FEBRUARY The Fifth

_EVERYWHERE THE GATE OF HEAVEN_

"_Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not._"

--GENESIS xxviii. 10-22.

That is the first time for many a day that Jacob had named the name of G.o.d. In all the dark story of his wicked intrigue the name of G.o.d is never mentioned. Jacob wanted to forget G.o.d! G.o.d would be a disturbing presence!

But here he encounters Him in a dream, and in the most unlikely place.

"And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place!"

Jacob had yet to learn that there is everywhere "a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reaches to heaven." There was a ladder from the very tent in which he wore his deceptive skin. There was a ladder from the secret place where he and his mother wove their mischievous plot. There is no corner of earth which is cut away from the Divine vigilance. G.o.d gets at us everywhere.

But there is a merciful side to all this. If the ladder be everywhere, and G.o.d can get at us, then also everywhere we can get at G.o.d. There are "ascending angels" who will carry our confessions, our prayers, our sighs and mournings, to the very heart of the eternally gracious G.o.d.

FEBRUARY The Sixth

_THE HOME-BIRD_

PSALM xci. 1-12.

I read a sentence the other day in which a very powerful modern writer describes a certain woman as "having G.o.d on her visiting list." We may recoil from the phrase, but it very vitally describes a very awful commonplace. Countless thousands have G.o.d on their visiting lists. They pay Him courtesy-calls, and between the calls He is forgotten. Perhaps the call is paid once a week in the social function of worship. Perhaps it is paid more rarely, like calls between comparative strangers. How great the contrast between a caller and one who dwells in the secret place! It is the difference between a flirt and a "home-bird," between one who flits about on a score of fancies, and one who settles down in the solid satisfaction of a supreme affection.

"_Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty._" Such is the reward of the "home-bird," the settled friend of the Lord. The shadow of the Lord shall rest upon him continually. I sometimes read of our monarchs being "shadowed" by protective police. In an infinitely more real and intimate sense the soul that dwells in "the secret place" is shadowed by the sleepless grace and love of G.o.d.

FEBRUARY The Seventh

_LEAVING ITS MARK_

"_Fear not, thou worm Jacob, I will make thee a threshing instrument with teeth._"

--ISAIAH xli. 8-14.

Could any two things be in greater contrast than a worm and an instrument with teeth? The worm is delicate, bruised by a stone, crushed beneath a pa.s.sing wheel; an instrument with teeth can break and not be broken, it can grave its mark upon the rock. And the mighty G.o.d can convert the one into the other. He can take a man or a nation, who has all the impotence of the worm, and by the invigoration of His own Spirit He can endow them with strength by which they will leave a n.o.ble mark upon the history of their time.

And so the "worm" may take heart. The mighty G.o.d can make us stronger than our circ.u.mstances. We can bend them all to our good. In G.o.d's strength we can make them all pay tribute to our souls. We can even take hold of a black disappointment, break it open, and extract some jewel of grace. When G.o.d gives us wills like iron we can drive through difficulties as the iron share cuts through the toughest soil. "I will make thee," saith the Lord, "and shall He not do it?"

FEBRUARY The Eighth

_REVISITING OLD ALTARS_

"_I will make there an altar unto G.o.d, who answered me in the day of my distress._"

--GENESIS x.x.xv. 1-7.

It is a blessed thing to revisit our early altars. It is good to return to the haunts of early vision. Places and things have their sanctifying influences, and can recall us to lost experiences. I know a man to whom the scent of a white, wild rose is always a call to prayer. I know another to whom Grasmere is always the window of holy vision. Sometimes a particular pew in a particular church can throw the heavens open, and we see the Son of G.o.d. The old Sunday-school has sometimes taken an old man back to his childhood and back to his G.o.d. So I do not wonder that G.o.d led Jacob back to Bethel, and that in the old place of blessing he reconsecrated himself to the Lord.

It is a revelation of the loving-kindness of G.o.d that we have all these helps to the recovery of past experiences. Let us use them with reverence.

And in our early days let us make them. Let us build altars of communion which in later life we shall love to revisit. Let us make our early home "the house of G.o.d and the gate of heaven." Let us multiply deeds of service which will make countless places fragrant for all our after years.

FEBRUARY The Ninth

_THE ROCK AND THE BOWING WALL_

PSALM lxii.

Here are two symbols by which the psalmist describes the confidence of the righteous. "_He only is my rock._" Only yesterday I had the shelter of a great rock on a storm-swept mountain side. The wind tore along the heights, driving the rain like hail, but in the opening of the rock our shelter was complete.

And the second symbol is this: "_He is my high place._" The high place is the home of the chamois, out of reach of the arrow. "Flee as a bird to your mountain!" Get beyond the hunter's range! Our security is found in loftiness. It is our unutterable privilege to live in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Such is the confidence of the righteous.

In this psalm there is also another pair of symbols describing the futility of the wicked. The wicked is "_as a bowing wall._" The wall is out of perpendicular, out of conformity with the truth of the plumb-line, and it will a.s.suredly topple into ruin. So is it with the wicked: he is building awry, and he will fall into moral disaster. He is also "_as a tottering fence._" The wind and the rain dislodge the fence, it rots at its foundations, and one day it lies p.r.o.ne upon the ground.

FEBRUARY The Tenth

_REGISTERING A VERDICT_

"_The Lord our G.o.d will we serve, and His voice will we obey._"

--JOSHUA xxiv. 22-28.

Here was a definite decision. Our peril is that we spend our life in wavering and we never decide. We are like a jury which is always hearing evidence and never gives a verdict. We do much thinking, but we never make up our minds. We let our eyes wander over many things, but we make no choice. Life has no crisis, no culmination.

Now people who never decide spend their days in hoping to do so. But this kind of life becomes a vagrancy and not a n.o.ble and illumined crusade. We drift through our days, we do not steer, and we never arrive at any rich and stately haven.

It is therefore vitally wise to "make a vow unto the Lord." It is good to pull our loose thinkings together and to "gird up the loins of the mind."

Let a man, at some definite place, and at some definite moment, make the supreme choice of his life.