With all the world in his choice, God placed His ancient people in a very remarkable situation. On the north they were walled in by the snowy ranges of Lebanon; a barren desert formed their eastern boundary; far to the south stretched a sterile region, called the howling wilderness; while the sea—not then, as now, the highway of the nations, facilitating rather than impeding intercourse—lay on their west, breaking on a shore that had few harbors and no navigable rivers to invite the steps of commerce.
May we not find a great truth in the very position in which God placed His chosen people? It certainly teaches us that to be holy, or sanctified, we must be a separate people—living in the world, but not of it—as oil, that may be mixed, but cannot be combined with water.—Guthrie.
June 14th.
I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land. Gen. xxviii. 15.
"With thee," companionship; "Keep thee," guardianship; "Bring thee," guidance.
June 15th.
I have set thee . . . that thou shouldst be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. Acts xiii. 47.
Ye shall be witnesses unto me . . . unto the uttermost parts of the earth. Acts i. 8.
Men are questioning now, as they never have questioned before, whether Christianity is, indeed, the true religion which is to be the salvation of the world. Christian men, it is for us to give our bit of answer to that question. It is for us, in whom the Christian church is at this moment partially embodied, to declare that Christianity, that the Christian faith, the Christian manhood can do that for the world which the world needs.