The Heart-Cry of Jesus | Page 8

Clubs"; foot-ball men gather themselves into "associations"; ministers meet in "Monday meetings"; Christians organize "churches"; is it to be thought strange if people who are sanctified wholly delight to meet for conference and mutual help?
THE SPLITTING OF THE CHURCH
A few uninformed persons say that "holiness splits the church." But this is false. When men love God with all their heart and their neighbors as themselves, nothing can separate them. If, however, people of different sorts and kinds, some saved and some unsaved, are in one organization, it will not require anything much to make them differ in opinion. The real ecclesia, the genuine church, is not so easily split. One of our most brilliant and spiritual holiness writers has remarked in pleasantry that the anxiety of some in regard to the splitting of the church would lead one to think that there was something inside which they were afraid would be seen in case of a cleavage.
KEEP TO THE BIBLE.
Keep to the Bible idea of sanctification. Let not the adversary dupe you and frighten you from its quest and obtainment. Begin now; seek, search, pray, consecrate, believe, and soon the blessing will fall upon your waiting soul.


CHAPTER III
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THOSE FOR WHOM CHRIST PRAYED--"SANCTIFY THEM."
CONVERTED MEN.
The men for whom Christ prayed were converted men, and were living in justified relation to God. In proof of this statement, let the reader study the context carefully.
A CLOUDLESS SKY.
In the sixteenth chapter of St. John, the one immediately preceding the sacerdotal prayer, the conversation which is recorded would be impossible were the disciples conscious of guilt. One can not read those sublime verses without the irresistible conviction that the disciples' sky of soul- consciousness was blue and cloudless. There is no hint in Christ's discourse that these men are "of the world," but rather it is taken for granted that they are children of God and heirs of the kingdom.
A SPECIFIC STATEMENT.
It is the sheerest folly for one to maintain that the conversion of the disciples did not occur prior to Pentecost. If words mean anything, Jesus made a specific statement to the contrary. "Rejoice," says He, "that your names are written in heaven." In His prayer He says to His Father: "They have kept Thy word"; "they are Thine"; "I pray for them, I pray not for the world." Notice the distinction which He makes between "them" and "the world." These men are picked men. They are very different from the great unpardoned, sinful throng outside the kingdom--they are CHRISTIANS.
THE CHAMBER OF BLESSING.
A very good evidence of the genuineness of the conversion of the disciples was their painstaking care to follow out minutely the directions of their ascended Lord. He had prayed for their sanctification; they desired it. He had spoken of a coming Comforter, and they eagerly awaited His advent. He had said, "Tarry in Jerusalem until" His arrival, and they conscientiously met in an "upper room" for a ten-day prayer-meeting. "Farewell! friends; farewell! memory-haunted synagogues; farewell! sacred temple; farewell! long-bearded priests; farewell all! we must go to prayer: our Lord said that we should be sanctified." And thus in long line the one hundred and twenty file up the stairs to the Chamber of Blessing. There is no lightness, no jesting, no quibbling, no bickering; all are serious, terribly in earnest, intent on "the promise of the Father." There is Peter, impulsive and eager, whole-hearted and enthusiastic; there is the meek and quiet Mary, who sat at Jesus' feet at the old home in Bethany; there is the child-like saint, the devout and spiritual John; there is the repentant woman of Magdala; and there are many others who betake themselves to that sacred place--"the upper room." One all-engrossing thought fills their minds. "The promise of the Father which ye have heard of me. The promise of the Father! The promise of the Father! O, when will He come? We would know more about our departed Lord. He is gone from us. Our hearts are torn and bleeding and lonely. Jesus said, 'He shall testify of me.' Would that He would come now!"
WHY ONLY THE FEW?
But why are there only one hundred and twenty? Was it not into Jerusalem that Christ entered riding over a cloak-carpeted way amid the deafening shouts of "Hosanna"? Did He not teach and instruct and heal hundreds, if not thousands, in and about Jerusalem? Was He not lionized at times by an admiring public? Yea, truly; but one may admire Christ and yet not love Him. There are many who at some "hard saying" refuse to walk with Him. Thousands who have a keen appreciation of "loaves and fishes" shrink from "leaving all" and following Jesus. A great concourse is drawn and held spell-bound by a naive, graceful, eloquent, artless preacher who uses "lilies," and the "grass of