L Arrows
L Laborers are few.
Let me tell you what you are like. It is a hot autumn day, and a man is reaping; the sweat pours from his face, as he bends to the task, and he fears that he will never get to the end of the field, and all the time you are pleasantly occupied leaning over a gate, and saying, "That is an uncommonly good laborer." Or perhaps instead of doing that, you are saying, "Why, he does not handle the sickle properly; I could show him a better way of reaping." But as you never attempt to show us, we have only your own word to go by, and you must excuse us being a little sceptical on the matter. The work of the church is generally left to a few earnest folk, is it not? Is that right?
Liberty from death. The Roman Emperor Theodosius, in a fit of great good humor, set at liberty all persons in prison or in captivity; and then he sighed, and wished he could release the dead from their graves. Theodosius could not reach the key of the graves; these hang at the girdle of the Prince of Life. He shall open the iron gates, and bid the myriads pour forth, as bees from a hive.
Liberty to captive souls. A sailor, who had long been a prisoner in France, gained his liberty. He went into Seven Dials, bought a cage full of birds, opened the cage, and let the birds fly. People cried with wonder, "What did you buy them for?" "Oh! I bought them to let them fly. I know what it is to be a prisoner myself, and I cannot bear that birds should be shut up in a cage." Go to those who are what you were, caged birds, and let them fly by telling them of Jesus and of the ransom price. Seek out poor, bound sinners, and proclaim freedom to them. Proclaim liberty at the market-cross in the name of Christ.
Life is a mighty thing.
Life is full of power. I have seen an iron bar bent by the growth of a tree. Have you never heard of great paving stones being lifted by fungi which had pushed up beneath them. Life is a mighty thing, especially divine life. If you choose to contract your soul by a sort of spiritual tight-lacing, or if you choose to bend yourself down in a sorrow which never looks up, you may hinder your life and its walk; but give your life full scope, and what a walk you may have. Yield yourselves fully to God, and you shall see what you shall see. There is a happiness to be enjoyed by truly wholehearted believers, which some, even of God's own children, would think to be impossible.
Life—its uncertainty.
There are ten thousand gates to death. One man is choked by a grape-stone, another dies through sleeping in a newly whitewashed room; one receives death as he passes by a reeking sewer, another finds it in the best kept house, or by a chill taken in a walk. Those who study neither to eat nor to drink anything unwholesome, nor go into quarters where the arrows of death are flying, yet pass away on a sudden, falling from their couch into a coffin, from their seat into the sepulchre. The other day one of our own brethren sat down in his chair to sleep a moment; but it was his last sleep. Another stumbled in his own room never again to rise: these were apparently in health. Life is never sure for an instant.
Light in the heart.
Some professors appear to have a little light in the upper rooms; they have notions in their heads and ideas on their tongues. Alas, the first floor is dark, very dark. From their common conversation the light of God is absent. Enter at the door, and you cannot see your way into the passage, or up the stairs; the light is up aloft, but not in the dwelling rooms. Oh, for a light in the region of the heart! Oh, for a light upon the household talk, and the business conversation! From garret to cellar may the whole houses of our humanity be lighted up. This is the true work of grace, when the whole man is brought into the light, and no part is left to pine in the darkness. Then are we the children of light, when we abide in the light, and have no fellowship with darkness.
Light our joy. A poor boy who was put down in the coal mines, to close a door after the coal wagons had passed by, was forced to sit there alone, hour after hour, in the dark. He was a gracious child, and when one said to him, "Are you not weary with sitting so long in the dark?" he said, "Yes, I do get tired; but sometimes the men give me a bit of candle, and when I get a light, I sing." So do we; when we get a light we sing. Glory be to God, He is our light and our salvation, and therefore we sing. O child of God, when your eye is single, and the light of God fills every part of your being, then you sing, and sing again, and feel that you can never have done singing on earth till you begin singing in Heaven.
Little faith.
God deals with little faith as we used to do with a spark in the tinder, in the days of our boyhood. When we had struck a spark, and it fell into the tinder—though it was a very tiny one—we watched it eagerly, we blew upon it softly, and we were zealous to increase it, so that we might kindle our match thereby. When our Lord Jesus sees a tiny spark of faith in a man's heart, though it be quite insufficient of itself for salvation, yet He regards it with hope, and watches over it, if haply, this little faith may grow to something more. It is the way of our compassionate Lord, not to quench the smoking flax, nor break the bruised reed.
Living—a plan of. A philosopher has remarked that if a man knew that he had thirty years of life before him, it would not be an unwise thing to spend twenty of those in mapping out a plan of living and putting himself under rule; for he would do more with the ten well-arranged years than with the whole thirty if he spent them at random. There is much truth in that saying. A man will do little by firing off his gun if he has not learned to take aim.
Locality—Good.
I know a brother here who wanted to take a certain shop in a wide street, but his wiser friends said, "Do not take that shop for a baker's. It is not in a good eating locality. You must open a shop in one of the streets where there are plenty of poor people, who will buy the bread every morning. Make it good and cheap, and it will not stop long on the shelves." I noticed in the newspaper that a certain drink shop was "in a good drinking locality." I am sorry that there are such localities. But, assuredly, a good eating locality must be the very place for vending bread.
Looking gives a claim.
I remind you of what the little boys sometimes do at school with one another. I have seen a boy take an apple out of his pocket and say to his schoolmate. "Do you see that apple?" "Yes," says his mate. "Then see me eat it," says he. But the Holy Ghost is no tantalus, taking the things of Christ, and holding them up to mock us. No, he says, "Do you see those things? If so, you can have them." Did not Christ Himself say, "Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth"? Looking gives you a claim; and if you can see Him, He is yours.
Love a burning stream.
I was about to compare my Lord's heart with a volcano constantly streaming with the burning lava of love. Oh, that my soul could but get that stream poured into it, to set the whole of my nature on fire, and consume me in the flames and torrent of love!
Love—Call of. When the sun visits the flowers which have hid themselves away in the cold earth to escape from hungry winter, he begins to call them out of their hiding places by shining upon them; then by and by they say unto themselves, "Let us break our bands of sleep asunder; let us uplift the mould which covers us; and let us peep forth that we may see the blessed sun, for full surely he is calling us."
Love changes.
It is wonderful what a difference love makes in the person who is possessed with it. A poor timid hen that will fly away from every passer by, loves its offspring, and when it has its chicks about it, it will fight like a very griffin for its young. And when the love of Christ comes into a timid believer, how it changes him!
Love conquers.
It was not because Moses' rod had smitten the rock, but because Christ's voice of love spake to it, and the rock dissolved into floods at once! See the summer's sun assail and vanquish the iceberg which has floated from its northern home. Winter's rudest storms could not dissolve the monstrous mountain of ice, nor could a thousand hurricanes and storms break it in pieces; but the sun shot a strange tremor through its heart as soon as he smiled thereon, and every beam that fell from the fair orb of day shot through it like a dart, till at last, yielding to the mysterious glow, the iceberg lost its hardness of heart, bowed itself from its chill loftiness, fell into the warm gulf stream, and was no more to be found. Was it not so with you when the eyes of Jesus darted love into your hearts?
Love little, but real. A little pearl is a pearl, as much as a great pearl; though all of us would prefer the greater pearl. There is the Queen's image on a sixpenny piece as much as on a sovereign, though all would prefer the golden coin. There is the image of God on all His people's faith and love, whether great or small. The main thing with a coin, is to be sure it is genuine metal. So, if love be real love, that is the main point.
Love of God.
Divine love had no beginning. Yon stars are babes whose eyes but yesterday were open to the light, and yonder mountains are infants newly born; but as for God's love, it is coeval with His own existence, and the objects of it are always the same.
Love of God. The heart of God never does anything weakly; His love is strong and powerful, for it is the affection of an omnipotent spirit. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus—"As the Father hath loved me even so have I loved you." Do you know how much the Father loves His Son? Can you form any conception? Are you not baffled in the attempt? "Even so," saith Jesus, "have I loved you."
Love of God.
Oh, blessed, blessed be the love of God, to think it should come to us unsought, unbought, undeserved, spontaneously leaping up like a living fountain with none to dig the well, but springing up in the midst of the Sahara of our barren nature, and then blessing us with unspeakable blessings as it overflowed.
Love shown to the least.
However little you may be, this makes no difference to God's love to you. Ask yourselves, do you love that full grown son of twenty five so much that you have the less love for that little cherub of two or three who is at home. Bless his little heart, when he climbs your knee to day, and asks whether you have a kiss for him or not, will you answer, "No, Johnny, I cannot love you, because you are so little; I give all my love to your older brother, because he knows so much more than you do and can be so useful to me"? Oh, no, you love the last one better than any, perhaps, certainly not less. They say if there be a child in the family who is a little bit weak, the mother always loves it best. It is so with our God; He is most gracious to the weakest and least known.
Love your enemies. When Dr. Duff first read to some young Brahmins in the Government school the precept, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you," one of the Brahmins cried out, with delight, "Beautiful! Beautiful! This must have come from the true God. I have been told to love those that love me, and I have not always done that: but to love my enemies is a divine thought." That young man became a Christian under the influence of that precept. Let your good will go forth even to the worst of men, for Christ's sake. Forget their evil as you behold His goodness.
Luxury conquers.
What the arms of Rome could not do against Hannibal, his Capuan holidays are said to have accomplished: his soldiers were conquered by luxury, though invincible by force. When the Church lies down at ease, she is apt to feel the diseases of abundance.
Let your wishes blaze up into prayers.
Like a young bird in its nest, glory dwells in grace.
Longing follows on the heels of loving.
Look you well to your integrity, and the Lord will look to your prosperity.
Man—difficult to get at.
There is nothing so difficult to get at as a man. You may hunt a badger, and run down a fox, but you cannot get at a man—he has so many doublings and hiding places: yet the Word of God will dig him out, and seize on him. When the Spirit of God works with the gospel, the man may dodge, and twist, but the preaching goes to his heart and conscience, and he is made to feel it, and to yield to its force.