THE PATIENT, GENEROUS TEACHER.
WHAT a patient teacher is our God! How He bears with our sins and infirmities and idiosyncrasies of character! How pitiful He is in our stupidity! How generous He is, sometimes it seems almost to prodigality, in expenditures for our education! God's object lessons are stronger than any words. Take, for instance, the case of Abraham. God called him from Ur of the Chaldees to make him the father of a nation through whom could be revealed to the world the Gospel of Christ. He was called to leave country and kindred and father's house; yet he took with him to Haran his father Terah and his nephew Lot, men worldly in disposition, if not actually idolatrous. God waited in patience, and then, after the death of Abraham's father, He called him again to the land of Canaan. Abraham went forth in faith, but he still clung to Lot. The Lord tells him that his seed shall be numerous, and that all the earth shall be blessed in His seed. Abraham concludes that the promise must be fulfilled through his faithful servant Eleazar. The Lord corrects him in this, and tells him again that it is his own seed, his own flesh and blood, that must be his heir. But Abraham can not see how this could be. Sarah was barren, and some way must be devised by which Jehovah could fulfil His promise. And therefore Hagar, the Egyptian bondmaid, was taken to wife. What a costly thing it was! What years of trouble and bickering and jealousy and heartache that mistake cost Abraham and his family! But after a while the old patriarch learns the lesson, and believes God's promise. Separation from Lot takes place, his barren wife brings forth the child of promise, and the lesson of faith is once more rehearsed in the offering of the son, Abraham's only son, Isaac. Yet through it all how patient was the great Teacher! How all these lessons were repeated over and over again in the experience of Jacob. At what tuition of time and trouble before the hard-handed son of toil learned the lesson by the brook of Jabbok, and God named him Israel. Forty years Moses went to school in Egypt, and thought himself ready to deliver Israel; but God sees necessary to give His servant a forty years' post-graduate course in the wilderness. In that school Moses learns his own littleness and God's greatness, and the Master can use him. There must have been times during that forty years' sojourn in Midian, following the flock of Jethro, that Moses felt that it was all in vain, and that all of his early hopes of a free Israel, all the promises taught him by his mother, were fanciful dreams. But, when the lesson was learned, God showed him by the burning yet unconsumed bush that none of this experience was lost. Israel may have suffered in the furnace fires; they were only consuming the dross. The people were weary of slavery; Moses was where he could be used of God. Sometimes in these modern days we think ourselves sufficient for our work. We scheme and plan as did Abraham and Jacob to help God to carry out His promises; we metaphorically kill an Egyptian if necessary in order to bring liberation to our brethren; yet in all cases we are hindering instead of helping God's work. God suffers men to occupy positions of trust who are not fitted for the trust. They may think they are. They may boast of the great things they have done and are doing. And yet God's work may be suffering from their administration. But the Great Teacher wants to use them, and will use them if they will learn the lesson. His people may need the lesson that salvation comes not from man. And so years of waiting and suffering ensue, because men are slow to learn lessons. Self-sufficiency shuts out God. Planning, scheming, devising, shut out God. Looking to men shuts out God, and hides from us Christ Jesus our Lord. There are many parents who are using years of precious time, and paying out from $100 to $10,000 for the education of a son or a daughter. Some of these parents count the seemingly-unappreciated education very costly, as they think it is hardly worth the while. This conclusion may be true, yet it is not the less the duty of the parent to educate his child the best he can, and so fit that child to be a better burden-bearer, a more useful citizen. But how utterly insignificant is the price which mortals pay compared with what God is giving in the education of His children. He has told us frankly what He wishes us each to be, and what He would have us do. He presents before us great possibilities. He points to the great heights to be attained, the tremendous breadth of vision opened before us, the strength which He will give to enable us to win the goal, and be and do all that He asks. But O, how little we appreciate the advantages His love has placed within our reach! How we hide them from us with the ephemeral things of this life! How we slight our Teacher! What mighty lessons He is endeavoring to teach us! What elimination of evil traits He wishes us to learn! What mighty elements of strength He would develop and create within! To what heights of sublimity, of goodness and love would He lead us! What broad sweeps of heavenly vision would He open before our eyes! Let God teach; receive His instruction. Let Christ Jesus be our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption.