PRECIOUS LESSONS FOR ALL.
IN Mark 16:2-7 we read the following:
"They come to the tomb when the sun was risen. And they were saying among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the tomb? and looking up, they see that the stone is rolled back; for it was exceeding great. And entering into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, arrayed in a white robe; and they were amazed. And he saith unto them, Be not amazed; ye seek Jesus, the Nazarene, which hath been crucified; He is risen; He is not here; behold, the place where they laid Him! . . . He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him." R.V. Here are precious lessons for the church of Christ in all ages, lessons both negative and positive. Let us study them for a little while. 1. We are prone to look for our Lord where we seemingly last left Him. The women came to the tomb where Christ had been laid, as they supposed, for His long sleep. In that death which will ultimately destroy the work of Satan and Satan himself, the sorrow-blind, disappointed disciples saw only defeat, defeat so intertwined with their own lives and His whom they loved that their disappointment could not break their sympathy even in the seemingly hopeless death. They sought Jesus as the Dead One, not as the Living; and yet they still sought Him; and this was pleasing to God. Even so we, in our half-blind, half-selfish following of our Lord, have met disappointment, and its gloom has buried our hopes and hid Him from our sight. After the night of wretched sorrows and despairing doubts we sometimes seek Him again, but how often in the cold tomb of our yesterday's experience! That took from us blessings in which our life was bound up, and we seek Him in the grave of our hopes, not knowing, what is gloriously true, that He has just on before blessings surpassing all that we knew. Jesus is not in the grave of buried hopes or disappointed ambitions. 2. The Lord of righteousness and life had been walled in the sepulcher by the great stone made fast by the greatest of human powers. It could not hold Him there. "It was not possible that He should be holden of" death. Acts 2:24. In absolute righteousness is absolute power, and Christ, the Head, had now His right to everlasting sovereignty; He only waits now for the body to win. But the disciples did not know this. "Who shall roll us away the stone?" is their question. So we ask. In the work of God there are seemingly insurmountable difficulties. We see Red Seas before us, mountains on either hand, enemies in our rear; or the cause seems hindered by barriers insurmountable, obstacles immovable. We forget that in God's work is God, who "doeth according to His will, . . . and none can stay His hand." If Christ says, "Wait and see the salvation of God," there wait. God waits not for want of power, but in plenitude of mercy. Does He say, "Go forward," then go, and the sea will be a dry-walled path to you. The stone will be rolled away. 3. The angel was in the tomb of Christ only to tell the disciples, the true seekers, that Jesus was not there; He was risen. "Look where He lay, but linger not. The tomb is empty. Nevermore will its rock-hewn walls inclose the Anointed of God." And yet how many thousands are still seeking Christ in the tomb! All the lives lost in the Crusades were based upon this baseless hope. What matters whether Papist or Orthodox or Moslem or Pagan possess the empty tomb? Christ is not there. And yet again, we who see all this folly and boast of better things, repeat the same in principle. Here is some method of work that some uninstructed yet consecrated soul used in the work of God. He was successful in his work, not because of the method, but in spite of it. God blessed the man, because the man yielded himself to become a living temple, a growing, fruit-bearing tree for His glory. But we go back to the old case, the dead, dry method of that man's work, hoping to find Christ there. He is not there; He has passed on with the living worker. Or we look back to certain experiences in our own lives, where God greatly blessed us; we note the surroundings of that time; we picture again the human helps; we think of the work which we did; and we endeavor to repeat it all, but find disappointment. We are seeking Jesus in the empty tomb. Happy for us if we can hear the voice of His messenger: "He is not here; He is risen." 4. "He goeth before you." Satan supposed that the bands of death had forever bound those hands which had ministered blessings unnumbered to others; that the sweet eyes out of which all Heaven looked to the poor, weak, disconsolate, longing soul, were closed forever; that the ears that ever listened to human need and heart-hungry cries would never hear more; that the pure lips and sanctified tongue would nevermore speak words of life and healing and power to the dying; that the great heart that had forever hated all wrong and throbbed in sympathy with all the wronged ones, was forever stilled. Satan still believed the lie. But righteousness is life. Christ was declared by His resurrection to be the Son of God in truth and righteousness. And "He goeth before." He is the living, working One. "I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore; . . . and have the keys of hell and of death." "He goeth before" His sheep, and leadeth them out to the green pastures and the waters of rest. He goeth before His soldiers in the battles of life, in order that every victory may be won. "He goeth before" the weary, stumbling ones, to remove from the path every needless stumbling-block, to press down with His own feet the cruel thorns. We may see His blood-marked footprints all the way. "He goeth before" His workers in their own little narrow valleys, spanned by their own selfishly-narrowed vision, on and on through Samaria, out into Galilee of the Gentiles, even to earth's remotest bounds. Among the poor and needy; among the sick and suffering; among sin's lowest outcasts and the rejected even of earth; among the black men and brown men; among the yellow men and red men—everywhere, where human need demands divine aid, "there shall ye see Him," and there He welcomes all who long to be with Him. Are not these precious lessons?