Links

Our friend and fellow-worker, the late Mr. S. J. Hill of London, a frequent contributor to this magazine over many years, wrote a series of articles which were afterwards published in book form under the title, "Links in the chain of testimony." He traced the course of divine testimony in the Old Testament and right on into the New. It is well to think of ourselves as links, such as are bound up with a past and who have definite connexion with the future. We are of those who have benefited immensely in consequence of men who have lived before our time, and we should be those who are leaving something that will prove of real worth to those who will come after. It shows

some measure of gratitude for what we have received that we leave a blessing behind us to others.

Think of Abraham and of the great blessing he left. God who made promise to him, as recorded in Genesis 12., swore to him, as in chapter 22.-the two immutable things to which Paul refers in Hebrews 6.18, the promise and the oath, in which it is impossible for God to lie. God's words in the word of the oath may be quoted with profit.

"By Myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thins only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy Seed shall possess the gate of His enemies; and in thy Seed stall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed My voice."

Inwrought in this word of the oath is the fact of what Paul in Galatians 3. refers to, that God spake not of seeds, as of many, but to thy Seed, which is Christ. Note that the Seed that was promised was to possess the gate of His enemies. It was in this Seed that all nations were to be blessed.

Think too of David and of what God did, after David had fallen asleep, for His servant David's sake. Why were these men so greatly blessed in their own time and left such good for other men afterwards? It was because that the golden line of divine promise ran through them. Does this line run through us? Not of course in the sense that it ran through them as to the resultant incarnation of the Christ, but does this golden line run through us in a spiritual sense? or does disobedience and careless worldliness obliterate all trace of this line?

We remember too names which endear themselves to us at the very mention of them, the names of Paul and Peter and John, servants of Christ whose influence upon men in this world shall never cease as long as the world continues, and whose memory shall be most blessed in heaven.

The following simple story may force home what I am trying to say:- "A very poor and aged man, busied in planting an apple-tree, was rudely interrupted by this interrogation, 'Why do you plant trees, 'who cannot hope to eat the fruit of them ?' He raised himself up, and, leaning upon his spade, replied, 'Someone planted trees for me before I was born; and I have eaten the fruit. I now plant for others, that the memorial of my gratitude may exist when I am dead and gone.'"

The words, "when I am dead and gone," touch a very tender chord in our being the older we get, and each of us does well to think of what will be left when we are gone. What will the record be ?

We may well copy in a spiritual sense the wise words of this old

man.

unknown | May 1952
General