Scriptures is written for our learning, comfort, and admonition. It has pleased the Holy Spirit to record certain events in the lives of Christ's disciples with this end in view. In the Gospel of John, Philip is mentioned four times.

The first time (John i:43), we see him under the drawings of the Father to the Son. The good Shepherd was seeking the sheep, and we read, "Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip." Is not that true of each one of us ? Can we not say,

"Found by Thee before I sought,
Unto Thee in mercy brought?"

Philip, overflowing with joy, tells the story to Nathanael:"We have found Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth," and invites him to "come and see."

The earnest longings of his heart, the deep need of his conscience, is fully, perfectly met, not only in the Messiah, but in the Lamb of God, the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father. He thus learned that there was One who could fully meet all his spiritual needs.

Is not this the way the Father begins with all of us ? Does He not delight to teach us that all our deep need as poor, guilty, unsatisfied sinners can be perfectly met in Jesus, the Son of His love ? This is the first lesson we all have to learn. We must know the value of His work as God's Lamb to meet all our needs before we shall be free in spirit to respond to His "Follow Me."

When God first preached the gospel to Abraham, He not only said, "I will bless thee," but, "I will make thee a blessing." If we have not learned that there is such fulness, such satisfaction, in Christ that we are free to copy Philip in his desires for others to share the blessedness of knowing the One he had found, it is quite clear that we have not learned Philip's first lesson.

What is the remedy? John 7:37:"Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow " -not a river, but-"rivers of living water." If we are not the distributors of living water to the dry and thirsty soil of the human heart, whether in saint or sinner, we need to sit down at the Master's feet and learn like Philip how He can refresh and fill until we overflow to others.

We next find Philip mentioned in John 6. Here he is learning a wilderness lesson.

When we have discovered the fulness that is in Christ for us in our first acquaintance with Him, and learn that our Egyptian chains are snapped forever, our next lesson is to apprehend that the One who has met our case in His death has charged Himself with our safe-conduct through this wilderness world. We have to learn, like Philip, that He cares for our temporal and our spiritual needs.

The 6th of John shows us the disciples in a difficulty. There is nothing to eat, and no visible way of meeting the dearth. The Lord addresses Philip, and asks him how he is going to meet the difficulty. Philip and Andrew answer, and they both leave the Lord out of their reckonings. The one looks at the extent of the difficulty; the other, at the smallness of the resources to meet it. How like ourselves when we are confronted with a need! But how comforting for us to know that if the wilderness is to "prove" us and lay our hearts bare, it also lays the heart and resources of the Lord bare; for we read, "He Himself knew what He would do." (That means, before He allows the test to come, He knows the way of deliverance.) Would that we were all as wise as a dear old saint who told a friend that she "never knew a difficulty yet but there was a way out at the top!" Philip discovered this when he heard Jesus say, "Make the men sit down;" and the "much grass" may remind us that it is in green pastures and beside still waters He delights to feed His sheep, and make their "way of escape" from the sorrows of the way.

He then shows them He not only delights to meet their temporal needs, but that He is the true bread from heaven-the One whom the Father gave-the bread of God, the One upon whom we feed for life- the bread of life; and, feeding upon Him, we are privileged to enjoy present communion and satisfaction of heart.

In chapter 12 we are again introduced to Philip. It is very delightful to find him addressed by a company of seeking Greeks who desired to " see Jesus." It shows he had retained his interest in the welfare of souls, and how much he valued fellowship in these things, as he communicated to Andrew their desire to see Jesus. Together they go to tell the Lord, and we can well imagine their surprise at the new lesson He was about to teach them.

Nowhere, and at no time in the earthly sojourn of the Lord, had things appeared outwardly so bright or ready for His kingdom glories and dignities to be displayed. His pathway was strewn with branches of palm-trees, hosannas rent the air, as, fulfilling the prediction of the prophet, "Behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass's colt," he rode into Jerusalem. "The world has gone after Him," said the Pharisees; and now the Gentiles seek Him, thus making the bright picture of welcome complete.

There was, however, a secret in the Lord's mind to which they were strangers, and so He turns aside from the bright foreground of the kingdom to the dark background of the cross and the grave, and we can well imagine the astonishment of Philip, with his Jewish hopes aflame, as he heard of "a corn of wheat" that must fall into the ground and die, or else "abide alone." We know what the Lord meant, but to Philip it was a new unfolding of the divine purpose. How it lets us into the deep affection of the Lord's heart as in these words He tells us that His purpose is not to take His glories alone; He will have His royal bride with Him; the joint heirs shall share the inheritance with the true heir; His heart must be satisfied as well as His glory displayed. How this lets us into the precious secret that in the days of the kingdom, in that age to come when all things shall be gathered together in Christ, both which are in heaven and in earth, we have obtained an inheritance ! We, loved of the Father as children, loved of the Bridegroom as the Bride, shall be displayed in glory as the fruit of that corn of wheat which fell into the ground and died.

Again, in John 14, the Master and disciple are seen together for the last time. As we ponder the interview, we are struck with the patient grace of the Teacher with His scholar. How graciously and touchingly the Lord answers Philip's request to have the Father shown to him! "Have I been so long
time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip ?" During those weeks, months and years of discipleship the blessed Son of the Father had been making the Father known. Every word that He spoke, every deed, every miracle, every act of His life, was the living, present expression of the Father. The one that had seen Him had seen the Father. What a comfort to other slow learners that, instead of upbraiding, the Lord goes over the lesson again, telling how the Father was in Him, and the Father who dwelt in Him uttered the words and did the works; and then adds a further word of comfort, assuring His disciples that those very works, and greater ones still, they should do. Not only so, but all the resources of the Father were his; so he had only to ask whatever would glorify the Father and the Son, and it should be done. He is also assured that in the day which was to dawn, after Christ had risen, he should know that he was in the Son in all His nearness to the Father, and the Father's love should rest upon him if he kept the pathway of obedience.

We may well ask ourselves, Have we learned Christ in these ways ? Have we found in Him the balm for a wounded conscience, the secret of a satisfied heart; and also discovered that He is the all-sufficient resource to meet our every need, and that in the glorious days of displayed power in the world to come we shall be nearest to His heart as well as occupants of His throne ? If so, surely we may set ourselves to the blessed task of taking in day by day more of the precious unfoldings of the Father, so that He may not say to us, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me ? " H. N.