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TOPIC: Murray, Andrew - Children for Christ (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 06 Days 33-37
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THIRTY-THIRD DAY -- The Sacredness of Motherhood
`He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.' Luke 1: 15.
May God grant us His grace, to meditate in holy tenderness and reverence on the truth revealed to us here, a truth of unspeakable preciousness and power to a believing parent: the mother's womb the work-place of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord has taught us that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist; if he could be filled with the Holy Spirit from before his birth, how much more, now that Christ is glorified and the Holy Spirit given, the child of those who have become partakers of the full redemption, and the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ.
We find here, at the very opening of the New Testament history, the same truth that came out so strongly in the laying of the foundations of the covenant with the patriarchs. In preparing and securing servants to do His work, God loves to begin at the very beginning, and from before the birth, from the very first conception of life, to take charge and to sanctify the vessel He is to use for His service. The more distinctly we apprehend this part of God's plan with His Church as one of the root principles of the economy of redemption, the better shall we understand the holy privilege and duty of parentage. Very specially will mothers be encouraged and strengthened in faith to yield themselves, with all the hopes and joys of motherhood, to be God's chosen vessels for the fulfilment of His purpose and the perfecting of His Church.
Let us look first at what Scripture teaches us of the mother in whom the Holy Spirit is thus to work. Of John's parents it is testified: `They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.' It is the God of nature, who in this world of cause and effect has ordered that like begets like, who is also the God of grace. With omnipotence at His command, ready to work any miracles He pleases, He yet most carefully observes His own laws, and when He wants a holy child, seeks for holy parents. Throughout Scripture, specially in the New Testament, the blessed indwelling and inworking of the Holy Spirit is promised to the obedient. Man must, in obedience to Divine command, and under the preparatory moving of the Spirit, build the house; then does the Holy Spirit as the glory and the presence of the Lord take possession and fill it. And so it was of parents, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless,that he would be born who was to be filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb, and the forerunner of Him who should baptize with the Holy Ghost. It is of holy parents that God would take a holy child.
The double lesson for every parent, and especially for every mother, is of the deepest interest. A righteous and blameless life prepares for, and may also count upon the power of the Holy Ghost in the unborn child. Let expectant mothers, who would fulfil their holy calling as the ministers of their Lord's purposes, study Elizabeth's character: `righteous, and walking in all the commandmentsof the Lord blameless.' Itis to such a life that God chose us, `that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.' It is to such a life Jesus redeemed us: `He hath reconciled you in His body through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight.' It is no more than what every child of God ought to be and can be, `blameless and harmless, without blemish in the midst of a perverse generation.' But it is specially what every mother should be, who would offer her body as the temple of the Holy Ghost, that in her the very first beginnings of life may be over-shadowed by the Holy Ghost. Oh, that mothers, and fathers too, understood to what a terrible degree the spirit of the world and the flesh, a life in which blamelessness before God is never expected or sought after, in which sin and selfishness are allowed to have rule, hinder the influence of the Spirit, and entail upon the child, more than is needed, the heritage of unholy appetite and passion. Let them believe that a life which, in deep humility and the faith of Jesus as our sanctification, seeks to walk in obedience and righteousness, blameless before the Lord, will be accepted and honored of Him. Let them believe that they have a right to ask, and most confidently to expect, the Spirit that is in them to take possession of the life God gives through them. Let them cherish this as the highest and the brightest hope of a holy motherhood: `He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.'
Let us now look at what the angel's message teaches us of the child thus conceived and born: `Thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth, for he shall be great in the sight of the Lord,' -- three marks of a child born under the covering of the Holy Spirit. The parents are to have joy and gladness. Alas! how many a Christian parent has had reason to say in bitter agony, Would God my child had never been born! Would you have divinely given and divinely secured joy and gladness in the children that are given you? Oh, let the Holy Spirit take possession of them from before their birth. Yours will be the holy joy of heaven in them, as you see the beauty of the Lord upon them, a joy that none can take away.
`And many shall rejoice at his birth.' Alas! how many children of Christian parents have been the curse of their fellow-men! Would you have your child blessed and made a blessing, with many to thank God that ever they knew him or that he was born? Study the story of John's birth. Study it in connection with the story of Jesus' birth. It was for Jesus' sake, in the power of the Son of God coming in the flesh, in virtue of his connection with Jesus, that John was thus filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. Plead the coming, and the birth, and the redemption of Jesus on behalf of your child; claim the outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh, and the promise of the Spirit to you and your children, and your faith will be strengthened to perfect confidence that your child too may in his measure be filled with the Spirit, and shall make many to rejoice at his birth.
`And he shall be great in the sight of the Lord.' This sets the crown on the whole. A joy to his parents, a blessing to his fellow-men, and great in the sight of the Lord, is the Spirit-born child. Among men he may not make a name, in gifts and talents he may not be great, but great he will be in the sight of Him who sees not as man sees. He will be a vessel God can use for His work, a true way-preparer for the coming of the Lord in His kingdom.
Mother! God gives you this picture of Elizabeth and her child of promise, with the double lesson: live as she did; believe and receive what she did. Young mother, your motherhood is in God's sight a holier and a more blessed thing than you know. If you are indeed God's child, you have in everything been placed under the leading and the rule of His Holy Spirit. Be sure that all the tender interest and solemn thought, all the quiet trust and joyful hope, which expectant motherhood calls forth, may be sanctified and refined by God's Holy Spirit, and you be united with your little one under the overshadowing of His heavenly grace.
Ever blessed God! once more You have shown me Your way in preparing a seed to serve You, and what a deep interest You have in securing a holy and blameless motherhood. I have seen You training a mother for Your service. You do fill her heart with the thought of the Divine destiny of her child. You do stir her faith to the confident expectation of Your Divine Spirit and blessing on her seed. You do call her in righteousness and blamelessness of life to her holy work. You do in all things teach her that the life she is to bring forth is a holy gift from You, to be received and borne in a pure and holy vessel.
O great and glorious God! in deep humility and trembling Your handmaid bows before You, to offer herself to Your service. O my Father! who do much more surely than fathers on earth give good gifts to their children, give Your Holy Spirit to Your children, to make even their body Your temple, fulfil Your wondrous promise to Your child. Let Your Holy Spirit dwell in me. If it please You to make me the mother of a child, oh, let him be filled with the Spirit from the womb. Let me be filled with the Spirit. And let my child be born only for this one thing, that he may be great in Your sight, and a blessing to all around him. Amen.
THIRTY-FOURTH DAY -- A Mother's Surrender
`And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.' Luke 1: 33.
We have often had occasion to notice the wonderful oneness of mother and child, and to what extent the former, in her life and character, influences and decides what the child is to be. The life she imparts is her own life, in the deepest meaning of the term. When God gave His Son to be born of a woman, this law was not violated, and the mother He chose for His Son was doubtless all that grace could make her to be the fit vessel through whom He should receive His human nature and disposition.
And so, just as Jesus Himself is in everything our example, so we may naturally expect that in His mother God has given us one of His servants who may be an example to our mothers. If the child Jesus be an example to our children, there will be something for mothers to learn from His mother. She to whom the heavenly messenger said, 'Hail! thou highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women;' and to whom Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Ghost, also said, `Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, and blessed is she that believed,' will surely in her words and ways have left an example for every mother who yields herself like Mary to the Lord, to bear a child that can be called a son of the Most High. Were there more mothers like Mary -- this we may confidently say, without forgetting the infinite distance between her child and ours -- there would be more children like the holy Child Jesus.
And what, looked at from the human side, constitutes the most marked feature of Mary's motherhood? It is the childlike simplicity of faith in which she surrenders herself to the Divine purpose: `Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.' She calls herself the Lord's slave or bondwoman; she gives her will, herself, up to Him, to do what pleases Him; in quiet trust and expectancy she will look to Him to do what He has said. It is the same spirit of obedient faith which had once fitted Abraham to be the father of the promised seed, which now prepares her to become the mother of Him in whom the promise is to be fulfilled. Not that there were no difficulties or questionings. We read, `She was greatly troubled at the saying of the angel, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.' When again he had spoken, she feared not to ask, 'How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?' But when once the angel had spoken to her of the power of the Most High overshadowing her, she yielded herself to the Divine word. And she became an example to every mother who would like her share the benediction, 'Blessed is she that believeth, for there shall be a fulfilment of the things which have been spoken to her from the Lord.' It is the surrender of faith that makes a blessed motherhood: 'Blessed art thou, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.'
`Behold the bondmaid of the Lord.' Mary teaches a mother to yield herself to God for the service of His kingdom, that in her His purpose and glory may be made manifest. It was not by the birth of Mary's son alone that God's kingdom was to come. Believing parents may look upon their children as the stones of the great temple of which Jesus was the cornerstone. Not less than with the birth of Isaac, and every child of the chosen race down to Christ, is the birth of each of our children under God's guardianship a link in the golden chain of the good pleasure of God's will. Over all the impulses of human love and the instincts of a God given maternity, there hovers a Divine purpose using them for the carrying out of His plan. And nothing will do more to sanctify the life of the wife and the mother than when she realizes herself to be the Lord's bondwoman, redeemed for this too, that from her the chosen seed may be multiplied, that from her may be born a generation to serve the Lord. Human love will receive a Divine consecration; what otherwise appears to be only nature and earthly is elevated into the heavenlies, the region of God's will and God's favor; the expectant mother knows herself to be like the angels, one of His servants, doing His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word.
`Be it unto me according to Thy word.' Such is the faith that gives the strength to surrender oneself to God's service. It looks no longer at difficulties or impossibilities; it counts upon God to carry out His purpose, and to give the grace and the strength for the work to which He has called us. And it is just this faith that above everything fits for the blessed duties of motherhood, that gives that quiet rest of body and spirit which to mother and babe is health and strength. Or what mother is there who, as she first becomes conscious of her new vocation, is not at times with Mary `greatly troubled,' and does not feel the question come many a time, `How can all this be?' She finds no rest so sure or sweet as to cast her troubles on her Lord -- let Him do what seems to Him good. If the God of nature has created her for a calling, and the God of grace has redeemed her to fulfil that calling in the interests of His kingdom, she assuredly may trust His power and love not to forsake her in her hour of need. `What hour I am afraid I will trust in Thee; in God have I put my trust, I will not be afraid:' such words have a thousand times over been the stay of the trembling but trusting handmaid of the Lord.
`Be it according to Thy word:' to understand fully the teaching of Mary's example here, there is one trait of her character we must not omit to notice. Twice it is said of her, Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.' It is in the holy quiet of meditation and reflection on what God has said that the spirit of trust is cultivated. It is only as God's words are kept and pondered in the heart that they can quicken and deepen a living faith in Him who spoke them. Every mother who searches Holy Scripture will find there many a saying of God with reference to her sacred calling, which, if truly drunk in, will fill the heart with confidence and joy. They will teach her to regard everything connected with the birth of the child as a matter of deepest interest to the Father in heaven, and of great importance to His kingdom, as the ushering in of a new member into its number. She will see how all the exceeding great and precious promises may be claimed by her for the little one, before ever yet it has seen the light. She will see how her receiving the little one in the name of Jesus has the promise of Jesus' presence for herself and for it. She will find that all the ordering and training of the child has been provided for in regulations of Divine wisdom and love, and that all the grace needed for carrying out these orders is most surely given to each one who, like Mary, will but be a bondmaid of the Lord, and will believe what He has spoken. All of care and fear, of danger and pain in the life of motherhood, all the help and joy and rich reward God has connected with it -- all is written in the Book of the Lord; the mother who listens, and waits, and believes, will, in view both of what she fears and what she hopes, be able to say, `Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to Thy word.' As she bides her time, let quiet retirement, in which she not only hides herself from the world but opens her whole being to the rays of heaven, let thoughtful, trustful pondering of God's words engage the heart, she will find how true the word is, `Blessed is she that believed.'
What a holy and what a blessed thing the birth of a child becomes in the light of the birth of Jesus! What a holy and what a blessed task that of the mother becomes in the light of the favor of the Most High God, as the means of the fulfilment of His purpose, the promotion of His glory, the experience of His special grace and mercy! As the mother ponders these things, she will understand something of the deep meaning of that word of Paul, `She shall be saved through the childbearing, if they continue in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety.' Just as labor in the sweat of his brow was given to man, to be in his fallen state one of his greatest blessings, so the labor of childbearing to the woman, that through it and its blessed discipline the salvation of Christ might the more effectually be inwrought into her whole character and disposition. It calls and helps to a continuance in that blessed life of faith and trustful dependence, of love and gentleness and motherly kindness, of holiness in the indwelling and sanctification of the Spirit, of sobriety and self-restraint and temperance, in which true blessedness is found. It helps, to them who are rightly exercised thereby, to form that perfect womanly character which is one of God's most beautiful gifts on earth. It is in this path of loving acceptance of God's appointment, and trustful resting in His promise, that the word will come true, as a greeting to each expectant mother: `Blessed art thou, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.'
Behold the handmaid of the Lord! Yes, Lord! as You have already looked upon her in Your mercy, and set her apart for the sacred work of bearing and bringing up a seed for You, still continue to look upon her to give her all that she needs, and to work in her all that is well pleasing in Your sight. As the eye of a maid unto the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look unto the Lord our God, until He have mercy upon us. Grant to Your child an ever increasing clearness, the blessed assurance that in this holy calling of motherhood she is indeed Your handmaiden, called to the fulfilment of Your purposes, set apart for the service of Your kingdom. Let this thought teach me to look upon everything connected with the birth of my child as of deepest interest to my Father. Let it encourage me to cast every fear and burden, every care and pain, on Him in whose service they come. Let it sanctify all the hope and joy with which You do so wonderfully sweeten the sorrow with which sin had filled our cup.
And so let it be unto me according to Your word. In childlike faith, O my Lord, I would take Your blessed Word, with all its teachings and its promises, as my light and strength. In the time of patient waiting, or in the hour of anguish, Your Word shall be my stay. Let Your Holy Spirit unfold to Your handmaiden what treasures Your Word contains for her as mother, that she may know at the right time to receive what You have provided for her. May she so be prepared that the child which has been received according to Your word may be trained according to that Word, and enter into the full enjoyment of all that Your Word holds out in promise to the seed of Your people. Behold the handmaid of the Lord! be it unto me according to Your word. Amen.
THIRTY-FIFTH DAY -- A Mother’s Thanksgiving
`And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden.' Luke 1: 46-48.
There is perhaps no such moment of exquisite joy, of deep, unutterable thanksgiving taking the place of pain and sorrow, as when a mother knows herself to be the living mother of a living child. Our blessed Lord used it as the fittest type of that wondrous surprise, that strange resurrection joy, with which His disciples should find Him whom they mourned as crucified and dead to be the Living One. `A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come, but as soon as she is delivered of the child she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.' A mother will find no more fitting expression for her joy than in thanksgiving to Him to whom she owes so much. And for the expression of that thanksgiving she will find in many portions of Holy Scripture the most suitable language. How often, for instance, has the mother almost instinctively asked for the words of Psalm 103: 'Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and with tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.' But as the simple summary of all a mother has to say, no words will be found more beautiful than these of the mother of our Lord: `My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior. For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden.'
In His holy providence the Father has so ordered it that the first week after the birth of the little one is a time of weakness, in which nothing is so much needed as quiet and rest for the restoration of nature's exhausted powers. The arrangement is one of wondrous grace, giving the mother time to prepare herself again for the new duties devolving on her. While household duties and ordinary relation are kept at comparative distance, the Lord would keep His child for a little while in the secret place of His Holy Presence, to encourage and instruct her for the solemn responsibilities now again awaiting her. And there is nothing that will be more pleasing to her Lord, and more refreshing and strengthening for her own life, and a fitter preparation for blessing to the little one, than that the spirit of thanksgiving should give its bright tone to all her thoughts and hopes, and the song of praise, from the lips of the model mother, be repeated day by day, and from hour to hour: ` My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior. For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden. For He that is mighty hath done to me great things, and holy is His name; and His mercy is on them that fear Him, from generation to generation.'
It is hardly necessary to remind a mother of what all there is to stir her to praise. She has but to think of the anxious thoughts and fears that would sometimes come up as the solemn hour of her trial rose up before her, and her song is, `I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.' She looks at the precious little treasure that has been given her, with all the love and joy it brings into heart and home; and the words come spontaneously, `What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?' She sees in the little one, as she looks upon it in the light of God's purpose and promise, an immortal being, fitted for showing forth God's glory on earth, and sharing that glory in heaven, as a jewel in Jesus' crown; and her soul bows in trembling wonder at the thought that the charge of keeping and forming such a treasure should be committed to one so feeble. She remembers that, though the little one has inherited from her an evil nature, yet through her too it has the promise of the covenant and the earnest of the Spirit: her child is holy, because she is one of God's holy ones in Christ. She thinks of all the grace and wisdom and strength provided her in Christ to secure to her and her child all that God's love had prepared; and as she listens to the voice, `My grace is sufficient for thee: my strength is made perfect in weakness,' she can only sing again, 'My soul doth magnify the lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior; His mercy is on them that fear Him, from generation to generation.' It is not only God's mercies, but God Himself, in whose love they have their value and their continuance; it is God himself in whom Mary, in whom the believer, in whom the grateful mother, is glad and rejoices. True praise uses God's mercies only as the steps of the ladder along which it rises to leave them behind and rejoice in God alone.
This spirit of thanksgiving, in which, not content with the blessings alone, we rise up to the God who gave them, and rejoice in Him, is of greater worth than can well be expressed. It elevates and sanctifies both the joy, the gift that causes it, and the glad possessor, because it lifts all out of the sphere of nature into the fellowship of the spiritual and the Divine. And in this way it is the true preparation for all the work the mother has before her. We saw in Mary's surrender of herself to her God, that He might fulfil in her the good pleasure of His will, how there were combined in it two elements, the surrender to the work she had to perform, `Behold the bondmaid of the Lord,' and the trust that counted on God to do for her what He had promised, `Be it according to Thy word.' In both of these aspects the thanksgiving and joy of the hour of deliverance, if cultivated and kept up, will be guidance and strength.
`Behold the bondmaid of the Lord.' The labor of bearing a child is but the beginning of that labor of love to which God has appointed and set apart the mother. The whole work of rearing and guarding and training the child is now to follow. The spirit of thanksgiving is the best preparation for the altar of consecration. If the mother is indeed to receive grace for the right and successful fulfilment of this new charge, it will need on her part a very distinct consciousness and confession of unfitness, a very definite giving up of herself to be henceforth the Lord's willing, loving slave for this holy work. As she looks at how much there may be that has to be parted with and put away, how much that she will have to struggle against and overcome, to be the holy mother of a holy child, entirely consecrated to God, the thought may conic up that the sacrifice and the strain will be too great, that it is impossible to live so strictly, so entirely and peculiarly given up to God's service. We fear to be too different from others; God could bless us and our children even though we are not so very holy. Oh, that a mother, if such thoughts come up, would just pause and think of what God has done! There is the new life given to herself, and the life of her precious little one, there is the love and mercy of God, and all the promise of more love and mercy to be poured out -- has the thanksgiving been so unreal, has the joy been so selfish and earthly, that there can be any hesitation as to whom these lives shall belong to? God forbid! if the thanksgiving has been true, it cannot but lead the mother to say that utterly and entirely she will live for God, that she may have grace to train a child who, too, shall utterly and entirely be the Lord's. `The joy of the Lord is your strength;' a mother's joy is the power for a mother's work; the spirit of thanksgiving leads to the altar of consecration where mother and child are laid as living sacrifices to be the Lord's alone.
`Be it unto me according to Thy word:' this word of faith and trust, looking to God to do all that He has promised, gets new meaning after the experience of the first part of its fulfilment. In all the work that waits the mother in the future, the goodness just experienced teaches her to trust. Let her but yield herself heartily, not to her work, but to her God for His work; she may depend upon it that His teaching and His help and His strength are realities. Let her in the joyful spirit of praise take His word, and, as she studies what it says of a mother on earth, note what it says of the Father in heaven and the abounding grace He has undertaken to supply, and her faith will grow strong that her vow of surrender has been accepted, that its fulfilment is possible and certain, and that the joy of a child born into the world is but the beginning of a joy that shall know no ending. Let thanksgiving lift the heart to God in praise; there faith becomes easy. Let faith lift the heart to God too; there thanksgiving becomes natural, and the life of mother and child may become one unceasing song of faith and love, of surrender and obedience, of thanksgiving and praise.
Blessed be the Lord! for He has showed me His marvelous kindness! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits! What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?
O my Father! in this the time of her weakness and gladness of heart, Your handmaid draws near to praise Your mercy and Your love. Here am I and this precious child You have given me, the witnesses of Your power and Your goodness; may our lives, all our days devoted to You, be the sacrifice of thanksgiving we bring You.
Oh, hear the prayer of Your handmaid, and let my life, now received anew as from Your hand, indeed become wholly new. In daily relation with my Father, in close following and fellowship with my Lord Jesus, in a very tender yielding to the leading and sanctifying of the Holy Spirit, I desire henceforth to live only and wholly as Your handmaid.
And with myself, Lord, I offer You my precious child. Let the grace I have implored of You fit me from its very birth to hold it as Your property, a sacred trust from You to nurse and train as Yours. It comes from You, O my God, a gift to me; accept it from me again, a living gift to You. Come to Your handmaid, I pray You, in this her time of weakness and thanksgiving: let in this time of holy quiet Your presence overshadow me, and give me the assurance that my prayer is heard; that You have accepted her and her little one to keep as Your own forevermore. Amen.
THIRTY-SIXTH DAY -- Jesus the Children's Surety
`And they brought Him to Jerusalem, to present Him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord, and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord.' Luke 2: 22-24.
According to the law of God in Israel, a child was circumcised when eight days old; this was done in its home. On the fortieth day the mother was to appear in the temple to bring the sacrifice of her purification, and to present her child to the Lord. If the child was a firstborn, then its presentation had special reference to the firstborn belonging to the Lord, and it had to be redeemed. The Child Jesus had thus also to be presented to the Lord, as being made under the law, and made like unto His brethren in all things. Made like in all things, not only that He might have experience of everything we pass through, but that we might know that every state and condition has been sanctified by His Holy Presence and merit, and that He now, by giving us the spirit which was in Him when passing through them, might impart to us the blessing and the sanctifying grace that flow from fellowship with Him. This truth has thoughts of wonderful joy and comfort for parents as they bring their little ones to God's home, to present them before the Lord in baptism.
Let us study this presentation of the holy Child Jesus. There He is, presented to His Father in heaven by His earthly parents; a helpless infant, but yet a pleasing sacrifice, a sweet smelling savor. There, too, He comes as the first-born among many brethren, the Forerunner, through whom our little ones too can be acceptable to the Holy One. For now, when we bring our child to present him to the Lord, He looks down from heaven on the offering, and gives, in answer to the parent's faith, to our child the spirit of His holy childhood. He was indeed made like us, that we might become like Him; He was made like unto our children, that they might be made like Him. He was not only Mary's firstborn, but the Father's first-born among many brethren. Where the first-fruits are holy the whole family is holy. The presentation of the Child Jesus to the Father gives us a right to present ours, and makes them acceptable too. Blessed thought! to place my child beside the holy Child, and in faith to claim that in Him my child is holy and accepted too. In Israel the presentation of the child was accompanied with a sacrifice to cleanse away the defilement of sin cleaving, at every birth, to both mother and child. This we need too. And what a mercy that the mother now can look to the blessed Jesus, the great sin-offering and atonement (Lev. 7: 6), for her cleansing from all sin, so that she may be accepted and fitted for being a true mother to this God-devoted child! And what mercy that the children, too, share in the efficacy of that great sacrifice ere they know it! that from their birth they now are holy to the Lord, and may receive that Holy Spirit which is the lawful inheritance of the seed of God's believing people. We present our little one to the Lord, with Jesus as the great sin-offering making us acceptable and clean, and holy to the Lord.
The object of this presentation in the temple of the children was very specially to acknowledge God's claim upon them, and to devote them to Him as His property. With what gladness and confidence parents do this when first they have seen Jesus presented in the temple. Or what does this mean? Has the Eternal God indeed not spared His only-begotten Son, but given Him up for us and our children? Has He in very deed given His Son, the Lord of glory, to be our and our children's possession, to enter into all their feebleness and misery, to be like them subjected to a birth needing purification and presentation with sacrifice, and to a death like ours under the curse, and shall we now withhold our children from Him? Or shall we not most gladly present them before Him to be only and wholly His, devoted to His service and glory? Shall we not place our little one beside this holy Child, and on His merits, and say, Father! through Thy holy Child Jesus, with Him, in Him, like Him, I present my child to You, to be the Lord's only and forever?
Be assured that in such a presenting of your child, after the example, in the power and spirit of God's Child, there is a rich and sure blessing. Presented to God in Jesus, accepted in Jesus, it may now grow up with and like Jesus. Let your faith lay hold of the holy child-life of Jesus as belonging to your child, as communicable by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let your faith maintain and renew daily the solemn act in which you as parent appeared before the Lord to present your child to Him, ere you took it back to your home to rear and train. Let your faith rejoice in that definite Divine transaction in which, when you presented your child in the name of Jesus, it was accepted of the Father as His own. What we present to God, `according to that which is said in the law of the Lord,' that, in accordance with His word, God takes. And what He takes He keeps. And our faith has only ever to look to God's taking and keeping, to have the joyful assurance that the matter is finally settled between God and us. Let this faith make you strong to train the child for God, in a strength and grace which He will give, to secure His property for Himself. Let this faith speak to your child, as he can receive it, of his having been presented with Jesus, like Jesus, in Jesus, to the Father, and of his fellowship in the life and spirit of Him who became the children's Surety. Let the holy childhood of Jesus overshadow and sanctify the childhood of your little one. Let your children grow up in the friendship and the footsteps of the holy Child. Live in everything as those who are going to train children who are to be like Jesus. If the thought appear too high, let it but constrain you to ask the Father whether He does indeed desire your child to be wholly like His, and whether He does expect of you to train it to be so. The answer will not be withheld, and the presentation of Jesus in the temple will become to you a pledge of the grace that enables you to see how Jesus is in everything the promise of what your child can be, and to train him accordingly.
We all know how, in the economy of grace and in the work of salvation for man, there are always two powers in action, the Divine and the human. To the former corresponds faith, that ever looks to God's promise and power; to the latter works, without which faith cannot be perfected, and which obey and fulfil the will of God. In our study of the teachings of God's Word on the parent's calling, we have ever found how these two aspects of truth are presented by turns, and how, while at one moment everything appears to depend upon a parent's faith in what God does, very soon after a parent's character and conduct appear to decide all. The two are inseparably interwoven: the more intently we pursue the one line of thought, the clearer will the other become. And we shall see that the deeper our insight into the indispensable necessity of either, the greater will be our felt need of the other as its complement.
We have here again been meditating on the spiritual side, and apparently speaking less of the practical training of daily life. Let all parents be assured that there is nothing more intensely practical than an act of real faith. If our presenting a child to the Lord be the deed of an intelligent, childlike, heartfelt faith, it will have its mighty influence on our daily treatment of the child. If it be renewed from day to day, it will have its effect on our whole relation to the little one growing up under our care. As we think of it as God's devoted and accepted property, as we regard ourselves as trustees to whom it has been committed for keeping and training, as we realize how God never would expect of our feebleness to take charge aright of an immortal spirit without providing the grace to do it well, and give ourselves with the child to a life of consecration and holiness, our faith will be the vital principle ruling all our conduct.
THIRTY-SEVENTH DAY -- The Baptism with Water and the Spirit
`John answered, saying, I indeed baptize you with water; but there cometh He who is mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' Luke 3: 16.
Man has a twofold nature: there is the external and visible; there is the internal, unseen, spiritual. Sin brought both equally under the power of the curse. In redemption both are to be made partakers of the glorious liberty of the children of God: `we wait for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body;' the whole man, body and spirit, is to be saved. All God's dealings with us have respect to both sides of our nature; through the external He seeks to reach the inner man; the inner again is renewed that thence the blessing may stream out and take possession of the outer man.
It is on this ground that we have the twofold baptism of which our text speaks: the baptism with water, and the baptism with the Holy Spirit. The Baptist teaches us the relation existing between the two; the insufficiency of the baptism with water in itself, and its high value as the pledge and the preparation of what was to come. In his words, ministers and parents, through whom together the little ones receive their baptism of water, find the clearest light on their duty towards the baptized child, and on the spirit in which they themselves, and afterwards the child under their guidance, are to regard its baptism.
And first we note the faith which the baptism with water warrants and demands as a sign and seal of the baptism of the Spirit. It is a sign in which God sets forth the working of regeneration, the cleansing of our nature by the renewal of the Holy Spirit. It is also a seal, an assurance that, where God has given the water, He most certainly gives the Spirit too, to the faith that claims and takes it. When John had come, the coming of Christ was certain too; when John had baptized with water, the baptism with the Spirit was certain too. God gave the one to awaken faith and expectation for the other. So intimate is the connection, that our Savior did not hesitate to speak of being 'born of water and the Spirit;' thus closely does He join and make them one. God would teach us that what He has meant to be one, and made one in promise, our faith can make one in reality. As in the whole economy of grace the connecting link between God's promise and His fulfilment is our faith, so here too. The promise of God is no empty word, though our unbelief may make it of none effect. In His purpose the water and the Spirit are inseparably united: `what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder;' let not a parent's unbelief rest content with the water without the Spirit. Claim and accept with the most assured confidence the baptism of the Spirit for your child; and in faith praise for it as the divinely secured heritage of your little one.
Let us now observe the work to which the baptism with water calls and pledges us. The whole history of John teaches us that the Spirit could not be received until the way had been prepared for Him. The Baptist knows how little his labors avail until the baptism of the Spirit is given. And yet he labors. He does the double work of preaching repentance of sin and faith in the Lamb of God. A most blessed lesson for the Christian parent. In some children the workings of the Spirit are given from the very birth. In others they become manifest at very different stages of later growth. But in all, the manifestation of the Spirit needs a parent's education in the lines of John's preaching. The child needs to be taught what sin is and what repentance is, what the giving up of everything that is not according to the will of God. And it needs to be pointed to Jesus, the Lamb of God, through faith in whom the full influx of the Spirit is to come. So that, just as in the parent there is to be the harmony of faith and work, so the child no less from its earliest youth has to be trained for a God who asks to be trusted and obeyed. It is by the obedience of faith that parent and child are prepared for the fulfilment of the promise.
Learn one more lesson from John. The secret of the wondrous union between faith and work in him you will find in his deep humility. His preaching had been with mighty power. A great revival of religion was taking place; all men were flocking to him; no prophet in Israel had ever preached as he had done. And yet he says, `The latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose.' It is ever thus. The more the soul has received of the vision and the fellowship and the power of the Holy One, the deeper the sense of its utter nothingness and absolute dependence. But then, also, the deeper its confidence in the truth and power of Him whom it has seen, and the greater its courage for His work, because it knows whence its help most surely comes. The thought might rise, or we might even hear others say it, that the assured confidence of the Spirit's being given to our children may lead to pride, or may slacken exertion in their behalf. He that understands what faith is knows the answer. True faith and deep humility are inseparable, because faith is the becoming nothing to let God be all. And so true faith and faithful labor are no less inseparable, because faith yields itself to God to use and to work through us. Let it be with the parent as with John; there is nothing that makes us so strong to honor God as when we are bound by the threefold cord of strong faith, earnest effort, and deep humility.
Christian parent! have you accepted the promise of the Spirit with the water? Oh, hold that promise fast in a living faith. Praise God unceasingly for His gift to your child, even when you do not yet see its fulfilment. In your daily home-life, let everything be subordinated to the high destiny for which thy God has entrusted a child to you: he is to be a vessel filled with His Spirit. Labor earnestly and hopefully with this blessed prospect in view. As often as these labors teach you your impotence or your unfaithfulness, look to Him whose servant you are, and who has made you the messenger of the Spirit. He will fit you for the work He has given you to do. Jesus has said, `He that believeth in me, rivers of living water shall flow out of his belly.' Believe in Jesus! try again, and once again, and ever more again the unexhausted fulness of that word; live your life by the faith of the Son of God. Through you the Spirit will flow out to your child. And each baptism you witness will be the glad reminder of the riches of the inheritance of your child too.
And, you ministers of Christ, if any such read these lines -- to whom is committed the ministration of this holy baptism, seek, oh, seek, like John, with every baptism to testify that He who has sent you to baptize with water has said to you that there is One coming after you to baptize with the Holy Spirit! Let us pray God to make all His servants indeed ministers of the Spirit, that they may have grace in all their ministrations to speak and act as men who have realized that the Spirit has been given to follow and to seal the message and the work of faith. And especially that they may have grace to lead and train both parents and children into the apprehension of that presence of the Holy Spirit in their home-life, through which the family can again take its place as God's first and choicest ordinance for the maintenance and the extension of the kingdom of heaven. It is as ministers and parents, as the whole Church, awakes to this truth, that the baptism of little children will no longer be, what it has too often been, a religious form, or a promise that is never fulfilled; but a sacrament, mighty and efficacious, of the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church and in the home.
Gracious God! I thank You for the holy ordinance of baptism, with its Divine assurance of the baptism of the Spirit. And I thank You that as our little ones are with us children of the covenant and its spiritual promises, they also share in the seal of the covenant. And I thank You that their baptism is the token of their being holy to the Lord, and the heirs of the promise of the Spirit. Lord God! teach me, teach all believing parents, teach Your Church, to believe that, wherever in Your name the baptism of water is received, You wait to fulfil Your engagement to give the baptism of the Spirit too. In the great gift of Your Son, You have given us Him who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
Blessed Lord Jesus! I come to You with my children. I bring them to You. I claim for them the baptism of the Spirit. In faith I accept of it. In that faith I would train them to believe in You, that they may by faith in You come into the personal possession of what I have received for them. Yea, ere they can yet believe, I offer myself, that through me and the influence of my life Your blessed Spirit may rest upon them.
Blessed Savior! give me grace in this faith to train them wisely, and according to Your will, preparing in them the way of the Lord. Amid the consciousness of unworthiness and impotence, may this be my one hope and aim, that my children may daily live under the rule of Your Holy Spirit. Amen.