And yet, and yet, may the vision of the Lone Man in the road, beckoning, flood our eyes while we count the cost, even as with the young Hindu.
What Following Means
1. A Look Ahead
Saltless Salt.
The Lord Jesus never tried to make things look easier than they are. He wanted you to see the road just as it is, and asked you to look at it carefully. He knew this was the only right way to do. He knew that so the sinews would be grown in character that would stand the tests coming, and only so.
It was never His plan to increase the numbers by cutting down the doorsills so men could get in more easily. That was a later arrangement. He was never concerned for numbers, but for right and truth. A man walking alone down the middle of the one true path was more to Him, immensely more, than a great crowd wabbling along on the edge, half out, half in, neither in nor out, and so really out but not knowing it. If they were really out and knew it, it would be better, for they could see more distinctly the path they were not in, its straightness and attractiveness.
This sort of thing grew more marked with our Lord Jesus as the end drew on, the tragic end. The crowds thickened about Him those last months. They liked good bread, and plenty of it, and healed bodies, pain gone. And He liked to give them these. He helped just as far as they would let Him. But He wanted to give them more. He knew this other was only temporary. He was more concerned about healing the spirit of its disease, and giving the more abundant life. And full well He knew that only the knife could help many. And the knife had to be freshly sharpened, and used with strong decisive hand, if healing and life were to come.
And men haven't changed, nor the diseases that hurt their life, nor the Master, nor the tender love of His heart. But there's more than knife; there's fulness of life following. He would have us get the life even though it means the knife. Most times—every time, shall I say?—the life comes only through the knife. Yet when the life has come, with its great tireless strength, and its deep breathing, and sheer delight of living, you are grateful for the knife that led the way to such life.
One day our Lord entered a vigorous protest against the wrong sort of salt,[47] saltless salt, the sort that seemed to be salt, and you used it and depended on it, and then found how unsalty it was, for the thing you depended on it to preserve, had gone bad. The great need is for salty salt. There still seems to be a great lot of this saltless salt in use. It's labelled salt, and so it's used as salt, but it befools you. The saltiness has been lost out, and the man using it wakes up to find out how great is the loss, loss of what he thought he had salted, and loss of time, character and time, the character of that salted with saltless salt, and the time spent.