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Quiet Talks about Jesus

by

S. D. Gordon

Author of "Quiet Talks on Power," and "Quiet Talks on Prayer"



Contents



A Bit Ahead

  I. The Purpose of Jesus.
     1. The Purpose in Jesus' Coming
     2. The Plan for Jesus' Coming
     3. The Tragic Break in the Plan
     4. Some Surprising Results of the Tragic Break

 II. The Person of Jesus.
     1. The Human Jesus
     2. The Divine Jesus
     3. The Winsome Jesus

III. The Great Experiences or Jesus' Life.
     1. The Jordan: The Decisive Start
     2. The Wilderness: Temptation
     3. The Transfiguration: An Emergency Measure
     4. Gethsemane: The Strange, Lone Struggle
     5. Calvary: Victory
     6. The Resurrection: Gravity Upward
     7. The Ascension: Back Home Again Until----

 IV. Study Notes




"Show me, I pray thee, Thy glory."--_Moses_.

"When I could not see for the glory of that light."--_Paul_.

"But we all with open face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord
are transformed into the same image from glory to glory."--_Paul_.

"The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ."--_Paul_.

    "Since mine eyes were fixed on Jesus,
      I've lost sight of all beside,
    So enchained my spirit's vision,
      Looking at the Crucified."
          --From _Winnowed Hymns_.




A Bit Ahead



So far as I can find out, I have no theory about Jesus to make these talks
fit into. I have tried to find out for myself what the old Book of God
tells about Him. And here I am trying to tell to others, as simply as I
can, what I found. It was by the tedious, twisting path of doubt that I
climbed the hill of truth up to some of its summits of certainty. I am
free to confess that I am ignorant of the subject treated here save for
the statements of that Book, and for the assent within my own spirit to
these statements, which has greatly deepened the impression they made, and
make. There is no question raised here about that Book itself, but simply
a taking and grouping up together of what it says.

Most persons simply _read_ a book. A few _study_ it, also. It is good to
read. It is yet better to go back over it and _study_, and meditate. Since
learning that the two books on power and prayer have been used in Bible
classes I have regretted not including study notes in them. For those who
may want to study about Jesus there has been added at the close a simple
analysis with references. The reading pages have been kept free of
foot-notes to make the reading smooth and easier. The analysis is so
arranged that one can quickly turn in reading to the corresponding
paragraph or page in the study notes.

A great musician strikes the key-note of a great piece of music, and can
skilfully keep it ever sounding its melody through all the changes clear
to the end. It has been in my heart to wish that I could do something like
that here. If what has come to me has gotten out of me into these pages,
there will be found a dominant note of sweetest music--the winsomeness of
God in Jesus.

It is in my heart, too, to add this, that I have a friend whose constant
presence and prayer have been the atmosphere of this little book in its
making.




I. The Purpose of Jesus



  1. The Purpose in Jesus' Coming.
  2. The Plan for Jesus' Coming.
  3. The Tragic Break In The Plan.
  4. Some Surprising Results of the Break.




The Purpose in Jesus' Coming



<u>God Spelling Himself out in Jesus.</u>


Jesus is God spelling Himself out in language that man can understand. God
and man used to talk together freely. But one day man went away from God.
And then he went farther away. He left home. He left his native land,
Eden, where he lived with God. He emigrated from God. And through going
away he lost his mother-tongue.

A language always changes away from its native land. Through going away
from his native land man lost his native speech. Through not _hearing_ God
speak he forgot the sounds of the words. His ears grew dull and then deaf.
Through lack of use he lost the power of _speaking_ the old words. His
tongue grew thick. It lost its cunning. And so gradually almost all the
old meanings were lost.

God has always been eager to get to talking with man again. The silence is
hard on Him. He is hungry to be on intimate terms again with his old
friend. Of course he had to use a language that man could understand.
Jesus is God spelling Himself out so man can understand. He is the A and
the Z, and all between, of the Old Eden language of love.

Naturally enough man had a good bit of bother in spelling Jesus out. This
Jesus was something quite new. When His life spoke the simple language of
Eden again, the human heart with selfishness ingrained said, "That sounds
good, but of course He has some selfish scheme behind it all. This purity
and simplicity and gentleness can't be genuine." Nobody yet seems to have
spelled Him out fully, though they're all trying: All on the spelling
bench. That is, all that have heard. Great numbers haven't heard about Him
yet. But many, ah! _many_ could get enough, yes, _can_ get enough to bring
His purity into their lives and sweet peace into their hearts.

But there were in His days upon earth some sticklers for the old spelling
forms. Not the oldest, mind you. Jesus alone stands for that. This Jesus
didn't observe the idioms that had grown up outside of Eden. These people
had decided that these old forms were the only ones acceptable. And so
they disliked Him from the beginning, and quarrelled with Him. These
idioms were dearer to them than life--that is, than _His_ life. So having
quarrelled, they did _worse_, and then--softly--_worst_. But even in their
worst, Jesus was God spelling Himself out in the old simple language of
Eden. His best came out in their worst.

Some of the great nouns of the Eden tongue--the _God_ tongue--He spelled
out big. He spelled out _purity_, the natural life of Eden; and
_obedience_, the rhythmic harmony of Eden; and _peace_, the sweet music of
Eden; and _power_, the mastery and dominion of Eden; and _love_, the
throbbing heart of Eden. It was in biggest, brightest letters that _love_
was spelled out. He used the biggest capitals ever known, and traced each
in a deep dripping red, with a new spelling--s-a-c-r-i-f-i-c-e.



<u>Jesus is God, following us up.</u>


You see, the heart of God had been breaking--_is_ breaking over the ways
things have been going down on this planet. Folk fail to understand Him.
Worse yet, they misunderstand Him, and feel free to criticize Him. Nobody
has been so much slandered as God. Many are utterly ignorant of Him. Many
others who are not ignorant yet ignore Him. They turn their faces and
backs. Some give Him the cut direct. The great crowd in every part of the
world is yearning after Him: piteously, pathetically, most often
speechlessly yearning, blindly groping along, with an intense inner tug
after Him. They know the yearning. They feel the inner, upward tug. They
don't understand what it is for which they yearn, nor what will satisfy.

For man was made to live in closest touch with God. That is his native
air. Out of that air his lungs are badly affected. This other air is too
heavy. It's malarial, and full of gases and germy dust. In it he chokes
and gasps. Yet he knows not why. He gropes about in the night made by his
own shut eyes. He doesn't seem to know enough to open them. And sometimes
he _will_ not open them. For the hinge of the eyelid is in the will. And
having shut the light out, he gets tangled up in his ideas as to what _is_
light. He puts darkness for light, and light for darkness.

Once man knew God well; close up. And that means _loved_, gladly, freely.
For here to know is to love. But one day a bad choice was made. And the
choice made an ugly kink in his will. The whole trouble began there. A man
sees through his will. That is his medium for the transmission of light.
If it be twisted, his seeing, his understanding, is twisted. The twist in
the will regulates the twist in the eye. Both ways, too, for a good change
in the will in turn changes the eyes back to seeing straight. He that is
willing to do the right shall clearly see the light.

But that first kink seems to have been getting worse kinked ever since.
And so man does not see God as He is. Man is cross-eyed Godward, but
doesn't know it. Man is color-blind toward God. The blue of God's truth is
to him an arousing, angering red. The soft, soothing green of His love
becomes a noisy, irritating yellow. Nobody has been so much misunderstood
as God. He has suffered misrepresentation from two quarters: His enemies
and His friends. More from--which? Hard to tell. Jesus is God trying to
tell men plainly what He is really like.

The world turned down the wrong lane, and has been going that way
pell-mell ever since. Yet so close is the wrong lane to the right that a
single step will change lanes. Though many results of being in the wrong
lane will not be changed by the change of lanes. It takes time to rest up
the feet made sore by the roughness of the wrong lane. And some of the
scars, where men have measured their length, seem to stay.

The result of that wrong turning has been pitiable. _Separation from God_,
so far as _man_ could make separation. There is no separation on God's
part. He has never changed. He remains in the world, but because of man's
turning his face away, He remains as a stranger, unrecognized. He remains
just where man left Him. And any one going back to that point in the road
will find Him standing waiting with an eager light glistening in His eyes.
_No_! That's not accurate. He is _a bit nearer_ than ever He was. He is
following us up. He is only a step off. Jesus is God eagerly following us
up.



<u>The Early Eden Picture.</u>


But one will never get to understand this Jesus until he gets a good look
at man as he was once, and as he is now. The key to understanding Jesus is
man