his bound him to special service, and the fact that up in
Hebron there were a fenced city and tall giants behind the battlements,
was an additional reason for picking out that bit of the field as the
place where he ought to be. Thank God, that spirit is not dead yet! It
has lived all through the Christian Church, and flamed up in times of
martyrdom. On missionary fields to-day, if one man falls two are ready
to step into his place. It is the true spirit of the Christian soldier.
'A great door and effectual is opened,' says Paul, 'and there are many
adversaries.' He knew the door was opened because the adversaries were
many. And because there were so many of them, would he run away? Some
of us would have said: 'I must abandon that work, it bristles with
difficulties; I cannot stop in that post, the bullets are whistling too
fast.' Nay! says Paul; 'I abide till Pentecost'--a good long
while--because the post is dangerous, and promises to be fruitful.
So, dear friends, if we would have lives on which we can look back,
lives in which early freshness will last beyond the 'morning dew,'
lives in which there shall come, day by day and moment by moment,
abundant foretastes to stay our hunger until we sit at Christ's table
in His kingdom, we must 'follow the Lord alway,' with no half-hearted
surrender, nor partial devotion, but give ourselves to Him utterly, to
be guided and sent where He will. And then, like Caleb, we shall be
able to say, with a 'perhaps,' not of doubt, but of wonder, that it
should be so, to us unworthy, 'It may be the Lord will be with me, arid
I shall drive them out.' In all these things 'we are more than
conquerors through Him that loved us.'
THE CITIES OF REFUGE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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