Tuesday, September 30, 2008

In the outer court



How many there are of these whom I must call outer-court worshippers, for they are strangers to this panting to know him. They can say with Paul, "That I may win him and be found in him" - that they do want; but this higher wish, “That I may know him,” has not stirred their hearts.

How many brethren we know, who are content to know Christ’s historic life! They read the evangelists and they are charmed with the perfect beauty of the Savior’s history. “Never man spake like this man,” say they; and they confess that never man acted with such love as he did. They know all the incidents of his life, from his manger to his cross; but they do not know Him. They are as men who have read “ Caesar’s Commentaries,” but who have never seen Caesar. They know the battles which Caesar fought; they can even recognize the mantle which Caesar wore “that day he overcame the Nervii;” but they do not know Caesar himself. The person of the Lord Jesus is us much hidden from their eyes us the golden pot of manna when concealed in the ark. They know the life of Christ, but not Christ the Life; they admire his way among men, but they see not himself as the way.

From a sermon entitled "Do You Know Him?," delivered January 31, 1864. Flickr photo by Paul Friel; some rights reserved.

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