more is our Heavenly Father worthy of our confidence. And why it is that so few of His children trust Him, can only be because they have not yet found out that He is really their Father; or else that, calling Him Father every day in their prayers, they still have never seen that He is the sort of Father a good and true human father is, a Father who is loving, and tender, and pitiful, and full of kindness, towards the helpless beings whom He has brought into existence, and whom He is therefore bound to protect. This sort of Father no one could help trusting; but the strange and far-off Creator whose fatherhood stops at our creation, and has no care for our fate, after once we are launched into the universe, no one could be expected to trust. The remedy, therefore, for your discomfort and unrest is to be found in becoming acquainted with the Father. "For," says the Apostle, "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba Father." Is it this "spirit of adoption" that reigns in your hearts, my readers, or is it the "spirit of bondage"? Your whole comfort in the religious life depends upon which spirit it is; and no amount of wrestling or agonizing, no prayers, and no efforts, will be able to bring you comfort, while the "spirit of adoption" is lacking in your heart. But you may ask how you are to get this " spirit of adoption." I can only say that it is not a thing to be got. It comes; and it comes as the necessary result of the discovery that God is in very truth a real Father. When we have made this discovery, we cannot help feeling like a child, and acting like a child; and this is what the "spirit of adoption" means. It is nothing mystical nor mysterious; it is the simple natural result of having found a Father, where you thought there was only a Judge. The great need for every soul, therefore, is to make this supreme discovery. And to do this we have only to see what Christ tells us about the Father, and then believe it. "Verily, verily," He declares, "I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen," but, He adds sadly, "ye receive not our witness." In order to come to the knowledge of the Father, we must receive the testimony of Christ, who declares, "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself; but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." Over and over, He repeated this, and in John, after grieving over the fact that so few received His testimony, He adds these memorable words, "He that hath received His testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." The whole authority of Christ stands or falls with this. If we receive His testimony, we set to our seal that God is true. If we reject that testimony, we make Him a liar. "If ye had known Me," says Christ, "ye should have known My father also; and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him." The thing for us to do then is to make up our minds that from henceforth we will receive His testimony, and will "know the Father." Let other people worship whatever sort of a God they may, for us there must be henceforth "but one God even the Father." "For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth (as there be gods many, and lords many), but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him." VI JEHOVAH "That men may know that Thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the Most High over all the earth." AMONG all the names of God perhaps the most comprehensive is the name Jehovah. Cruden describes this name as the incommunicable name of God. The word Jehovah means the Self-Existing One, the "I am"; and it is generally used as a direct revelation of what God is. In several places an explanatory word is added, revealing some one of His special characteristics; and it is to these that I want particularly to call attention. They are as follows:Jehovah-jireh, i.e. The Lord will see, or the Lord will provide. Jehovah-nissi, i.e. The Lord my Banner. Jehovah-shalom, i.e. The Lord our Peace. Jehovah-tsidkenu, i.e. The Lord our Righteousness. These names were discovered by God's people in times of sore need; that is, the characteristics they describe were discovered, and the names were the natural expression of these characteristics. When Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, and saw no way of escape, the Lord provided a lamb for the sacrifice, and delivered Isaac; and Abraham made the grand discovery that it was one of the characteristics of Jehovah to see and provide for the needs of His people. Therefore he called Him Jehovah-jireh-the Lord will see, or the Lord will provide. numerous. The counterparts to this in the New Testament are very Over and over our Lord urges us to take no "Your Heavenly Father care, because God careth for us. knoweth," He says, "that ye have need of all these things." If the Lord sees and knows our need, it will be a matter of course with Him to provide for it. Being our Father, He could not do anything else. As soon as a good mother sees that her child needs anything, at once she sets about supplying that need. She does not even wait for the child to ask, the sight of the need is asking enough. Being a good mother, she could not do otherwise. When God therefore says to us, "I am He that seeth thy need," He in reality says also, "I am He that provideth," for He cannot see, and fail to provide. Why do I not have everything I want, then? you may ask. Only because God sees that what you want is not really the thing you need, but probably exactly the opposite. Often, in order to give us what we need, the Lord is obliged to keep from us what we want. Your Heavenly Father knoweth what things ye have need of, you do not know; and were all your wants gratified, it might well be that all your needs would be left unsupplied. It surely ought to suffice us that our God is indeed Jehovah-jireh, The Lord who will see, and who will therefore provide. But I am afraid a great many Christians of the present day have never made Abraham's discovery, and do not know that the Lord is really Jehovah-jireh. They are trusting Him, it may be, to save their souls in the future, but they never dream He wants to carry their cares for them now and here. They are like a man I have heard of, with a heavy load on his back, who was given a lift by a friend, and who thankfully availed himself of it, and climbed into the conveyance, but still kept his burden on his back, and sat there bowed down under the weight of it. Why do you not put your burden down on the bottom of the carriage?" asked his friend. "Oh," replied the man, "it is a great deal to ask you to carry me myself, and I could not ask you to carry my burden also." You wonder that any one could be so silly, and yet are you not doing the same? Are you not trusting the Lord to take care of yourself, but are still going on carrying your burdens on your own shoulders? Which is the silliest—that man or you? Jehovah-nissi, i.e., "the Lord my Banner," was a discovery made by Moses, when Amalek came to fight with Israel in Rephidim, and the Lord gave the Israelites a glorious victory. Moses realized that the Lord was fighting for them, and he built an altar to Jehovah-nissi, “the Lord my Banner." The Bible is full of developments of this name. "The Lord is a Man of war"; "The Lord your God, He it is that fighteth for you"; "The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace"; "Be not afraid nor dismayed, by reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's"; "God Himself is with us for our Captain." This Nothing is more abundantly proved in the Bible than this, that the Lord will fight for us, if we will but let Him. He knows that we have no strength nor might against our spiritual enemies; and, like a tender mother, when her helpless children are attacked by an enemy, He fights for us; and all He asks of us is to be still and let Him. is the only sort of spiritual conflict that is ever successful. But we are very slow to learn this, and when temptations come, instead of handing the battle over to the Lord, we summon all our forces to fight them ourselves. We believe, perhaps, that the Lord is somewhere near, and, if the worst comes to the worst, will step in to help us; but for the most part we feel that we ourselves, and we only, must do all the fighting. Our method of fighting consists generally in a series of repentings, and making resolutions and |