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SIXTH SUNDAY

Morning

LOT'S CHOICE

Passage to be read: Gen. xiii. 1-18.

T is notable that when Abraham came up from Egypt he made straight for the place where he had built

an altar. He had been moving away from his Leader down in Egypt, but now he returned to God, who was his Home. But Abraham was a very rich man now, and Lot, his nephew, had shared in his prosperity, and here (for the first time, though not the last) wealth proved a source of trouble among relatives. Quarrels arose between their respective servants; there were clashings and bickerings, with perhaps the drawing of daggers, when the herds were driven to the wells at evening. And the Canaanites and Perizzites who dwelt around took no little pleasure in these herdsmen's quarrels, much as the world and its newspapers now are secretly delighted at any dissensions among God's professing people. Abraham saw that this could not go on. He was too wise and far too statesmanlike to tolerate it. He took Lot to a fair coign of vantage, showed him the country stretching away below them, and suggested in the interests of peace, that they should separate, each to his own domain. Then Lot, as all the children know, chose Sodom. He led away his flocks and herds to Sodom. And through all the ages that have come and gone since then, and amid the million choices they have seen, no choice is graven deeper on the memory than this so blind and tragic choice of Lot.

NOW first let us note how magnanimous true faith can

be. Abraham was the older of the two; he was the uncle, Lot was the nephew. It was for Abraham, as the older man, to take the first place in the choice of territory. No one could have said he dealt unfairly, had he selected first, and given Lot the residue. In the East, even more than in the West, all would at once have bowed to that decision. But with a magnanimity that is very captivating, Abraham humbled himself before his nephew, and left the decision of the whole matter with him. Do you see the source of that fine generosity? Can you trace to its roots that large and generous treatment? It sprang from a deep and living trust in God. Abraham had learned that God was his Provider, and his future was sure when all was left to Him. It is thus that faith in the presence and power of God makes a man incapable of petty dealing. He is always more eager to insist upon the promises, than to insist on the assertion of his rights. He can sing :

'Not mine-not mine the choice

In things or great or small;

Be Thou my Guide, my Guard, my Strength,
My Wisdom, and my All.'

NEXT mark how, sooner or later, the real man is dis

covered. We must not forget that Lot, no less than Abraham, had gone out, not knowing whither he went. He had fared forth valiantly with Abraham, as if he, too, had had a call from God. Perhaps Lot had been even more ardent than his uncle; he may have displayed more eager enthusiasm in the journey. Had you seen the two pilgrims, as they moved towards Canaan, you might have thought that the younger was Greatheart. But the hour came when the younger stood revealed. This choice declared the character of Lot. He proved unequal to the strain of this great moment, when

Abraham offered him the land he might select. Such moments come to every traveller. God's heavenward way is ordered and guided so. If we have only been fired by the heroism of others, and never heard for ourselves the call of God, the hour is sure to dawn when we shall fail. Nothing but faith (though it be as a grain of mustard-seed) will stand the strain and test of journeying years, and hold a man true to the noblest and the best, when lower things (which are sweet) are in his grasp.

AGAIN, observe how disastrous a choice may be when

God is not considered. Do my readers see what the mistake of Lot was? It was a mistake that is repeated every day. It was a choice that was made solely by the eye, without a thought of the interests of the soul. If life had been nothing but a matter of shepherding, the decision of Lot would have been fully justified. The valley of the lower Jordan was like Eden, and the pasturage was like the beauty-unsurpassed. But there is more in life than the outward and material; there are eternal interests, there is the soul and God; and all this was clean forgotten by Lot when his eye rested on the fair land of Sodom. There is not a hint that he asked God to direct him. There is not one sign that he ever thought of God. He was carried away by immediate advantages, spite of all that the companionship of Abraham had done for him-and he woke to discover, in the after days, that selfishness is a most tragical mistake. Do you think he ever would have chosen Sodom if he could have unrolled the curtain of tomorrow? Do you think he contemplated such marriages for his daughters, or the fiery destruction, or the pillar of salt? If only some angel had forewarned him of that, how he would have spurned the beauty of the plain! Learn then how foolish and fatal are all choices that take in nothing but the seen and temporal. It is always disastrous to ignore or neglect God.

LASTLY, note the supreme importance of a life's direction. Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom. There was no fault in the actual place of pitching; it was just like many another scene of bivouac; but it was toward Sodom-that was the evil of it-and the tragedy lay in the direction. Remember then that there may be things and places which are not actually evil in themselves, and yet they may be dark and ominous if they indicate the direction of a life. It is not my actual achievement which is of supreme importance; it is the direction which my life is taking. Daniel opened his windows towards Jerusalem; Lot pitched his tent towards Sodom. In which direction, think you, are you travelling? Towards what are you making day by day?

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SIXTH SUNDAY

Evening

THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS

Passages to be read: Matt. iii. 13-17; iv. 1-11.

HATEVER view we take of the temptation— whether it was an inward struggle or an actual scene the one thing to remember is its intense reality. Prayerfully and reverently we must strive to realise that the temptations of Jesus were unutterably severe. It is not difficult to realise Christ's brotherhood in suffering. It is very difficult to do so in temptation. And one great reason of that is, that in our temptations, we are so conscious of sinful impulses within. But when we remember that our temptations sometimes touch not what is worst, but what is noblest in us; when we think that without the sorest and fieriest trial, the thought of sinlessness has little meaning, then we dimly perceive

how intense temptation might be to a spotless and holy Saviour. There is nothing more heavenly than a mother's love, yet sometimes a mother is tempted most severely just because she loves her children so. If men were always tempted at their weakest, we could hardly understand a tempted Jesus. If our temptations only lit where we were worst, Christ (who had no worst) could not have been tempted. But when we see (and time and again we see it) that the sorest onset may be on the saintliest side, then we know that the temptations of Jesus may have been unutterably sore, since Jesus was unutterably good.

WITH such thoughts we may approach the scene; and if we would hope to understand it, we must remember the time of its occurrence. The place of its occurrence matters less, though to a heart filled with the loveliness of Galilee the grimness of the desert would be awful. But the time of the temptation matters much, for the Tempter is a master in his choice of hours. Jesus, then, had been baptized in Jordan. He had been endowed with gifts from heaven for His ministry. All He had dimly seen upon the hills of Nazareth now rose before Him as His mission to mankind. In such tumultuous hours men crave for solitude. In such an hour the Spirit drove Jesus to the desert. It was, then, on the threshold of His ministry, and facing His life-work with its infinite issues, that the Tempter came to Him. It is in the light of His service and His sacrifice that we shall reach the inward meaning of the scene. These are the dark hours through which Jesus passed, on the threshold of His glorious career.

THE first temptation seems a simple one. ‘If Thou

be the Son of God,' says the Tempter, 'command that these stones may be made bread.' Jesus had been fasting forty days; now He was in the dire pangs of

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