An Address to Young Believers (Concluded from p. 464.)

Among the various hindrances mentioned in the New Testament are those of self-seeking, of disobedience, and of wavering.

"Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord."

But here, in Mark's Gospel, our Lord particularly stresses the importance of maintaining an attitude of forgiving love toward all our brethren, if we would pray in such a way that mountains shall be removed. He says:

"When you stand praying forgive, (or if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither shall your heavenly Father forgive you."

There are those, I know, who have stressed, and it seems to me, unduly, the difference between this command of the Lord and the words given by the Spirit to the Ephesians and Colossians. In Ephesians 4:32 we read:

"And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you."

And then in Colossians 3:12,13:

"Put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye."

It has been pointed out that in Mark the word is,

"Forgive that you may be forgiven." whereas, in the full blaze of the Christian dispensation the word is, "Forgive because you have been forgiven."

And yet I do not think the two lines of teaching are in any way opposed, the one to the other. The forgiveness of which our Lord was speaking to His disciples was not the forgiveness of a sinner, but the forgiveness of a failing saint, whereas the forgiveness spoken of by the Apostle Paul was that of the sinner. Addressing His disciples, our Lord says, as it were, "You are failing from day to day; you constantly need your Father's restorative and governmental forgiveness; yet you, at times, cherish feelings of malice and enmity and an unforgiving spirit toward your brethren who offend you. If you do not forgive them, you cannot count on your Father's forgiveness when you come to Him confessing your failures, and as long as this spirit of malice is cherished by you, you cannot really pray in faith." Paul takes up the other thought. He says, as it were, "You have been forgiven; how can you hold hard feelings against those who have offended you? If God had dealt with you according to your sins, how fearful would your judgment be! Yet He in Christ has graciously forgiven all; He has put away every sin, thus making you fit for His holy presence. Your responsibility now is to forgive as you have been forgiven."

I wonder if we do not have right here the secret of so many of our unanswered prayers? May we not learn from these passages just why so many mountains still rise up between our souls and God which might all be leveled to the plain, if we were only exercised about these things in His holy presence?

Some of you will remember the striking incident of as narrated by Ralph Connor in " The Man from Glengarry." I understand the incident is not merely fiction, but is founded upon actual fact. The black Macdonald, a powerful, burly Highlander, living in Glengarry country, Ontario, had suffered fearful anguish for years because of an injury inflicted upon him by a French Canadian some years before. He had nursed the desire to take a fearful vengeance upon his foe until it became a perfect obsession with him. Neither God nor eternity had any place in his life. It was in vain that the minister's wife tried to get him to forgive his enemy. She sought to have him repeat the Lord's Prayer, but he always balked at the words, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us." But God wrought in power in the Glengarry country, and there was a great revival, in which real Christians were aroused and Christless men and women were reached and saved. The black Macdonald heard the story of the Cross, portrayed in living power in the Gaelic tongue from the lips of the venerable Highland minister. It broke his heart and bowed him in penitence at the Saviour's feet. When next the minister's wife went to visit him and tried to stress the necessity of forgiveness, he sobbed out as he joined with her in what is generally called the Lord's Prayer, "Oh, it's a little thing, it's a little thing, for I have been forgiven so much."

It is this that grips the heart and enables one to bear in patience the ill-doing and evil-speaking of others, and preserves from bitterness of spirit or any desire for vengeance. How can one, forgiven so much, ever hold an unforgiving spirit against any?

And yet, even as I ask the question, you know, and I know, how many of us have been hindered in our Christian life and experience by this very thing. We know, too, how it has kept us from the place of prayer, or if we prayed with our lips, how it has hindered the heart going out to God in faith. It is, indeed, the secret of many of our unanswered petitions. May God enable us to ever manifest the spirit of His own beloved Son, who died praying for his murderers, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;" the same spirit that was manifested in the martyr Stephen, who cried, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge;" the spirit that the martyrs manifested; the same gracious disposition that caused the beloved J. N. Darby, whose name means so much to many who have learned to value the truth for which he stood, in his dying hours to say,

"I die in charity toward all." So God would have us ever live. And as we thus live, we shall find a confidence filling our hearts when we come to God in prayer, and we may know that we shall receive the things that we ask of Him because we do His commandments and love those things that are pleasing in His sight.

"Oh that when Christians meet and part,
These words were graved on every heart-
They're dear to God!
However wilful and unwise,
We'll look on them with loving eyes-
They're dear to God!

Oh, wonder!-to the Eternal One,
Dear as His own beloved Son;
Dearer to Jesus than His blood,
Dear as the Spirit's fixed abode-
They're dear to God!

When tempted to give pain for pain,
How would this thought our words restrain,
They're dear to God!

When truth compels us to contend,
What love with all our strife should blend!
They're dear to God!

When they would shun the pilgrim's lot
For this vain world, forget them not;
But win them back with love and prayer,
They never can be happy there,
If dear to God.

Shall we be there so near, so dear,
And be estranged and cold whilst here-
All dear to God?

By the same cares and toils oppressed,
We lean upon one faithful breast;
We hasten to the same repose;
How bear or do enough for those
So dear to God!"

The words of this little poem may well speak to the heart of every one of us. We enter so little into the tender, compassionate love of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ for all His own, and perhaps some of us have never noticed that the Apostle speaks of the love of the Spirit. The Eternal Trinity is deeply interested in every one for whom Christ died. Surely we who are indwelt by the blessed Holy Spirit cannot but love those whom God so loved. And love drives out all malice, all unkindness, and brings every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

We shall not complain that God turns a deaf ear to our cry and does not answer prayer when we plead with Him to level the mountains that have caused us so much distress, if we are careful to so act and live in His Presence that we can, indeed, ask in faith, nothing wavering, believing that we receive those things for which we make request. Thus shall we have the faith that removes mountains. H. A. Ironside