(Read 1 Kings 20 :22-28 ; and 22 :1-3.)

I think I shall not be misunderstood when I say that our lives as Christians are made up very largely of hills, and plains, and valleys. I am not referring to the tips and downs of experience which some Christians have-sometimes full of doubts and misgivings, and at other times on the mountain-top singing for joy. I refer to the hills and valleys that all of us have in our lives. There are times when we are indeed on the hill-tops. It may be when we are in a meeting like this, and God makes the power of His word felt in our souls. It may be when we are kneeling alone in our homes, and a floodtide of heavenly sweetness comes rolling into our rejoicing hearts. God knows how 😮 give us wonderful seasons on the hill-tops of blessing and privilege. Then there are valleys, which we all have-valleys of trouble and trial of one sort or another. How many a Christian family just now is passing through the valley of bereavement! There are other valleys-valleys of poverty, ill-health, care and distress. Then, besides the hill-tops full of sunshine, and song, and joy, and besides the valleys with which we are acquainted, there are plains, the ordinary levels of every-day life.

To illustrate what I mean, I call your attention to what we have in these verses. The people of God had gained a notable victory against the Syrians. The Syrians had to admit defeat, but they sought for some plausible reason to let themselves down gently-some apology for their defeat. They soon found what seemed to them a very good reason. "Oh," they said, "Jehovah, the God of the Israelites is evidently a deity of the hills; but, depend upon it, He is not a God of the valleys. Let us catch them next time on the level, in one of the valleys, and we will come off victors in that conflict." So they came on, to choose the battleground, one which they thought would be favorable to their arms. They did not, as they thought, have to meet " the God of the Hebrews" this time, but GOD. He would care for His own glory; so He sent His servant with the message, "Because the Syrians have said that Israel's God is a god of the hills, and not a god of the valleys, I will deliver this great multitude into your hand;" and God proved Himself to be God of the plains and valleys as surely as He was God of the hills.

Now I want to apply this in a practical way. We may all have proved in our experience that God is a God of the hills. It may be that we all know what it is to be in God's presence – not only speak to Him, but have Him speak to us. On the hill-tops of communion and praise and blessing we have proved that God is our God indeed; but when we come down from the hill-top to the plain, when from the Lord's day, with its precious privileges, we come down to the humdrum and monotonous level of business-life on Monday, what about God then ? Is He left behind as though He were a God of the hills only, a God for Sunday to us ? Or is He a God of the rest of the week ?

I have met Christian people who have an idea that God is a God of meetings, and Sundays, and Christian companionship, but not of the office and the shop, and of practical life. People have gone so far as to say that the Christian life is made up of watertight compartments. Christianity, they say, is Christianity, and business is business-meaning that you must not bring your Christianity into your business. Is it not the old Syrian thought in modern phraseology, that God is a God of the hills, and not a God of the valleys ? Because such a thought is given place in our minds, even though by God's grace some victory has been won on the hill-top, they go down before the enemy when he assails them in the plain of every-day life.
What I mean in plain language is this. It is our holy and inestimable privilege, as well as our duty, o bring God into our business life, and do our ;very-day work, not only in the fear of God, but minting upon God for help and blessing.

Some of my hearers are young, and have not had much experience, but those whose hairs have grown grey in life can tell us many instances of how God was, in times of difficulty or of emergency, wonderfully cleared up the way. I will give an example. In his early days Mr. Charles Stanley was a commercial traveler for goods required by the cutlery trade in Sheffield. He had made the mistake of laying in a rather large stock of a certain kind of emery not used in the Sheffield trade. It was a serious loss to him, this dead stock, with no purchaser. Now Mr. Stanley was not only in the habit of asking God's guidance in connection with his preaching, but also in his business. His prayer was:" My God, help me to find a purchaser for this emery powder." Do you ask, "Are we entitled to go to God about such things? " Yes; I believe it honors and pleases God when we seek His guidance even about such things. As Mr. Stanley was going down the street he seemed impelled to cross over and call at a certain office. He was rather surprised when he got there to see that it was a leather merchant's office. Still, he went in and presented his business card. He said he had a certain quantity of black emery powder, and asked if they wanted anything in that line.

The gentleman in the office looked at him and said, " Has anybody been telling you about our correspondence of this morning ? We had a letter from an Australian client enquiring for several barrels of black emery powder; we have been sending all round, and could not get any. How much have you got?" "I have so many barrels," said Mr. Stanley.

I need not go further with the story. Here was the customer found, and for the exact quantity which the Christian merchant had on his hands. You may think it strange to be guided like that, but God is God of the valleys as well as of the hills.

Now turn to what we have in the 22nd chapter. Here is the king of Israel, and it comes to his mind that Ramoth, part of the inheritance of Israel, was in the hands of the Syrians. It was numbered among the cities given by God to His people, and was conquered by them under the leadership of Moses. " Know ye not that Ramoth in Gilead is ours ? " he says. Why are we so apathetic ? Why do we not go and take it ?

It is interesting to know that Ramoth means "heights." I take it to be a little illustration of certain heights-heights of blessing, heights of privilege, which are indeed ours by God's gift- ours as a result of the victory gained by our Lord upon the cross-ours in title; but as the king of Israel said, "Why are we still and do not take them ? " It is one thing to have a thing in title, and it is another to appropriate it.

Now this is what I mean by having a thing in title, yet not appropriating it as our own. The children of Israel were told that the title to all the land was theirs-practically theirs only so far as they set the sole of their foot upon it.

I trust none of you dear young Christian men entertain the idea that you have reached the end of all that is embodied in Christianity, as if there were nothing more for you to lay hold of. In olden days, when the Phoenicians sent their ships to the western extremity of the Mediterranean, they came up to the great "Pillars of Hercules," as they were called-Gibraltar on the European side and a spur of the Atlas mountains on the African side. It was thought that there was nothing beyond. That was the ' 'Land's End" to them. They thought they had reached the very edge of the habitable world. So the early Spaniards, the descendants of these mariners, engraved upon their coins and coats of arms the Latin words, Ne plus ultra, which mean, " Nothing beyond." Centuries after, the famous Genoese navigator, Christopher Columbus, boldly sailed the broad Atlantic, and came back reporting that a vast continent lay far beyond the line where the sky met the ocean. The Spaniards saw that the motto on their coins and coat of arms was no longer true; they struck out the negative word, and to-day they have only the Plus ultra-"more beyond."

I wonder if you have taken that as your watchword, dear fellow – Christian-"more beyond." There is more to follow. No matter how much you have put your foot upon, "there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed" (Josh. 13:i). You have full, divine title to all that God has bestowed on His people, but there is territory that you have not yet entered upon, so far as the enjoyment of it is concerned. May God awaken in each heart a keener spiritual desire to reach forth to what lies ahead.

There are indeed certain things which are not for us to appropriate. There are crown jewels in the Tower and valuable gems that belong to the British crown which you can see but are not entitled to appropriate. Even so there are Jewish promises and blessings which are peculiarly theirs, and not ours. We must not, when we read about the wonderful things God is going to do for His ancient people Israel, cross out Israel and substitute the Church, and apply these promises to ourselves. No; Israel is Israel, and the Church is the Church. But, thank God, there are even greater things than what belong to Israel, which God has given as our blessed portion, and for us now to appropriate. There are blessings and privileges which are brought down very near us, and God has given us the Holy Spirit that these things may be made real to us and enjoy them. They are not to be pigeonholed in our minds, and then say, "Oh, yes, I know that is mine." That would be doing what the Red Indian chief did, who received from the Federal Government a certificate of pension for his services in the American Civil War. This Indian made a hole through this beautifully engraved treasury certificate, tied a string to it, and wore it round his neck as an ornament to the day of his death. Then it was found he had never drawn a dollar from it. Are any of you doing like that ? -content to have all the blessings promised in your Bible without the enjoyment of them as your present portion ?

I will give you an illustration of what I mean. Take the wonderful blessing of sons hip. " I know I am a child of God," you say, but do you day by day exercise the wonderful privilege of a child ?
Do you draw near to God in the consciousness of ;hat holy and blessed relationship ? Do you truly, consciously, address God as your Father, and count upon Him as One who is interested in your smallest concerns; who has counted the very hairs on your head; to whom nothing about us is too small to be of interest? I do not mean, is it part of your creed, but is that " Ramoth " of wonderful relationship practically yours ? Is the joy of it yours ?

And there are heights, too, of communion with God which are open to us. There are heights in connection with believing prayer-oh, the marvelous things that believing prayer can obtain! Then there is the wonderful"Ramoth" of service and testimony. Ah, are we content as it were to throw India-rubber balls against the rock, which leave no impression ? or, like the disciples, toil all night to catch nothing ? In connection with service and testimony there are " Ramoths " which are not inaccessible to us, but within the reach of any one who, in the energy of faith, will appropriate them. I trust I have said enough to lead some to desire greatly to go in and possess these things, that they may be yours for present enjoyment. How many just squat down as it were upon the coasts of Christianity; just upon its borders !Fellow-believer, we are no longer of the world ; we belong to Christ. There is the whole land of blessing before us. It is all ours. Let us not be content to live poverty-stricken while there is abounding wealth at hand if only there be true desire for it, and persevering faith and prayer to God to lay hold of it. May God help us to do so. H. P. Barker