(Judges 1:1,2)

In the appointment of Judah to lead the people, God is teaching us what manner of spirit is to characterize us in going forward-forward in the work to which He has called us, and in which we are exhorted to abound.

That Judah-"praise"-goes first, suggests the lesson that real spiritual advance is in the power of that spirit. To maintain this God has most richly furnished us. We need only to appropriate His abundant provision and we will find ourselves offering "the sacrifice of praise continually to God, that is, the fruit of the lips confessing His name."

But in the lion-like character given to Judah in prophecy concerning him, we have the symbol of courage-the soldier-virtue. "For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of wise discretion." This is not the boldness of the flesh, but the fearlessness that comes from realized self-weakness and true dependence upon "the God of all encouragement."

Another character pertains to Judah. It is the royal tribe. To it belongs the dignity and glory of kingship. It is our divinely given privilege to rejoice always in the Lord, and in all things to give thanks; it is ours to be ever full of courage, knowing that God is for us; and it is ours to conduct ourselves before the world as those upon whom the matchless grace of God has bestowed royal right and joint-heirship with Him who is the appointed Heir of all things and under whose authority all has been placed in heaven and on earth.

To go up and possess our inheritance, to advance in the conflict of faith, we need these characteristics of God's chosen leader-Judah. Let our lives be full of praise, our hearts full of courage, and our deportment such as becomes the royal dignity grace has bestowed upon us, and we will go forward, able also to lead others. These choice qualities of leadership have no relation to self-praise, self-confidence, or self-sought honor. They will mark us only as we are taken up with Him through whom alone such as we have reason to praise and not to mourn, to be courageous and not fearful, and to conduct ourselves as those called to God's kingdom and glory.

Thus rejoicing, fearless, and full of the glory, things that grieve will not overwhelm. In such circumstances we shall be "as grieved, but always rejoicing;" the work of the enemy will not discourage us or weaken our hands, but as "bold in our God" we shall go forward "with much earnest striving;" and if the world despise and hate, we shall meet it in the conscious dignity of what we are in the mind of God, remembering that "the world knows us not because it knew Him not."

Let us then rise up and go forward, conscious of God's never-failing grace and ever-abiding Spirit. Let peace, as the Spirit's uniting bond, bind us together for service in love toward one another in all the gatherings-filling breaches, healing wounds, removing stumbling-blocks, holding fast to the truth and to each other, ever seeking only that which will edify in love. Toward the needy world let our hearts and hands be open to minister the mercy and grace of God, reaching out through every open door to the thirsting, famished multitudes who know not their right hand from their left.

The Lord grant us, weak, failing, and unworthy though we must confess ourselves to be, a real reviving within our borders, and in the blessing of such knitting together in the love of God and our most holy faith, may He lead us out in renewed energy in the work of the gospel, making our own meeting-places centers of such activity, while being also ever ready to carry the glad tidings of God to wayside mission, to hospital and prison, to street corner and public park, and to the lands afar off where as yet Christ has not been named.

"Brethren, rejoice; be perfected; be encouraged; be of one mind [or, mind the same thing]; be at peace; and the God of peace shall be with you."

The New Testament is the record of how God has spoken to us "in the Son." Crossing its threshold we find all concentrated for us in a single Personality in whom dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and from whom all the redeeming energies radiate out to all the world. First we have four vivid portraits of Jesus Christ-King, Servant, Son of Man, and Son of God- in which all the perfection of His divine character and holy humanity are delineated. We catch a glimpse of Him in His gentle youth. We see Him in the fulness of His Manhood entering on His public service as Prophet, Healer, Revealer. We watch Him teaching heavenly morals, preaching the kingdom, healing the sick, helping the poor, giving hope to the outcast and lost, while the lights and shadows of the picture grow more vivid as His life moves on to its awful climax. We stand beside the cross, we hear His cry, we share in the glory of resurrection. Then we witness the descent of the Holy Spirit, the birth of the Church, the rapid spread of the gospel, and then we read the great epistles which unfold in their completing revelation the universal significance of the Incarnation, Redemption, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ, and in this, as in the closing book of the volume, the ultimate triumph of God in all creation.