Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Home Ideals: 57. "Their Angels."

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Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Home Ideals: 57. "Their Angels."



TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Home Ideals (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 57. "Their Angels."

Other Subjects in this Topic:

"Their Angels."

The babe is very near to God, and God is very near to the babe, very much nearer in actual truth than any of us know or think. The link between the two is very close. God is in the babe peculiarly. Is it because the babe is so much not understood and not appreciated even where he is tenderly loved? It may be so. Is it because he needs special guarding as he comes into the moral atmosphere of this earth, and of some home where perhaps God hasn't his rightful place?

These may both be so. But it is very likely, too, that it is simply because God's Spirit enters every human being, and remains, blessing and guarding and guiding. As the years come, and the world atmosphere seeps in, God is less and less in evidence, more and more crowded out. He never leaves entirely until He is quite forced out. That is the very tail end of that man's career. Whenever His presence is recognised and gladly yielded to, there come the new sweet consciousness, and new life. But the thing to mark just now is the intimacy of God with the babe.

Just what did Jesus mean when He said, "Whoso shall receive one such little child in My name receiveth Me?" (Mat_18:5 <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Mt+18:5>.) Did He mean that kindness done to some child would be reckoned as done to Himself, and would be rewarded by Him? It may be so; quite likely. But more and more the words seem to mean simply this: that as the babe comes into the family, prayerfully planned for, eagerly longed for, and warmly welcomed, God comes in with him.

He that receiveth the babe into the home, as he was meant to be received, in His name whose life-giving touch is just fresh upon him, accepted as a sweet gift, and to be trained as a sacred life-trust, he will find that he has been receiving God Himself all anew into the home, too. God is in the babe.

And what did Jesus mean when, with that little child in His arms, or on His lap, He looked tenderly into the little pure face, and said, "In heaven their angels do always behold the face of my father?" (Mat_18:10 <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Mt+18:10>.) The angels are God's messengers. They stand in His presence. (Luk_1:19 <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Lk+1:19>; Rev_8:2 <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Rev+8:2>; Dan_7:10 <http://www.crossbooks.com/verse.asp?ref=Da+7:10>.) They are constantly passing from God's presence to earth to do His bidding, and constantly returning again to His presence. They never tire in their glad service of doing the Father's bidding in ministering to us men. This is their work.

This seems to be the only place where it is said that they see the Father's face. The phrase points to the intimacy between them and God. Jesus adds that peculiar reminder of the closeness of their touch with the Father in speaking of their relation to babes. What does He mean?

What can He mean but simply this: that an angel or a group of angels is appointed by the Father to the holy ministry of guarding each babe. And that these angels go up into the Father's very presence to tell of the babe, and receive fresh instructions and then hasten back with glad feet to continue their precious ministry. It means this with all the tenderness that such meaning can have: the babe is very much on God's heart; He is very dear to God.

"The baby has no skies

But mother's eyes;

Nor any God above,

But mother's love.

His angel sees the Father's face,

But he the mother's, full of grace;

And yet the heavenly kingdom is of such as this." (John B.) Tabb.)